Archive for the ‘Pest Questions’ Category

Jun 30, 2012 – Wood They Live In Furniture?

QUESTION:

What is the best treatment for wooden furniture when infested with pine bark beetles or plain bark beetles?

ANSWER:

Bark beetles compose a large group of tree-infesting beetles formerly in the family Scolytidae, but now lumped into the weevils in the family Curculionidae. These beetles are responsible for tremendous loss of forest trees such as pines and often hardwood trees as well. The larvae feed within the living tissues under the bark, the cambium layer, and eventually girdle the tree and kill it. Several species are referred to as Ambrosia Beetles, and these oddballs have almost a social existence in their galleries in the wood. The female digs a chamber and creates a growth of fungus within that chamber, and it is this fungus that the larvae feed on. Her activities in creating galleries causes the walls of the galleries to become stained a darker color, thus the name “ambrosia”. Even the adult beetles feed on this fungus they introduce and in essence they farm the fungus for their needs. Unfortunately the fungus then infects the tree. 

Since fungi require moisture to live and grow they cannot do so in dry wood, and thus bark beetles rarely continue to live in finished wood products or within structural wood. Dry furniture would be a terribly hostile environment for bark beetles, so we might have one of two circumstances going on here. If you do have an active infestation of wood eating beetles in this furniture it will likely be powderpost or Anobiid beetles – deathwatch, furniture, Lyctus, etc. If what you are seeing is just evidence that was caused by bark beetles this would be surface evidence such as meandering galleries or holes that were cut across and exposed during the milling process. This is a common thing to see on milled lumber where a formerly infested tree was then cut and milled, exposing that old beetle activity. 
If this surface evidence is what you see then it pretty much can be ignored, and it would have to have been there when the furniture was made and purchased. Dry furniture is not going to support bark beetles. If what you see is new holes appearing in the wood then these would be from new adult beetles emerging, and these would be Anobiids or Lyctus, and now there is a problem. These beetles commonly re-infest the wood they grew up in, with generation after generation feeding on the wood, and they do need to be eliminated.
Surface applications of insecticides to finished wood products are usually ineffective, and applying them to a nice finish is also usually unacceptable to the owner of that furniture. The only material that may actually penetrate to kill the beetle larvae feeding within the wood is Bora-Care, and this cannot be applied to finished wood surfaces. It is useful only on unfinished bare wood. Other insecticides applied to the surface will rest there and degrade within a few weeks, and their usefulness is only to intercept emerging adult beetles or adult females that attempt to lay eggs back on that wood when a fresh residual is still present. 
Fumigation by placing the furniture under a tarp or within a chamber is quick and the most effective, but it may not be readily available to you and can be expensive. Heating would also work but the furniture still would have to be retained within some heat chamber for a day or two to ensure the interior of the wood heated sufficiently to kill any larvae or eggs. So, with all of this, I suggest verifying that an existing infestation is actually there and what kind of beetles they are, and this will help you decide what action can be taken. 

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Pest QuestionsJuly 02, 2012

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Jul 1, 2012 – Scorpions Are Bad House Guests

QUESTION:

Do you have any ideas on how to keep scorpions out of a home that was recently built and has hardly any grass around the home yet, but has lots of sand? I know closing all holes and weather stripping will help a lot, but any other ideas would help.

ANSWER:

Well dang it. You already know about the importance of exclusion, so there goes a lot of my normal preaching on scorpion management. However, one thing to keep an eye on is branches and other overhead items that are contacting the structure and the roof, as some scorpions do climb trees and find a way in through upper areas. Since this is a relatively new home it is possible that a natural area has been disturbed and all of the former residents of that natural area are now looking to find new places to live and hide and find food. It is common for bugs to be active and getting into structures for awhile after new construction. 

