Archive for the ‘Pest Questions’ Category

Jan 21, 2012 – Repel For Control?

QUESTION:

I recently had a problem with an evasive rat in one of my accounts. Several follow up visits and nothing but tripped traps!! My Technical Director accompanied me to the account and applied a rodent repellent to the burrow and the tops of the bait stations. I haven’t had any issues since. I would really like to try this on mice in my residential accounts and would like your thoughts on how to implement the procedure. I currently use mechanical devices on initial service coupled with exclusion, then finally install bait for continued control and monitoring. Your advice greatly appreciated.

ANSWER:

That is interesting that a repellent might actually have resolved a lingering issue, but we do have a number of good rodent repellents now, so perhaps this rogue rat really did exit the structure and your exclusion work now keeps it out. One repellent Univar sells is called Detour, with white pepper and garlic oil as the highly irritating active ingredients, and its manufacturer suggests using this in a wide variety of locations to cause rodents sufficient skin irritation that they move on. It is labeled for both indoor and outdoor use on “surfaces” where rodents are expected to travel, so fairly broad labeling allowing interpretation for where it can be used. Rodent burrows is one location, but applying it to the tops of the bait stations was interesting. This, of course, would probably make that station unacceptable to this rodent and any others that approach in the near future. 

This repellent, and possibly others that rely on active ingredients that cause skin irritation, would of course also be irritating or painful to any humans who contacted it, so the Label does caution NEVER to use it where people could come into contact with it, and probably a good idea not to let the family dog lick the surface either. Another rodent repellent is Rat Out Gel, using the same ingredients but with perhaps an even more open Label, allowing use indoors and outdoors along “any” route rodents may travel. Some of these could be possible ways to provide some protection for vehicles, where rodents get up into the engine compartment and destroy wires and tubing. I don’t know what repellent you used in your case, but white pepper, garlic oil, and mineral oil seem to be consistent ingredients for the rat and mouse repellents where you can get actual contact with the traveling rodent. 
Complete exclusion is the ultimate answer to rodent problems indoors, and these repellents are Labeled for use primarily to help drive the rodents out of the structure and then sealing the entry points permanently to prevent future indoor problems. In theory, if you can make life miserable enough for the rat or mouse indoors it may go outside to cool down and compose itself. Of course, if you are successful in eliminating all available food resources indoors, as the overall rodent management would call for, then the rodent is going to go outside to find food anyhow, and only return for harborage. I’m not certain what the need would be for repellents once you feel you have the rodents out of the home. Your trapping program along with exclusion could rid the structure of the pests anyhow, and then applying repellents outdoors might not offer any benefit. This is assuming you were able to locate all the entry points and seal them, rather than knowing of existing entry points, leaving them open, and applying repellent around them. You would not want to seal the rodents inside with repellent barriers they are forced to cross. 
On the baiting issue, I am always torn about the use of rodent baits indoors. I suspect you are well aware of the potential problems indoor baiting can pose – dead rats where you cannot get to them for disposal, pets accidentally finding and eating the bait, stored food pests getting into the bait. If you feel the home is free and clear of rodents perhaps placing traps strategically along probably travel routes would be a better long term monitoring method. If your baiting is outdoors that is different, although baits are subject to spoiling and needing to be disposed of, so using them only as needed would be advisable. However, I understand the need to do something on the exterior to eliminate rats and mice that do come to the structure and begin to probe for entry points. By the way, a speaker once presented some research findings at a conference and addressed the belief that placing rodent baits in stations around the exterior of structures might somehow DRAW the rodents to the structure. Their research indicated that this does not happen. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 21, 2012

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Jan 18, 2012 – Keeping The Bed Bugs Out

QUESTION:

Is there any precedent by landlords to check prospective tenants’ bedding & furniture for bed bugs before signing a lease? Or, are there any Pest Control firms offering such pre-rental services?

