Archive for the ‘Pest Questions’ Category

Jun 23, 2012 – Horsing Around By The Pool

QUESTION:

I have a customer who is having problems with Horseflies around her pool. She lives in a rural area with no livestock within a mile or so. The pool is painted white with a slide that is also white. The flies seem to be attracted to the slide area. The pool water is treated traditionally with chlorine. The cutomer does not want to use any type of sticky traps. Any suggestions?

ANSWER:

This is going to take some diplomacy and education of the customer to help her understand the severe limitations YOU have in dealing with horse flies and deer flies (Family Tabanidae). These nasty blood feeding flies have no respect for insect repellent and are often not even courteous enough to anesthetize the bite area the way mosquitoes do, so their bites can be very painful. Some of the biggest horseflies get over an inch long with correspondingly large mouthparts, and their method of feeding is to use the scissors-like blades of their mouth to slash open the skin, which then is lapped up by the spongy parts. Only female horse and deer flies feed on blood. 

Perfect fly management involves controlling the source, meaning the place where these adult flies originate from. This is fine for house flies or vinegar flies where some unsanitary condition is available, but horse and deer fly larvae live and develop in just about any moist situation, feeding as predators on other insects in that habitat. Deer flies may develop only in aquatic habitats like ponds or lakes and horse fly larvae live in moist soils, damp, rotting wood, and other wet or aquatic habitats. Their large larvae are even known to feed on tadpoles and other small vertebrates. Because of this varied living arrangement it makes it difficult to impossible to control the larvae of these flies. In the dense forests of the Upper Midwest, for example, where it rains throughout the summer, just about anywhere within the forest floors the larvae could be found. 
So, this gets you down to having to confront the adult flies, and this can be frustrating. Your customer likely wants NO more horseflies pestering her family, and this is an unrealistic goal that she needs to understand and accept. You may be able to reduce the problem, but not eliminate it. The flies that are hanging around this area of activity are probably female flies that are attracted to the people and the potential for blood meals. The pool itself probably has nothing to do with it, so the color and the chlorine will not be factors. The flies may be drawn to shiny surfaces, so this may be a reason they seem to hang around the slide. Otherwise, the females seeking blood are drawn to movement and carbon dioxide, and they will sense the presence of people around that area. 
Insecticide applications are of little value. Fogging the air to kill them will not result in any particular kill and would have to be done repeatedly. Residual insecticides applied to surfaces are also unlikely to intercept the flies. These are extremely strong fliers that may come from long distances to seek food. 
Despite her reluctance to use sticky traps, this may be the best or only option, and deer fly and horse fly traps are available. These often use the color blue to attract the flies to the glue surface and they then are stuck the moment they touch it. I would look around on the internet under “horse fly traps” to see what is available and what may be acceptable for this customer. The options are really limited. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 23, 2012

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Jun 20, 2012 – Fume For Fleas?

QUESTION:

Can fleas be eradicated with fumigation?

ANSWER:

Very definitely a structural fumigation would completely eradicate a flea problem IF (that big “if”) the source of the problem is within the structure. But, now and then the source is actually outside and the fleas are coming in through various openings, and in a case like this the fumigation would not affect that exterior source and the problem would continue. Let me give two examples I have seen. One was a vacant apartment where the fleas were originating in the landscape outside the patio, and every time the patio door was opened by a potential renter fleas would hop on in. Another was a bathroom that continually got hundreds of fleas in it, and the problem was actually just outside under a deck where some sort of animal was living, perhaps feral cats or raccoons. 