Since scorpions are all predators that eat mostly other bugs, this is another consideration. If they are living and foraging on this property it is because they are finding things to eat, so elimination of the crickets and beetles and other crawling bugs will reduce the ability for the scorpions to survive on site. They also are nocturnal and hide all day long in some dark place. Are there a lot of things piled on the ground around this new home and close to the structure? If the people recently moved in they may still be finding places to put everything and leaving stuff outside. Anything that can be done to expose the soil by elevating materials will greatly reduce the harborage opportunities for scorpions, and for the other bugs they eat as well. This is particularly important adjacent to the structure where hiding scorpions are that much closer to the structure and more likely to find a way inside. 
Insecticides can be successful as a stop-gap measure, but I always hate relying completely on chemicals if there are other contributing conditions to resolve first. Pyrethroids should work very well to kill scorpions if you treat them directly or treat directly into their hiding places. You need the maximum contact time with these large and hardy critters to be successful. Treating around the perimeter of the foundation may kill those that wander along there that night, and formulations that leave “particles” behind may be more successful as these will adhere to the passing scorpion. This includes wettable powders and micoencapsulated products. 
But, for the long term you need to focus on eliminating the conditions that bring the scorpions onto the property, which is food and harborage. The further you can push them away from the structure the better chance you have that they will not wander close to the home itself. 

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Pest QuestionsJuly 01, 2012

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Jun 28, 2012 – Get One Skunk, Get ‘Em All

QUESTION:

I have a residential account that had a skunk die underneath the foundation of their house. Since then there have been numerous other skunks trying to dig under the house for re-entry.
1. Is there something you can recommend to help control the smell since I can’t find the dead skunk to remove it?
2. Would the smell of this dead skunk be attracting others to come ‘visit’?
3. Is there something I can spray or place around the home to repel future skunks from
trying to dig under the home?
For the smell I’ve tried laying out plates full of coffee, trying numerous deodorizers, and even tried Internet recommendations of a mix consisting of hydrogen peroxide/Baking
soda/soap.

ANSWER:

Unhappily I can attest to the awful tenacity of the skunk odor. A former dog of ours did not learn from bad experience and 3 times got sprayed point blank by skunks in our yard. The last one must have been directly beneath the dog as her chest was actually oily. And, of course, these things always happen at 11 o’clock at night so you can deal with it when you’d rather be asleep. We tried the tomato juice myth with no luck and then tried one of the internet recipes with better luck, but for the next 6 months every time we washed her (every weekend) we could still smell the skunk odor as it volatilized off her skin. 

In your case the ideal thing would be to remove that dead skunk, but your question suggests that this is a slab foundation, and thus the inability to get under the slab to access the dead animal. Of course, the question has to be are you sure there is a dead animal under there or simply the lingering odor of skunks that have tunneled under the slab for some time and contaminated that soil? Either way it appears you are stuck with having to try to eliminate the smell without eliminating the source, and hoping that in time that source will eventually dissipate and no longer create the smell. If so, then try one of the dry bag deodorizers such as the Earth Care Bags or Pouches. These are touted by the manufacturer to be able to pull foul odors from the air and remove them, and while this seems like hocus pocus I have to say that good feedback and my own personal experiences seem to give them a thumbs up. These can be placed around the home in the rooms where the odor seems to be most noticeable and see what happens. 
There also are liquid deodorizers that do a fairly effective job of eliminating the cause of the odor, but really need to be applied directly to the site of the odor to work on the source itself. If there is some burrow leading under the slab that you could fog into this might be helpful, but perhaps not. Overall, though, your goal is to prevent any more mishaps like this from occurring by keeping all future skunks out from under this home. If there is no way to keep them from getting onto the property then you must find a way to physically prevent them from digging under the slab, and this means a physical barrier. Your customer may not like the idea of spending money on this, but it is always better to look for the permanent long term solution rather than the constant application of chemicals to resolve the problem after it occurs. Liquid and granular repellents may have some effect temporarily, and you may want to try them immediately to move skunks away while some permanent fix is being installed. 
If the first skunk found the slab to be a great place for a den then it may simply be that other skunks will too. These are generally solitary animals, so I don’t think that new ones are trying to den up with existing ones, but simply find the slab to be acceptable. The simplest solution is to just lay patio pavers or heavy rocks around the base of the house extending outward for several feet. This can sometimes be enough to discourage the skunks from digging any further and getting all the way under the slab. The more certain way is to install a physical barrier down into the soil all the way around the structure. If the customer will find a way to dig a trench down at least 1 foot deep and 1 foot out from the foundation they can install hardware cloth or metal flashing, down that foot and then bent outward a foot at a 90 degree angle. Another technique is to use rebar cut into 2 foot lengths and driven down into the soil ALL the way around the foundation, spacing them a few inches apart so the skunks cannot squeeze through. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 30, 2012

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Jun 28, 2012 – Ants – Necessarily A Problem?