ANSWER:

Well now, this is an interesting question for several reasons. One is that it suggests another possible service that PMP’s could offer to their customers, or potential customers. Since a properly trained PMP should know how to inspect things for the presence of bed bugs much more so than the manager of an apartment complex, perhaps this could be a valuable service to offer. I really do not know if any pest control companies currently do this for their areas, but this issue was brought up at the recent NPMA Conference during some of the talks on bed bugs. At the very least the owners and managers of apartments had better be acutely aware of the whole bed bug issue, and the possibility that incoming tenants could be importing the bugs, and they had better have some protocol in place for ensuring the bugs do not get into the apartment alive. 

Suggestions included a standard policy of fumigating or heat treating all possessions of new tenants. A response to this, naturally, was that a policy like this is bound to get some harsh complaints of profiling or abuse by suggesting that a new renter might have bed bugs. I’m sure plenty of attorneys would happily push this kind of lawsuit. Of course, if nothing is done and the management allows bed bug infested tenants to move in without stopping the problem all the existing tenants will sue the management for failing to act. Something about a rock and a hard place. But, whether this precedent is there or just ought to be there, it is something that needs to be done. Even the tenant who goes on vacation and comes home with infested suitcases could be the one now giving every other tenant bed bugs. How do you prevent this without trampling on the civil rights of those tenants? At the least you, the PMP who handles the account, could provide training and education to all the tenants (and charge for the service of your time) so they become well aware of the problem. 
It goes way beyond just apartments. Every hotel had better have strict guidelines in place too, and this is another add-on service PMP’s can offer. We can train the housekeeping staff on how to inspect for presence of bed bugs after each customer leaves a room, in case that customer brought some bugs in with him. They can be trained on how THEY themselves can prevent carrying bed bugs home with them in their clothing or possessions. On that note, does every pest control company out there train their employees on how to keep from taking bed bugs into their own home? They had better do this. 
I recently had a cable “box” for my TV  replaced by the cable company, and I asked the technician if that company had a policy on dealing with these boxes that are returned to their shop. Remember back in the old days when we worried that German roaches could be inside cable boxes and transferred to another place when that box was re-used? Well, now it’s bed bugs that could be in that box, along with eggs glued to the inside of the box. The cable companies had BETTER address this and decide how they are going to treat those boxes before they take them into their own shop or place them in a second home. All they need is for the media to get wind that they are giving people bed bugs and they are going to have a problem on their hands. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 20, 2012

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Jan 19, 2012 – Getting To The Problem

QUESTION:

What is the best aerosol product Univar sells for wood borers that are inside antique furniture?

ANSWER:

This is a tough call, and of course I will ramble on as to why. Injecting an insecticide into wood infested with termites is more likely to control the problem, because the termites have created open tunnels that they move through on a regular basis. If you can drill a hole that enters these tunnels you can inject insecticide that the termites then will come into contact with, and hopefully even share with other termites in the colony. 

But, for beetles this is different. The beetle larva is chewing through solid wood, and getting that wood saturated with an active ingredient that the larva will contact can be difficult. For unfinished wood we can use BoraCare, as this product seems to be able to penetrate deeply into wood, carrying the borate active ingredient as it moves through. Now the solid wood is laced with a borate that will be toxic to the beetle larva that chews into that area, and the borate lasts for many years to ensure it is still there when the larva finally reaches that point. Simply drilling into the solid wood of furniture and injecting material into that wood, as the aerosol product labels state, may not put the active ingredient and the beetle larva into contact with each other. The larva fills its gallery behind itself with fecal material and does not move back and forth. The only exception to this might be Ambrosia beetles, where the female actually creates a gallery for her larvae, and these then feed on fungi that the female introduces to the gallery. 
So, I hate to be a Doubting Thomas about this, but aerosols may have a limited effect. BoraCare can be applied only to unfinished furniture, so antique furniture would likely not be a possible application for it. Even injecting aerosols could require drilling many little holes in the wood, and this could be unacceptable for fine antique furniture. The Label directions for some of the aerosol products that do list WDO beetles as a target pest can be flaky. One label lists the beetle but then gives no directions specific to that beetle. Another lists various WDO insects and then gives instructions only for termites. 
Even liquid products that could be sprayed onto infested wood are commonly labeled for WDO beetles, but spraying them onto finished antique furniture might be unacceptable. And, short of injecting these products into the wood with its limitations on effectiveness, the best you might expect from surface treating is to either kill the adult beetles as they emerge or kill the larvae that hatch from the eggs that a female has deposited in holes or crevices in that surface of the wood. Mixing a concentrate with water and applying it to wood is not going to get penetration into the wood deep enough to expect the beetle larvae to eat through it. 
If the furniture can be moved the best course of action may be fumigation, sealing it within a dedicated chamber or placing it under a tarp, and having a licensed fumigator fume it with Vikane. This is going to be fairly expensive, so the furniture needs to be worth the cost. Unfortunately the options are limited. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 19, 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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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 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 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 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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Jan 12, 2012 – Lingering Roaches