A true fumigant like Vikane will effectively kill all stages of the fleas – eggs, larvae, pupae, and adult fleas – as long as they are confined within the fumigated space. This, however, would be a pretty drastic measure to take for flea control, as a fumigation would be very expensive compared with the standard treatment using liquid sprays. Once the source of the problem is identified and addressed and the proper insecticides applied to the sites where the flea larvae are living, the problem should be resolved. This also needs to include the cooperation of the client to do the proper preparation, vacuuming, and treatment of the household pets by a qualified groomer to eliminate the fleas on the pets. 
A lingering flea problem that just seems not to go away should be traced to some forgotten or missed location where the fleas are originating, and this needs to be discovered. I once visited a flea problem at a below-ground parking lot at a commercial building. Fleas were hopping all over the parking lot, but obviously were not breeding on that asphalt. It turned out that a private property above that exposed parking lot was infested and the fleas were falling off that property and down onto this lot, where the employees were getting adult fleas on them as they got out of their cars. If you have one of these frustrating flea problems that just won’t go away it is not the fault of the chemicals. It is the need to find the source and correct it at that point. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 22, 2012

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Jun 21, 2012 – Mosquitoes Outdoors

QUESTION:

What is the best thing on the market to repel mosquitoes on land which adjoins lake front property?

ANSWER:

I don’t know that repelling the adult mosquitoes is really an effective solution outdoors, other than repellents applied to the people who are active in this area. You can find plenty of advertisements for ultrasonic repellers that experts will tells us are just frauds. There also are claims that citronella candles and plants and other devices will repel mosquitoes, but these may have some effect only on a very, very local area immediately near that candle or emitter. Fogging with pyrethrum will definitely have a repellent effect on the adult mosquitoes, as well as kill any of them contacted by the mist, but this will be a very short term effect, and once the pyrethrum as dissipated more adult mosquitoes can re-enter the area without harm. 

Two possible choices, and probably only one that is acceptable. The best mosquito control is to attack the source, meaning the habitat where the mosquitoes are coming from, which is the aquatic site where the larvae are developing. By applying long-lasting larvicides that prevent adult mosquitoes from being created you prevent the presence of the annoying stage of the insect. However, this is probably impractical for a lake, as it is too large a site to deal with and probably is not under the control of any individual homeowner. In a sense you have to accept that if the lake is the breeding site there are going to be adult mosquitoes. There may, however, be some breeding sites directly on the property of your customer that could be eliminated – standing water or some kind –  that would at least reduce the overall problem. 
The most effective service you may be able to offer in this case might be a “barrier treatment” using a labeled residual insecticide. Many of the pyrethroids are labeled for mosquito control and can be applied to shrubbery, trees, under the eaves, and to other resting areas where adult mosquitoes will sit for many hours each day. University tests have shown some pretty good results lasting several weeks or more with major reduction of adult mosquitoes on a property. This is probably best used when some outdoor event is planned, applying the materials the day before to get the kill of the mosquitoes for the best effect. 
Mosquito misting systems are also a possible option, but some states do restrict how these can be used. These are permanent installations of misting nozzles and a central tank of pyrethrum that is emitted at a timed interval. The pyrethrum mist then rapidly kills any adult mosquitoes that may be exposed to it at the time of the misting. Pyrethrum also is very repellent to flying insects, so some level or repellency may be achieved for awhile afterward. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 21, 2012

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Jun 18, 2012 – Price For Profit

QUESTION:

I have been in the industry for 5 years and about 6 months ago I started my own company in general pest. I only have about 12 clients residential and one commercial restaurant. Today I had a fire dept call and ask me to make a bid. I don’t want to come in too high or too low, so any suggestions?

ANSWER:

You really can’t have a cookie cutter approach to pricing your work, meaning there should never be one set price for flea control, roach control, ant control, etc. There are just too many variables that can affect whether or not you are able to make a profit on a particular job, and in this case I see at least 3 important  variables to consider. These would be the kind of pest problem they are having, whether this is a “one shot’ service or a potential regular account, and the fact that it is a fire station. I know that in some or most states fire stations can NOT close, and this will definitely be a factor when you select the product to use within or outside that facility. Since you should not allow people to be present while you are applying pesticides you may need to alter how you do any applications so that the people there can continue to be present and on call. 