QUESTION:

How would you treat 2 specimen Live Oak trees @ 50 ft high each for carpenter ants in the upper branches? A tree surgeon noticed them when in a bucket truck as he was removing the branches that had been weakened due to the damage. This client has this done yearly and is extremely proactive in making sure her trees are well maintained. After this discovery was made and those areas removed the tree surgeon suggested further treatment in the areas where he saw heavy activity. She offered the service of the bucket truck while requesting a treatment. Is baiting sufficient? How would you approach this job?

ANSWER:

For now I would suggest finding out more about this situation, including whether or not there even were carpenter ants. Not to doubt his knowledge, but a tree surgeon is not necessarily a trained pest control person, and the ants that he saw may not have been carpenter ants. Better would be to start with getting some specimens, if it has not already been done, and making that positive ID. 

Second question is whether or not these ants, assuming they are carpenter ants, are doing anything other than foraging for food up in that tree. Carpenter ants do feed on honeydew and other insects, and it would seem to be more likely to me that they would be that high up in an oak tree to gather honeydew from scale insects, whiteflies, aphids, or some other plant-sucking insect, or to gather the insects themselves for food. You say that the tree surgeon was removing branches that were weakened due to “the damage”, but are you saying that these ants were actually living within those branches? If so, it seems possible that the branches were already dead and the ants were just taking advantage of some rotten wood within them to create a satellite nest. Removing the dead wood should by itself discourage the ants from continuing to work there. 
If there is rot in the trunk of the tree carpenter ants may move into it to hollow it out further for a nest, and from there may extend their work into sound wood. But, at the top of a large tree it seems less likely that they will find these conditions or work to make that satellite nest. Most often a primary colony is going to be in the soil somewhere in some kind of old wood, such as old dead root systems, buried trees or lumber, and the above-ground nests are satellite nests from this primary colony. As the larvae mature and are ready to pupate the workers seek drier conditions for them, and often create galleries above soil level for this. This is why they bother to enter structures, since they are not eating the wood but only using it as a convenient place to stay awhile. 
In theory, the ants in above-ground nests will still be moving back and forth to the parent colony, so it could be possible to find their trails (look at night, they are nocturnal) and treat them. You also can use granular baits along those trails as carpenter ants seem to take these baits readily. If you can find trails on the ground you might be able to follow them back to where a parent colony is located and treat the colony directly. But, it would still be important to find out if these ants are really any threat at all to these trees or if they are only climbing in the trees for food, in which case you may be able to eliminate those other insects and take away the reason the ants are there too. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 30, 2012

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Jun 29, 2012 – Carpenter Ants Run In Crowds

QUESTION:

Not sure if I have a problem situation here or not, and it’s in my own house. I have a two story house and I have found two Carpenter ants upstairs, one in the bathroom (winged) and one in my daughter’s closet (not winged), both found in a week. The house was built 3 months ago, so not sure how I am getting them in the house. I see no trailing on the house and nothing in the mulch, etc. where I have found them before in clients’ yards. I haven’t been in the attic and think it may be a good idea too. Just want to know if it’s something to worry about right now.


ANSWER:

I would say that two ants should not an infestation be……….hopefully. Several of your observations are of interest. First is that this is a new home, which means the area where the home was built got disturbed, and this often riles up the previous residents of that property. It may be that a carpenter ant colony or two or three were happily living there and had their lives completely disrupted by the construction, and now are still wandering about looking for new places to live. Since they generally are not going to initiate a colony indoors unless they can find a really moist place to be, I don’t think there is a worry in that situation. 