QUESTION:

A customer has German roaches, primarily in their kitchen by a dishwasher area. The house is REALLY nice and they are very clean in terms of food waste. I am surprised the roaches have somehow been there for months or longer to some degree. On my initial visit I focused more on gel bait application in the kitchen – cabinets, around dishwasher, under sink, drawer tracks, behind stove, etc. After 2 weeks they said they have noticed a decrease, but still have some. On this visit I focused mainly on non-bait approaches, including CB-123 flushing agent mostly around the dishwasher, which is between a sink and an end cabinet. Those 3 areas have been the most active areas. There’s a hot water heater under the sink, and that along with the dishwasher, and maybe the fridge motor are, in my opinion, likely warm spots roaches might be seeking. It appears to be at a place where they have a low-med degree of live roaches, dead ones found as well, but I don’t know what to do. Do you think more bait and less flushing would be a more effective approach?

Does CB-123 aerosol provide a residual that is good for longer than a few hours or days?
Does it repel activity from the areas it was sprayed for that time length, or is it likely for those treated areas to be considered clear and vacant harborage to potential other insects a few days after they were treated? I used DeltaDust in some areas, one of them being a square metal electrical box that seemed like it would be a likely roach hiding place. I sprayed the baseboard areas in the kitchen with Masterline Bifenthrin 7.9 mixed about as high as legally allowed, and hope it works well with the flushing agent and dust.
Would more gel bait would be a wise choice if they still have roaches, or do you think it would not really be effective now that above chemicals have been applied? Do you think in a week or two, the residual poisons will have affected a good portion of the current roaches?

ANSWER:

You had a pretty long question Christopher, so I did abbreviate some of it but hopefully did not detract from the overall meaning. You also ask quite a few questions, so let’s see how well I can organize my responses to them. First on CB-123, which is pyrethrum. This is a very non-residual active ingredient that should be used primarily for flushing of German roaches, and by “flushing” we really mean it is best used as an inspection tool, not a control product. Pyrethrum is highly irritating to roaches and will drive them out of hiding quickly, showing you where you have pockets of roaches so that you do not miss treating those harborages. Pyrethrum by itself, even synergized as it is, will kill some roaches but would not be expected to kill them all, so even the ones driven out could recover. Even though the pyrethrum residual, from all I have gathered over the years, is no more than a few hours it could leave some repellency in the voids and crevices you treat. This is not necessarily a good thing, for roaches are going to find somewhere else to hide that may be more difficult for you to find and treat. Best to use pyrethrum sparingly as an inspection tool only for roach control. 

