Archive for January, 2012

Jan 16, 2012 – Importance of Identification

QUESTION:

I recently found an apartment that had American spider beetles in the bathroom, which the resident mistook as bedbugs. I mistakenly thought it was a flea except for the red, smooth shininess of its abdomen. My questions are where does the beetle come from this time of the year, what is its biology, and is this a blood feeding pest?

ANSWER:

Well, first and most important for the peace of mind of the resident is that this beetle, and all beetles for that matter, is not a blood feeder. Beetles may bite humans in self defense, but I cannot think of any at this moment that actually bite or in any other way feed on living people. Dead animals, sure, but not live ones. Spider beetles in general are scavengers that feed on a wide variety of junk that they might find indoors. This includes grain-based food materials, but often foods that are not in very good condition, meaning they have sat around too long and may be moldy or otherwise in poor shape. It’s possible that this kind of food resource might be stored in walls or attics by birds or rodents, so that cannot be ruled out. It also might just be some forgotten bag of food in the garage, laundry room, or even kitchen cupboards. 

Spider beetles also feed on dead insects, spices, and even woolen materials that may be damp or moldy or have spills on them. Some spider beetles feed on fungi, such as molds or mushrooms. This makes it tough to narrow down exactly where these beetles in this apartment are coming from, but somehow somewhere there is a source that should be found and eliminated if the beetles are going to be eliminated as well. The good news is that spider beetles generally are only a nuisance, other than when they are infesting some food packages in the kitchen area. They can walk and most kinds can fly, so they could simply have found their way into the bathroom, perhaps to go to a lighted window, or if you are finding them only in that room it suggests a problem near to that area. 
This is the value of magnification for ensuring a proper ID of any bug found in an account. Yes, the American spider beetle has a shiny black abdomen, and on first glance might be mistaken for a flea. But, under magnification it clearly is a beetle with long antennae and six long legs. This species also has yellow scales all over its thorax. But, pest control technicians often think inside the box, and may jump to an ID conclusion based on a narrow range of pests, such as fleas. If you had gone ahead and done a flea control job there it would not have resolved the problem and you would have applied insecticide unnecessarily. Good job for following up to ensure the ID.
This also strongly points out why we need to be the ones to verify what pest is present. Homeowners and other customers really have no idea what the vast majority of bugs look like. But, with something as trendy as bed bugs in the news there is a paranoia that anything that crawls is probably a bed bug, and again, if you had taken this person’s word for it and gone ahead and done a bed bug control job you would have wasted a lot of your time and taken a lot of their money improperly. We always should find and ID specimens ourselves to verify the problem, and if this is not the law then it ought to be. You would be surprised at the growing collection of images I have of SEEDS that homeowners believed were bugs and were biting them. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 18, 2012

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Jan 15, 2012 – As If Once Weren’t Enough

QUESTION:

I have read conflicting opinions on pregnant adult female bedbugs and their ability to lay eggs throughout their life when blood meals are available, but after only a single traumatic insemination by an adult male bed bug. Do female adult bed bugs need to be inseminated each time they are ready to feed and lay eggs?

ANSWER:

This serious topic would be so easy to have some fun with. I was tempted to title it “No Means NO!”, but chose the one I did instead. For those who may not be schooled on it yet, bed bugs mate in a rather unusual manner that is referred to as Traumatic Insemination, whereby the male bed bug, which really gets amorous following blood meals, climbs on top of the female and plunges his harpoon-like penis into her abdomen. This is generally done at a location on the female called the Organ of Berlese on her right side, and at this point the male releases his sperm into the female. This is so different from normal copulation by insects where males and females attach at the, uhhhh….. “proper” place. Once within the female the sperm then move to her ovaries to fertilize her eggs. 

Now, you’d think that would be enough for the female, but unfortunately she may be subjected to multiple stabbings by multiple males, and these wounds actually do cause her harm, leaving a wound that needs to heal over. Female bed bugs with multiple wounds are known to move away from aggregations of other bugs to be alone for awhile just to heal, and those that have had repeated matings will produce as much as 25% fewer eggs. 
That single mating and introduction of sperm will last the female for awhile, but eventually she may run out of sperm while still producing eggs, and require a second mating to complete things. Just how many eggs a female bed bug will lay is highly dependent on her access to food – blood. If she feeds regularly about once each week she may produce up to 3 eggs each day, but more likely the average runs about 1 per day. The total eggs potential of females seems to be an argument, as one highly respected resource says it is 200 to 500 eggs in her lifetime of about 18-24 months, while another highly respected source says 113 eggs in a 1 year lifetime. However, to answer your question, she can produce a great many eggs, averaging 1 or 2 per day early on, from that single insemination by a male. As the months go by and the female ages she will produce fewer eggs and may even need a second mating to complete the job. 
Interestingly, and I know this could be fuel for fun too, male bed bugs have also been known to climb on top of other male bed bugs and attempt to mate with them, stabbing them in the same manner as they would a female bed bug. Virginia Tech and the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service have an excellent Fact Sheet on The Common Bed Bug that updates some beliefs we have had on these parasites. One is that the expected life span of the adults in a natural setting may be only a few months, as under perfect conditions in a laboratory the best they could do was to survive for 1 year. Another myth that may be exploded is that of starvation keeping the bugs alive longer, a belief based on studies from over 80 years ago. The old belief was that a bed bug could live for more than 1 year if it could not find food. Current studies show that a bed bug deprived of food will die within 70 days. Maybe we can starve them to death after all. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 18, 2012