The second is that one of the ants had wings and one did not, but the one that did not could still have been a swarmer that simply had already removed its wings. Like termites the wings of the reproductives have no use once mating or dispersal flights are accomplished, and would be in the way once they begin a new colony in a chamber in the soil or wood. If you still have that un-winged ant take a really close look to see if you can detect the stubs on the thorax where wings may have been attached. Hopefully both are swarmers and it then is very possible that these ants just managed to come to the home, perhaps drawn to lights at night or lighted windows, and found their way inside. 
But, it still would be useful to do a careful inspection of the attic, looking for ants or for evidence of their presence in the form of powdery sawdust on floors or other horizontal surfaces. After 3 months, though, this would seem to be far too short of a time for ants to get in and get started, much less to leave any noticeable evidence like that. Since these ants are generally nocturnal it also may be useful to take a good flashlight and some patience and do an inspection in the evening, carefully looking around the entire exterior to see if any carpenter ants are trailing along the ground or up the walls. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 29, 2012

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Jun 26, 2012 – German Roaches Hate Variety

QUESTION:

What is the best chemical for German cockroach control for restaurants and apartments?

ANSWER:

I still stress a couple of things when it comes to cockroach control. First is that it is unwise to put all your faith in a single product, and using a variety of formulations for roach control (bait, dust, aerosols, liquid sprays) is going to give you more effectiveness than any one of them by itself. Second is that IPM and sanitation are extremely important for roach control, so you need to perform a Sanitation Inspection of any new account before you apply the first drop of material, write your findings down on an inspection report form and share this information with the customer. On this form you now have itemized what you have discovered in the way of conducive conditions – those conditions that are encouraging these roaches to live in this account in the first place. You also can now assign a Honey Do list of what must be corrected and who is to be responsible for that action. 

If there are serious sanitation issues it really won’t matter what pesticide or how much of it you use, as the roaches are either going to ignore it or the active ingredient will become unavailable for them. Pesticides cannot overcome bad sanitation. I realize that you are going to run into tenants in apartments or managers of restaurants who don’t want to listen to this story, and just want you to “spray something” to get rid of the roaches. If you encounter this you need to help them understand the limitations and the fact that they are not likely to get rid of all the roaches. You may reduce the numbers a bit, but lousy sanitation will keep some of them around. Inspect, document, clean, exclude, etc., and THEN apply insecticides as needed. 
Baits are highly effective products for German roaches, but if there are plenty of other food resources in that account due to the bad sanitation the roaches will be far less likely to eat the bait. Granular baits can be puffed into wall voids and gel baits can be placed as pea-sized spots directly into crevices, which is where these roaches prefer to feed. Dusts can also be highly effective when puffed into voids that are completely enclosed. Inorganic dusts of boric acid or desiccants of silica gel or DE can last for many years in wall voids, killing new roaches that may enter them in the future. 
You also have a selection to choose from when it comes to “sprays”, whether they are from aerosols or diluted with water. It is important to discuss these choices with the customer, particularly with respect to their attitudes about insecticides. Some may have a strong preference for a “natural” material, in which case products such as the Essentria product line may be preferred. if you are able to use whatever you choose then the first step is to select a product that is labeled for either of these sites, and almost all insecticides labeled for roaches will be labeled for use in both restaurants and residential settings. Be sure to carefully read the entire Label of the product you consider to know how it can be applied – crack and crevice vs. spot treatment, for example. Aerosol residuals such as Alpine or others do a good job of staying within crevices and small voids, and don’t tend to run out as water-based sprays will. 
Avoid doing “baseboard” treatments for roaches. Avoid “fogging” for roaches. Neither of these gets the active ingredient to the places where the roaches are spending 80% of their time, which is tucked away within tight crevices or voids. Instead, do crack and crevice and void treatments that put the active ingredient right into the resting sites of the roaches. This not only gives you the maximum contact time between roach and A.I. but it also keeps the pesticide away from human contact and avoids getting it washed away too quickly. Really, it is far less about WHAT product you use than it is about HOW you apply it. All insecticides are going to kill these roaches if they are applied properly. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 28, 2012

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Jun 27, 2012 – Meat Or Sugar

QUESTION:

Which ant baits are sweet and which are protein based? Is it based on the formulation, like gels or pastes, or the manufacturer, or maybe the active?