Second on the bifenthrin that you sprayed around baseboards. A much better use of residual insecticides for roach control is to apply it directly INTO cracks, crevices, and voids where you suspect the roaches are hiding. This offers several benefits. First, the material is then not exposed to light or washing that could minimize its residual. Second, it removes the material from contact by people or pets. Third, it places the active ingredient into the places where the roaches will spend 80% of their time, dramatically increasing the length of time the roach is exposed to that a.i. and is absorbing it into its system. The key to success with insecticides is to put the pest and the active ingredient into contact with each other for as long as possible. Applying the material to open surfaces where the roach may do no more than run across the treated surface might not provide that sufficient contact time. The roach in long contact with a residual like bifenthrin should begin feeling the effect within hours, so if they have absorbed enough to be lethal to them they certainly should be dead within 24 hours.
Dusts are excellent products for roach control when used within voids that will not be opened by people, potentially exposing the people to the visible dust that they know is “roach poison” and which now worries them regarding their exposure and health. Wall voids, hollow voids of equipment such as side panels of stoves or dishwashers, beneath this permanent equipment, etc. An inorganic dust like silica gel or DE will kill the roaches more slowly, but dead is dead, and these dusts last forever and offer little human health concerns. DeltaDust is excellent too, but it is going to degrade and become ineffective after months to maybe a year. 
Baiting is also excellent, and probably should always be part of a German roach control effort. The baits available today are so acceptable to these roaches that keeping them available where roaches are still active is a good idea. Contrast the bait arsenal of today with that of 30 years ago, when there was a single bait – Baygon Granules – and you recognize the benefit of what we now have. I would suggest using a variety of bait products just to keep the roaches interested and replacing the bait after a few weeks to maybe a couple of months to ensure it is still fresh and palatable. Some baits seem to last longer than others, which may dry out and become harder and less tasty to the roach. Be sure to place gel baits directly into crevices, not out in the open. According to our experts the German roach prefers to feed in seclusion, and a pea-sized blob of gel bait found in a crevice affords the most acceptable food for it. Do not bait in long lines of material – just individual blobs. 
Since this sounds like a private home, not an apartment or some other multi-family structure, eradicating the roaches should be possible and the goal. You would not have the influence of roaches migrating in from neighboring units. Perhaps the reason for this lingering presence is new roaches emerging from dropped egg capsules. Perhaps it is from some missed harborages that have roaches that are not yet exposed to anything. Be certain it is German roaches and not Brown banded roaches, for the BBR may be hiding anywhere within the home. Sometimes it is of value to take the flashlight and do another complete “initial” inspection to see what may have been missed. Immunity to these insecticides really is not an issue, so if the roaches are eating the bait and in contact with your residual materials they WILL die. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 14, 2012

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Jan 10, 2012 – Bees And The Comforts of Home

QUESTION:

What are your suggestions for bees at the bars in hotels? How can we keep them from biting the employees or guests?


ANSWER:

You are in the West Indies, which is one reason you are still having bee issues in January, although just a couple of weeks ago I visited a relative in Arizona at about 4000 feet elevation, and even with the frigid nights the daytime temperatures reached the high 50’s one day and honeybees were nearly swarming around a garbage can filled with soda cans and other sugary temptations. It managed to get just warm enough to activate the bees, which do not hibernate during the winter, so when they have the opportunity to forage to replenish the energy they are using they go for it.

You do say that these bees are “biting” the people at this hotel, and of course the problem with honeybees is primarily their stinging, not biting. Is this just an expression you are using to describe their stinging, or could these be other bees that are non-stinging but do bite? In the tropics there are plenty of non-stinging bees that are attracted to various food resources, including sweat on our skin, and they land and do bite at the skin. These would be two separate problems, and for these “stingless” bees the only solution would be to find their colony and eliminate it, which could be difficult since they nest in so many places, including within hollow spaces in tree trunks and rock or brick walls. 
But, if this is honeybees then it doesn’t get any easier, and the real long term solution is to eliminate any foods that are attracting the bees. Honeybees are common around picnic areas where garbage cans contain sweet materials for them – soda cans and cups, sugary foods, etc. Eating areas may have spills of sweet foods or drinks that the bees forage on. They even may be looking for just moisture if the surrounding areas are particularly dry, and a pool or other water features or irrigated landscapes could be the attraction. I suppose the solution must begin here with identification not only of the kind of bees you are facing, but an inspection to identify the reasons the bees are there at that place.
There are no repellents that you can use to keep the bees away. You could seek out and destroy the nests of the bees if you could possibly find them, but a hotel surrounded by forests and other natural areas is not conducive to this kind of resolution. So, if we cannot kill the bees at the source and we cannot keep them from flying to the hotel property, what are our options? Really, it boils down to sanitation and removal of the food and moisture attractants as much as possible. Identify what the foods are and emphasize cleaning of surfaces and lids on garbage receptacles. You really do not want to get into a program of constant application of contact insecticides in a hotel setting, so killing them after they arrive using toxins is not reasonable. If there is a lot of standing water then discuss this with the landscape manager to see if irrigation can be improved, drainage provided for wet areas, etc. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 12, 2012

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