This is an important factor that determines how much time you are going to have to spend at this account, and time is money and how you price this job depends on how much YOU have determined you need to make per hour in order to run your business and make a profit. Some kinds of accounts simply take longer to do because of the circumstances. For example, doing cockroach control in a private home is going to be a lot easier than doing it in a prison, where getting from place to place becomes time consuming and difficult, and any time you have to spend standing around means lost money on your part. So, determine from your initial interview with this customer exactly what the problem pests are and how you are going to be able to work within that structure to get the job done successfully. 
The second question is WHAT is the pest problem? You know that ant management is going to be a lot easier than bed bug eradication, or roaches versus rats. By determining what the pests are you can decide exactly how long you will need to get the problem down to the acceptable level, and this can vary wildly. Since you need to base your bid on an hourly rate knowing how many hours you expect to spend there is important. That hourly rate you charge is dependent on what you have decided you need for your business, and the word “profit” is not a dirty word. I suspect that at this time many businesses feel that around $100 per HOUR is an acceptable fee to charge. This must take into account your travel time, your equipment and other product costs, your office costs of rent, employee wages, etc., your vehicle costs, your insurance, and all the other fixed costs that you will have to pay. Add all of these up and come up with how much per hour it costs you to run your business, and then charge appropriately so you can be profitable with this account. 
If you price too high you may not get the job, and that’s okay. Because, if you price too low you either will lose money each time you go there or you will resent the price and start doing sloppy work just to get in and out quickly. While you need to be aware of what competitors are charging in your area you cannot base your bid entirely on the other guys. There will always be those low bidders who clearly are either not making money or are not doing good work, so bid based on what you need to stay in business profitably. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 20, 2012

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Jun 17, 2012 – Those Bloody Deer Flies

QUESTION:

I’ve read your past posts about deer flies and that their is little that can be done to control them. You did mention about a couple of traps that might be beneficially. What are the name of the traps & where can I find them?

ANSWER:

I personally would love to hear from anyone who has actually tried deer or horse fly traps and has a feel for how good or bad they really are. My family vacations to Wisconsin are often severely “troubled” by the relentless assault of deer flies as I walk along trails or dirt roads. Some years there may NEVER be a moment when there are none of these awful flies buzzing around my head and looking for a feeding site, which I’d rather they not find. With my small bug net I know that I often kill a thousand or more of them in a week. 

Looking around on the internet these kinds of traps seem to be primarily personal traps that are actually worn by the person who is active outdoors where the flies are present and hungry. I know from my own personal experience that deer and horse flies are not particularly respectful of standard repellents. They just zip on in, bite and feed, and pay no attention to the repellent that might keep mosquitoes away. At least one of the advertised traps is simply glue traps that you wear on the back of your hat, in the hope that the flies will at some point in their attack hit that colored patch first. Of course, the advertising really over-sells these kinds of things by essentially guaranteeing that all of the flies will go to the patch before they choose your neck or arm. 
Another kind is also a sticky trap but is essentially a large blue pot that presumably attracts the flies due to motion as the pot moves around on the back of a mower, for example, or on top of your head if you don’t mind looking geeky, and the blue color that is touted to be attractive to these flies. From the new Pest West fly traps that are blue there is some evidence that blue is the color of choice for drawing flies. 
I would simply suggest that you yourself browse around the internet using “deer fly traps” as a search word. You will be fascinated by the choices that come up. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 20, 2012

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Jun 19, 2012 – Looking For Termites

QUESTION:

What do termites look like in the wall?

ANSWER:

I won’t be able to give you too specific of an answer on this, but can speak generally. You are in California, so you have 3 choices of kinds of termites – drywoods, subterranean, and even dampwood termites if there is a serious moisture problem. Drywoods are common in much of California and other regions of the U.S., and the normal evidence of these termites is going to be their fecal material. These tiny pellets have a very distinctive shape to them, regardless of the varying color from tan to black to reddish. No other insect has a fecal pellet of the same shape, which is egg-shaped but with distinct depressions in them running front to back. You will need good magnification to verify this shape and appearance but that is what is needed and the proper ID is oh so important. 