ANSWER:

The active ingredient is not the motivating factor, as some of the boric acid baits are both protein and carbohydrate, such as Drax Gel or abamectin in Advance Dual Choice, although they separate the two bait mixtures from each other. We also find boric acid as the active ingredient in just about any of the bait formulations – liquid, gel, paste, granular. 

The most important consideration is likely the targeted pest and developing a bait that will be attractive to it. For ants this needs to consider very large species and very small ones. Pharaoh ants are unlikely to carry off large granules, so they are offered gel and liquid baits that are either protein or carbohydrate. Carpenter ants, on the other hand, happily accept granules but also will slip into bait stations for liquid sugar baits. It also is known that most ant colonies require both protein and sugar for their dietary needs, and that this varies from time to time so that foraging workers may more actively be searching for sugar foods at one time and for protein at another. For this reason it is important to offer both and see which one they seem to prefer at any time, and this preference could change mid-stream. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 27, 2012

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Jun 24, 2012 – Pine Needle Damage

QUESTION:

I got a call from a client who is having pine tree problems. The pines have a little worm eating the inside ‘tips’ of the pines. Here in New Mexico I thnk we call them tip moth but I could be mistaken. I have never dealt with a problem like this one before and asked a friend in the pest control industry what to do. He said to spray the pines with Talstar P. Is this correct advice? He also mentioned a “second flight” and timing them right. He also said I might need to use a ‘systemic’ product such as Cygon or merit? Any advice would be very helpful.

ANSWER:

You could well be correct that these are tip moth larvae feeding on those pine needles,  and a number of species of these moths in the genus Rhyacionia occur in the western states. Some of these have only a single generation per year, but because of the various species as well as some other pine tip moths in other genera it is possible that you could see the adult moths present at different times of the year. In the most common species the fully grown larvae creates a silken cocoon on the trunk of the tree just at or below the soil surface, and then pupates here and spends the winter in the pupa stage. The adult moths emerge with warm weather in the spring and begin laying eggs on the fresh shoots of the pines in April and May, and larvae may be feeding on the needles for the next few months. 

A species in a different genus, Dioryctria, may find adult moths ovipositing in midsummer rather than early spring, and this could be that “second flight” you mention. However, the larvae emerge from these eggs and immediately create a cocoon for the winter, resuming their feeding in early spring along with the other kinds of tip moths. The feeding from all of these moths can result in die-back of the growing tips of the pines, with dead needles and distorted tissues resulting. However, rarely does this cause any serious damage to the trees, but it does cause brown areas that may be unacceptable and overall can reduce the healthy growth of the tree. 
In general you want to apply insecticides for the control of these moths as soon as the new growth is appearing on the trees, timing the application for the first feeding of the larvae in the spring. At this point a contact insecticide such as bifenthrin (Talstar and others) can be very effective, and the residual of that active ingredient may be several weeks, depending on the weather. Once the larvae have made their way into the needles or the other tissues a systemic product may be more effective, as these will enter the tissue of the plant and be consumed by the feeding larva. I don’t know if you will still find Cygon (dimethoate) available, but Orthene (acephate) definitely is and it is another locally systemic product. Systemics also may have a longer residual as they are within the plant tissue and not as exposed to weather that may degrade other products. 
Merit is another systemic and one that can be applied to the soil as a highly effective material taken up through the roots and moved into the foliage. It is specifically labeled for pine tip moth larvae and should be a good choice. For other foliar insect pests a single application to the soil may be effective for the entire season, but you would need to get the material in the soil around the base of the tree fairly early and well in advance of the hatching of the eggs. It takes a little while for the active ingredient to move up the tree and into the foliage where it can then be consumed by the larvae. For hardwood trees this may take several weeks, but for softwoods (pines) it is faster. If you do go with Merit and the soil application be sure to carefully read the label so you apply the proper amount for the size of the tree. The advantage of a soil-applied product like Merit is that it is then specific to the insects that are actually feeding on the tree. 
Because of that second species that lays its eggs in midsummer it may be necessary to do a second treatment that is timed for the emergence of these larvae, and careful observation of the trees can tell you when new larvae may be appearing. If you can capture some of the adult moths you also can get the ID’d and will know better which species you have and what the timing is for their eggs to hatch. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 26, 2012