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Jan 14, 2012 – Charge For Profit

QUESTION:

How do I charge for a bed bug job? This is the first one I have had to deal with. What do you recommend for chemicals and times of spraying? Thank you.

ANSWER:

I am going to be brutally honest and tell you that there is no possible way I could make you an efficient expert at bed bug control with just a few paragraphs of information here. As I have mentioned a number of times since October, I attended the NPMA Conference with the intention of attending every educational session I could on bed bugs, and it amounted to one in every session – probably about 10-12 sessions in all. These still-emerging public health pests are THE hot issue right now, and one reason is because of the difficulty in controlling them. I would caution you that total reliance on just chemicals for their control could very well put you in deep trouble. While insecticides do kill bed bugs they are not the panacea they may be for many other pests, and resistance to many active ingredients is a very real issue. It may be very helpful for you to go into the Archives of the Mr. Pest Control questions and read as many previous answers as you can. This will start to give you an overall picture of what needs to be done. You also should attend as many seminars as you can on this, read some excellent resources on university websites such as Univ. of Kentucky and Virginia Tech, and get the “Bed Bug Handbook” to study from. 

It probably sounds like I am trying to scare you away from bed bugs, but they are such a tough adversary that if you do not know how to approach the job you will likely not eradicate them and will lose money. Most companies plan on at least 3 trips to an infested account, and these may be spaced out over a month or more. If this is multiple family housing the problem is compounded by the fact that it is likely that far more than just the one unit is infested, and inspecting all surrounding units above, below, and to the sides is required. Most companies seem to plan on a minimum of 3 to 4 hours per visit, particularly initially, as control depends on extremely thorough applications of material into EVERY possible crack and crevice. Customer cooperation and involvement is critical, and if the customer will not do their part there is no sense in taking on the job. This means that they provide access to everything in every room, launder, dry clean, or run through a hot dryer every fabric in infested rooms, and that they NOT move out and take infested belongings with them. 
You should at least consider the use of a high powered vacuum for many areas, as these will instantly remove many bugs and shed skins and some eggs. Consider a high quality steamer for use along mattresses and floor and carpet edges. You need to have a protocol in place for yourself for how to prevent taking bed bugs home on you or your equipment. Recognize that any electronic equipment and other equipment in a room that cannot be treated with insecticide needs to be isolated, and possibly “fumigated” with Nuvan Prostrips. The customer may even opt to have their home tented and fumigated with Vikane to complete the job overnight, albeit at a higher cost. Heat treatments also are an excellent option but require a lot of dedicated equipment and knowledge. You need to discuss the options with the customer, and if they choose to have you do the “standard” approach of insecticide applications they need to understand the disruption to their lives that is going to occur. There is no real way to sugar-coat this serious problem and the difficulty that exists in complete, 100% eradication of all bugs and their eggs. 
So, have I painted a gloomy enough picture yet? I’m not trying to talk you out of it, but only prepare you for the fact that bed bugs are like no other pest you have every encountered, and cannot be treated like any other pest. Eradicating them from a single family home might take 4 or more visits and cost the customer well over $1000, and they are not going to like hearing that. But, YOU need to make a profit on this work and doing it successfully means a tremendous amount of time will be spent. Many insecticides are used successfully, including dusts within wall voids (Tempo, Drione, MotherEarth) and spray products (Phantom, Temprid, Bedlam, Gentrol, Alpine, Transport seem to be the top 6 used by PMP’s). There also are some good monitoring devices and one excellent one to be introduced in March, and that is Verifi from FMC. 
What it boils down to is that you need to become fluent on exactly how to approach this before going into the first job, or you will have frustrating problems and probably fail to eradicate them. The good news is that a great many resources are available to prepare yourself. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 18, 2012

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Jan 13, 2012 – Going Tubular

QUESTION:

My company will begin servicing a bird area of a local zoo for rodent control. Because of the large amount of current mouse activity as well as food competition, I don’t want to use bait. My idea is to use 2″ diameter pieces of PVC tubing cut 12″ long, and put a tin cat glue board in it. What is your opinion on this idea?