Drywood termites are fastidious housekeepers, pushing all their unwanted………uh, “debris” out of their galleries. They do so by chewing a “kick hole” to the outside, pushing the junk out, and then sealing that hole closed again. This then causes an increasingly large pile of the fecal material below that point, perhaps on a window sill, a floor, within a wall, or often in the attic. Unless you physically tear open the wood you are just not going to see the termites themselves. 
Subterranean termites also create visible evidence of their presence, and this is the mud tubing they build to travel within. These termites are much more susceptible to desiccation and maintain their moist environment by building mud tubes and staying within them. Whenever they cannot go directly into the wood, such as from soil over a pier block and to the subflooring, they make the mud tubes. This is commonly seen on foundations in crawl spaces or up the side of an interior wall from the slab below. If you poke a tiny hole in that tubing you will probably see a few small white termites quite quickly, as they come to that hole to investigate and to seal it closed again. 
So, you rarely really look for the termites themselves initially, but for the evidence of tubing or pellets they will leave in exposed areas. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 19, 2012

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Jun 16, 2012 – Have Head Lice, Will Travel

QUESTION:

I have a customer that drives a tour bus with bunks in it. One of the passengers had head
lice. Does the bus need to be treated? All furniture is leather and wood, marble floors. But
the bunks have mattresses and bedding.

ANSWER:

This is an interesting call, and while insecticide treatments generally are not recommended or necessary for head lice you may want to consider doing something here. Because of this setting it may be important for the owner of the bus to be able to show that everything possible has been done to eliminate any threat of the lice still being present. Head lice cannot live more than about 2 days once dislodged from the host (the infested person), so letting the bus sit for a couple of days should ensure no live lice are present. It also is highly unlikely that any nits (the eggs) are present either, as these are laid only on the hairs of the human host and are cemented to the hair. They cannot just fall off the person, but I suppose we could present the scenario that some hairs with eggs on them “could” possibly come off the sleeping person and be lying around that bed. 

I suggest that anything that can be removed and laundered, dry cleaned, or run through a hot dryer cycle should be treated in this manner. A VERY thorough vacuuming with a high powered vacuum should be done all over and around the areas of the bus where this passenger may have sat or slept. Even though it is unlikely that live lice are still present it is just an added precaution to offer the best assurance to the bus owners and future passengers. Even washing the leather and wood is not a bad idea, and perhaps should be done occasionally anyhow for basic sanitation. 
You then could apply a light treatment of a labeled pyrethrum to the localized areas as well, concentrating on crevices where any lice may have crawled. Again, after just a couple of days it is unlikely any dislodged lice would be alive, but this light treatment may be comforting to people. You are not going to find any pesticides labeled for “head” lice because this is not a treatment that is needed, but the use of a product labeled for use on public transportation should be legal for them. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 18, 2012

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Jun 14, 2012 – Springtail Solutions

QUESTION:

I have a potential client who has an infestation of Springtails. This client had used the services of another pest control company but they were unsuccessful in removing the problem.
I read the labels of several of the products that I have in my arsenal but was unable to specifically find Springtails listed on any of those labels. Can you recommend a treatment to eliminate an infestation of Springtails?



ANSWER:

There actually are quite a few products labeled specifically for springtails and you can find this list on PestWeb in our Product Documents resource. Just select the tab “Products by Target Pest” and then “Springtails”. You then can view each label to see if it meets your needs.