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Jun 25, 2012 – Sticking to What You Know

QUESTION:

I have an residential account where I only spray the inside every third month using CY-Kick CS. My client went to his doctor, who diagnosed him as having some kind of “bug bite”. The doctor asked if he had pest control service and how often we spray? He told the doctor that we spray each month on the outside, but only every three months on the inside, and the doctor’s reply was that “we are only spraying the inside every three months to cut back due to the economy”! My Question to you is this. How long does the chemical (CY-Kick CS) last on the inside of a home when left undisturbed and why is it that this Doctor thinks he is a Pest Management Professional?

ANSWER:

Well, this is an interesting question, and we will see who I can antagonize THIS time. I would say, first of all, that the doctor was out of line with that comment, if he did indeed say such a thing. If so then it suggests that the doctor believes that a pesticide treatment should be done every month on the inside of any residence, and of course this is not only silly but completely unwarranted. We, as professionals, should apply toxic substances only when there is a reason to do so, and we long ago moved away from monthly “preventive” treatments inside people’s homes. If you have not verified the presence of a specific pest within the home it would be improper for you to spray pesticide there in the hope that the chemical might intercept some unknown future arthropod pest. 

We will leave it at that with respect to the doctor’s negative comment. I don’t know that he believes he is a PMP, but only that he felt some need to criticize our industry and our practices. Perhaps more important might be the doctor’s belief that he can look at some red or itchy bump or rash on a person’s skin and determine that it is a “bug bite”. Our industry’s experts and university consultants consistently advise US that it is impossible to look at a bump and from that bump only to decide what caused it. In California we see this serious misdiagnosis constantly with respect to the medical professionals telling people that they were bitten by Brown Recluse Spiders. Since these spiders do not occur in California it seems highly unlikely that the hundreds of diagnoses by doctors were accurate, but they continue to be made. 
Since we cannot control what medical professionals will tell their customers (I prefer the word “customer” over the word “patient”) we can only stick to what we can control, and that is our own practices. You know very well that spraying inside a home every month is an unnecessary use of toxic substances, so instead you do an inspection each month and then treat only when there is something that needs to be treated. A micro-encapsulated material like Cy-Kick will probably leave an effective residual for a few weeks, depending on where it is applied. This should be more than adequate to eliminate that pest that you found to be present. It is NOT our goal to maintain an uninterrupted layer of pesticide on every surface in the home. This would not be a healthy situation and our industry no longer wants that to happen. 
Avoid getting into any bickering match with the doctor, as he is not likely to change his mind for you. Instead, present the facts to your customer so that your customer understands why you do your applications in the manner that you do, that you are required to stay within the legal constraints imposed by our regulatory agencies and the product labels, and that it is the health and well being of the customer that dictate when and how you choose to apply your products. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 25, 2012

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Jun 22, 2012 – Give Them A Place To Live

QUESTION:

I have noticed a couple of questions asking about American and Oriental cockroaches living inside. How is that possible with the living conditions not conducive for them to survive, at least for long periods of time?

ANSWER:

Perhaps it is because you are in dry Nevada that you would not consider the interior of a structure to offer respite to these large roaches, but in many regions of the U.S. and the world the humidity is much higher and these roaches will often find conditions indoors that are perfect for them. What is needed is the “triangle” of life for pests – food, moisture, harborage. Even in your arid region a large structure may have an elevator shaft, a basement, or some other lower area where things stay cooler and damper, and roaches that find their way in from the outside could survive there and move from that harborage to seek food. A restaurant may have a steamy kitchen or dishwashing area that provides the conditions needed for the roaches. I once identified roaches in a restaurant as Australian roaches, a species that needs very high moisture to survive. We traced their presence to the dishwashing room where the floors were constantly damp, the humidity high, and the roaches were hiding within the walls. 

These also are pretty mobile roaches that may live outdoors in damp landscape but move inside through available gaps to forage for food. This is why exclusion efforts should be part of the overall management effort for the large roach species. If the interior does not provide the necessary living arrangements for them they may come in, feed, and move back outside, so preventing their entry is critical. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 24, 2012

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