Archive for the ‘Pest Questions’ Category

Jan 11, 2012 – Food And Fabric For Thought

QUESTION:

What has contributed to the increase in carpet beetle infestations in recent years?

ANSWER:

I guess I will have to assume that there IS an increase in carpet beetle incidence, although I have not heard of this being a nationwide plague. Hopefully it is just a local observation in your area. If we do see an increase in the incidence of some pest indoors we have to consider what the reasons are that would cause more of them to be in that place. Carpet beetles eat not only things of animal origin, such as hair, feathers, and fabrics made from hair (wool, felt, etc.), but they also routinely feed on grain-based food materials. They also are Nature’s cleanup crew, and quickly find dead insects to feed on them and return those nutrients to the soil. In a home the presence of accumulations of dead insects is definitely an attraction to the carpet beetles, and the recent increase in problems with the Brown Marmorated Stinkbug has generated that question. Will killing the bugs in large numbers indoors where they hide then lead to an increase in carpet beetles, and the answer is a likely Yes. 

So, there is my Guess #1 – perhaps we are having an increase in the numbers and kinds of over wintering insects inside homes, which leads to an increase in the numbers of dead insects, which brings the carpet beetles. I’m not into the area of sewing or other uses of fabrics, but perhaps there is some increase in the use of wool and other animal fibers for yarn and threads used for sweaters, scarves, hats, etc. This could provide more food resources indoors. There do seem to be fads coming and going with the use of alpaca wool and other trendy animal hairs, as well as the spinning of your own yarn from wool. Thus, Guess #2. 
Perhaps this is just a normal up turn in the population of these insects in your area. We do typically see rises and drops in the curve for populations of any living organisms, and it could be the carpet beetles’ turn to be on the upswing. The adults normally live outdoors and feed on pollen and other plant materials, so their populations could be increased by good living conditions there such as an early spring that led to earlier emergence of the adult insects, more plants producing more pollen, and other factors that simply favored the survival and reproduction of the insects outdoors. 
My own problems with carpet beetles have generally stemmed from our improper storage of doggie treats in our laundry room, where dog biscuits were kept in an open tub that made it quick to grab one after the dog’s meal. Carpet beetles also found these and thrived on the scraps in the tub and the occasional dropped biscuit that sat hidden from us. Improper food storage and storage of foods for a long time in the home can help these beetles to survive and breed and build up their numbers. I suggest an careful inspection of the infested homes to determine exactly what is infested, and deal with it first at that point – The Source. Perhaps an increase in rodent problems, for example, has led to an increase in the use of rodent baits indoors, and these when used by homeowners often get tossed into attics and crawl spaces and left forever, allowing carpet beetles to find the excess bait and feed on it, bringing them into the home for another reason. 
Just several speculations on the possibilities, but control of carpet beetles, like any other food or fabric pest, must begin with the careful inspection to find the infested source. Fogging and spraying baseboards will not have any effect on the beetle larvae hidden away in some void or some container, and it is the larvae that do the damage and that lead to more adult beetles. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 11, 2012

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Jan 8, 2012 – Getting To The Heart of The Problem

QUESTION:

I have an account with a dry goods area. The product coming in is full of meal moths, where you can actually see larva in the sealed products. Switching the vender is not an option. Is there a bug light that will work on these moths or some type of misting system?

ANSWER:

From your description I would have to say no to both suggestions – light trap and fogging. The picture you are painting in my mind is that the sealed packages have the moth larva inside them, and whether you are seeing these larva through some clear outer covering on the packages or have to open the package to see the larvae inside really does not change things. Either way if the larvae are inside the packages then misting the air with insecticide is not going to get anything to these hidden, protected larvae and a UV light trap would be only moderately effective on capturing adult moths, if at all. Stored food moths are generally not drawn to light, and in fact adult and larvae of the moths tend to hide from light. 

This is a tough one, but I think that ultimately you need to approach the supplier/vendor of this product – the vendor who is sending their pest problems to your account – and see if something can be done to get it stopped. Somewhere within their production and storage they seem to have a serious moth infestation that needs to be controlled, or they stand to lose an awful lot of business when their customers begin refusing the product or switching to another supplier. You don’t indicate what kind of food products these are, but if they are destined for human consumption that vendor with the problems could face some serious financial losses. If it is pet foods the quality control is a bit lower, but even then moth infestations should not be tolerated or they only get worse.
If the problem you have with your customer’s packages truly is sealed within the packages then a fumigation would be the only recourse for killing the insects within the packages. This could mean closing the entire facility, tenting it, and fumigating it, or perhaps removing all of the infested material into a chamber or under tarps and having it fumigated separately. However, killing all the moths on your customer’s property still does not resolve the issue of more infested material being delivered on the next shipment in from their vendor, so do try to get an interview with that company to see if they are interested in taking care of this. 
If everything fails, and your talks with the vendor fall on deaf ears the, first, shame on them, and second, you will have to do what you have to do, and this means determining what packages are infested and isolating them for fumigation. You can use pheromone traps to help with this, hanging them in the area and seeing which traps get the most adult moths, perhaps narrowing the search. There also are Mating Disruption  pheromones that help to eliminate Indian Meal Moth problems by essentially flooding the warehouse with the mating pheromone to make it impossible for male moths to locate females for mating. This, I believe, is not the best substitute for tackling the problem at its source (the vendor of the products) but does exist as a control option. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 10, 2012

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Jan 9, 2012 – Pyrethroids And Label Changes

QUESTION:

How will the new language on labels for synthetic pyrethroid products like Suspend and Tempo affect the way perimeter treatments are performed? Will these new restrictions apply to products like Termidor SC when used for the control of ants?