ANSWER:

Your idea sounds like it could work, assuming the rodents are primarily mice. Two inches in diameter sounds a bit narrow for a larger rat to comfortably try to travel through, even though it could, and rolling a  paper glue trap so that it fits within the tube and still allows the rodent to pass through it might be a trick. Perhaps a slightly larger diameter pipe? Just my thought. And, there are commercial rodent “stations” that could also be used for just traps or glue pads, and these would be more serviceable and formed so they could be secured to the soil or any other surface you set them on. If you did get a mouse or rat on the glue within the small PVC tube it might be difficult to extract it, particularly if it is still alive, and even though we may feel no sympathy for certain rodents there are plenty of people who do, and who would not want that rodent to “suffer” inside the tube. It would need to be dispatched quickly. 

I agree that using bait around exotic birds is not the best of ideas. There is always that slight chance that the bait could somehow get kicked out or dragged out by the rodents and left where birds could then peck at it. Whether or not you were at fault, if a bird dies during your control program the finger is going to point at you, and exotic animals in zoos are usually pretty pricey. Trapping within a secured and  tamper-resistant station is better. The stations also may be able to be placed outside of the actual aviary itself, giving even more assurance that the birds cannot mess with your work. But, inside works too. Also keep in mind that fake “rocks” exist that are actually rodent stations, and these might be even more aesthetically acceptable within an aviary. They can be secured to the surface and various kinds of traps placed within them. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 18, 2012

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Italian officials to poison rat island

At least, that is, when compared to the uninvited who scampered onto the more famous Italian island of Montecristo. The romantic setting of novelist Alexandre Dumas’ treasure and revenge book, The Count of Monte Cristo, is being overrun …

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Pests in the NewsJanuary 17, 2012

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Hampton Falls faced with bugs infestation at old library

HAMPTON FALLS — Selectmen and the town’s Historical Society are hoping to put a stop to damage apparently being caused by an infestation of structural at the town’s former library. Doing so, however, may mean taking a considerable bite …

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Pests in the NewsJanuary 17, 2012

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Companies and agencies in UAE told to destroy banned pesticides – gulfnews.com


gulfnews.com

Companies and agencies in UAE told to destroy banned pesticides
gulfnews.com
By Derek Baldwin, Chief Reporter Staff members of a pest control firm work in a villa in Dubai. The environment ministry separates the pesticides into different categories, depending upon their type, dangers, level of toxicity and damage it causes to …

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Pests in the NewsJanuary 17, 2012

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Fiji has two more rat-free islands – Radio Australia


Radio New Zealand International

Fiji has two more rat-free islands
Radio Australia
Two islands in Fiji's tourist mecca in the Mananucas west of Nadi are now free of introduced animal pests. Invasive species, such as rats, are the biggest threat to wildlife in the Pacific. On Monuriki and Kadomo islands rats and goats were causing …
End of pest eradication programme on Fiji's Mamanuca groupRadio New Zealand International

all 2 news articles »

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Pests in the NewsJanuary 17, 2012

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Jan 17, 2012 – If You Shape It They Will Come

QUESTION:

A question about rodent bait placement. Most solid baits have ridged edges, and I have heard that these edges should be placed outward in order to make the presentation more appealing to the mice. Why is this?

ANSWER:

I have been told by manufacturers of paraffin bait blocks that the shape of the blocks, particularly the smaller ones that have almost a corrugated outline to them, are much more likely to initiate feeding by the rats and mice. The multiple “edges” allow the rodent to get a nice starting point nearly anywhere on the block, making it as easy as possible for them to take that first nibble. Then, hopefully, since most of the block is the tastiest food ingredients known to lab rats we hope that the rodent continues to feed until it has ingested enough to euthanize it. 

Another comment is that rats and mice, being the habitual gnawers that they are, take advantage of the block to gnaw on it, and the sharp edges make this more enticing to them for this activity. While we are still able to purchase 1 lb “cakes” that have plenty of sharp depressions in them for ease of breaking into smaller pieces for use, the more convenient form may be the Blox or Blocks that are already offered to you in small chunks that have the multiple sharp impressions in them. They also have the hole down the middle that makes it most likely that we will secure them within rodent stations using those horizontal and vertical bars. This is an added security against the bait somehow ending up outside, either dragged there by the rodent or bounced out by someone or something jarring the station. 
On that note, Dr. Corrigan reported some results of his testing of various stations and securing rods, and I thought the results might be interesting. First, in hot weather paraffin blocks are more likely to melt on horizontal rods than they are on vertical rods. Second, on black versus white stations placed outdoors in the sun, black stations were up to 60 degrees hotter inside than the ambient outside temperature, and sitting in the same place were 35 degrees hotter inside than white stations were. This significantly higher temperature could affect the consistency of that paraffin block. And, while we think of metal stations as probably oven-like inside, in fact their interior temperature was about the same as that of white or gray plastic stations. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 17, 2012

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Toxic toads killing Australian crocodiles: scientists

Toxic cane toads are killing alarming numbers of Australia’s freshwater crocodiles as the alien hop inexorably across the continent, research showed Tuesday. The warty amphibians, which have poisonous sacs on their heads, have cut the number of …

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Pests in the NewsJanuary 14, 2012

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