Springtails feed on tiny bits of algae, molds, fungi, and decaying plant materials, all of which suggests that a moist setting is necessary, and this is exactly the case. A dry micro-habitat will not support springtails, so control needs to revolve around controlling the moisture that must be present. Sometimes this will be in unsuspected places when the springtails are indoors, such as a crawlspace below or landscaping outside. These insects are quite mobile and may move from where they are breeding and living to other places where they are seen. For crawlspaces some added ventilation may be needed to help dry things out. For landscape it may be caused by excessive mulch or thick vegetation too close to the structure. Daily watering of landscape keeps things wet, so altering this schedule to allow the soil to dry will help. Moving things up off the soil or the concrete patio will help to dry out the surfaces and discourage the insects. 
They often find interior moisture sources too, and potted plants indoors are common sources for springtails. This may be remedied by covering the soil with a thick layer of moss or, even better, allowing the soil to dry out between waterings. Worse, the moisture source could be within walls or under floors if there is a leak in the plumbing, and this could be investigated as well. Perhaps it is exposed leaks under sinks, and these could be repaired easily. But, every resource you read on controlling springtails emphasizes the need to reduce moisture that is providing the food and conditions necessary for these insects to survive. They are easily killed with insecticides, but would continue to re-invade if there is a hidden source for them. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 16, 2012

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Jun 14, 2012 – Flies and Filth

QUESTION:

My question concerns drain flies. An account has had them for awhile. It is a sand filled
slab with sewer pipes running under it. I cannot find an obvious source for the infestation. I injected in the wall void but realize that this alone will not solve the problem. Neither the mens’ room nor the ladies’ room have any signs of the flies. Is scoping the drain what should be done?

ANSWER:

Drain flies may be less common coming from under slabs than are phorid flies, when plumbing breaks and allows sewage to flow under the slab. There have been massive phorid fly problems resulting from the accumulation of raw sewage in the soils under slabs, and until that source is discovered and repaired and all that contaminated soil removed and replaced the problem will continue. Fly management relies HEAVILY on finding the source, meaning the place where the larvae are feeding and developing. Even spraying over the top of these kinds of breeding sites will have little effect, and more adult flies are going to continue to appear. 

In a sense some of these small flies – phorid, drain, vinegar – are a “sign” telling us that some unsanitary condition exists and must be found and corrected. Attempting to control the problem by killing the adult flies, as you indicate you already know, will be futile. It is an attempt to keep killing the adult flies long enough that the source of the problem finally goes away by itself, and this is not going to happen soon for these flies. If you have already eliminated all the easy answers for drain flies, such as filthy drains or settled water in other places within the living areas, then it would be a good idea to have the plumbing examined. A licensed and qualified plumber should be contacted to run his camera down into the drains to check their quality, and this would not be too terribly expensive. The cost comes when damage to hidden plumbing is found and repairs are needed. 
You might be able to narrow the search initially by pinpointing where the flies appear to be coming into the structure, perhaps with the use of UV light traps. This might speed up the evaluation by the plumber. 

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Pest QuestionsJune 16, 2012

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Jun 15, 2012 – Seek out the Source

QUESTION:

What are the best IPM methods to deal with a moderate to heavy infestation of Red and confused flour beetles in a warehouse?

ANSWER:

In a word, the IPM for food pests in just about any setting is “seek out the source”. Stored food pests do their damage for the most part as the larvae, and these are going to be within the infested food or package. Until you discover that infested material you are not going to have much success using insecticides to try to kill them, other than a complete fumigation. Since these flour beetles usually feed on materials already processed into baking materials or end-use foods you may not even want that infested food to be used further, and it might need to be disposed of. Selling it or using it further with dead bugs in it may be undesirable. 

You may be able to narrow the search for the infested materials using pheromone traps, and there are hanging traps and floor traps designed to catch the adults, since Confused flour beetles cannot fly. You can advise the customer on future prevention with suggestions on stock rotation and sanitation. The sooner food products can be moved in and out of the warehouse the less chance the beetles have to get into them and complete a generation. Spills and other food debris around the warehouse can support the beetles, and in warehouses where food dust is present this could even be accumulations on girders and other above-floor level surfaces. 
But, if there is a current infestation this needs to be found and disposed of quickly. These beetles are very general feeders on any processed foods. Whole grains and seeds are not as likely to be fed upon but even these cannot be ignored.

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Pest QuestionsJune 15, 2012

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