ANSWER:

This has been a worrisome issue. The background on this is that it seems to have begun in California, which has the pleasure of holding more environmental groups than any other state. There is a constant worry about the quality of water, not only groundwater that may end up as drinking water, but also general waterways such as lakes or creeks, and the possible effect of pesticides on the living organisms in those waters. Synthetic pyrethroids have long been known to be highly toxic to many kinds of cold blooded animals (fish, reptiles) as well as to arthropods and other invertebrates. For purposes of the studies on pyrethroids in waterways I believe the most sensitive organism possible was chosen as the signal organism, and this is some microscopic invertebrate that may be sensitive to the presence of pyrethroids at even parts per TRILLION, which is extraordinary. 

For years sampling of runoff water in storm drains has been done, testing for the presence of pesticides, and in particular pyrethroids. This may be due not only to their particular toxicity to the test organisms, but also because pyrethroids have become the most popular products in use today for insect pest control. I suppose I should keep my editorial comments to myself, but having poor common sense I’ll suggest that anti-pesticide groups are always going to go after the biggest fish in the pond, and these attacks on pyrethroids were expected. Witness the past history against DDT, chordane, and methyl bromide as examples. With respect to fipronil (Termidor), yes we should be worried because that will be next and it already has been spoken of because of its popularity for ant control. 
The label changes are going into effect now, as each manufacturer of a pyrethroid product produces their next batch of the product. While CDPR in California initiated this movement the EPA agreed with its need, so EPA requires these label changes on all pyrethroid products. It will be VERY important for you, the PMP, to carefully read the Label for the products you use to compare the wording with what you may be used to. Of course, this has always been a good idea to read the full Label each time. 
From what I can determine the majority of the “new” wording on pyrethroid labels is simply new emphasis on what we ought to be doing anyhow. The whole point is to reduce the amount of insecticide that runs off of a property that you have treated and ends up in a gutter and thus the local storm drain and thus the local creek, which then flows to a lake or the main rivers, carrying any pesticide with it. The new Label statements are primarily aimed at clearly stating things such as “sweep any product that lands on a sidewalk back onto the treated area” and “do not water to the point of runoff” and “application is prohibited directly into sewers”. Gee, these would seem like such common sense procedures that any professional should already understand their importance, but I have actually had licensed professionals ask me how to prevent staining from insecticide granules that landed on top of a car!! Uh………gosh……… maybe don’t granulate the top of the car?
Nearly all of the new wording on pyrethroid labels is in the “Environmental Hazards” and the “Applications for Use” sections, and involves statements such as those above. However, a second issue is rearing its ugly head, and this is in place in California and I believe in New York, and that is the use of pyrethroids on any area where runoff into waterways or habitats of endangered or threatened species could possibly occur. This one is much more troublesome, as it is extremely vague, and now your knowledge of the environmental concerns in your area will need to be sharpened. The labels may prohibit applications of pyrethroids within 100 feet of certain kinds of waterways, and this could really limit their use on some properties. 
So, look for the changes on the Labels of the products you use and carefully read the label on the package you buy to be certain whether the updates are there or not. And, at this moment in time non-pyrethroids like fipronil are not on the hook too, but likely will be the next target. Our best way to minimize drastic restrictions on fipronil or any other pesticide is to use them ONLY according to the label and the allowances we currently have. Do you think anyone in our industry is spraying Termidor on areas well beyond the distance from a structure allowed by the Label? I suspect they are, and that kind of misuse will doom us all. The reason the new pyrethroid labeling is going into effect is because of sloppy use of the products, allowing the active ingredients to wash into gutters and local creeks. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 09, 2012

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Jan 6, 2012 – Big, Bulky, and Bed Bugs

QUESTION:

I am concerned about how to effectively treat a couch for bed bugs. That piece of furniture is so massive and hard to get to. How to do it and what best to use? Also, any good, cheap heat treatments available to the little pest control firm?

ANSWER:

It is amazing to many folks in the General Public that bed bugs are simply not confined to “beds”, and their eyes pop open pretty wide when we tell them that bed bugs now are found routinely on airplanes, in schools, in theaters, buses, delivery trucks, and just about anyplace that humans go and spend time. The potential for bed bugs to be in clothing in the infested home and then transported to a clothing store changing room exists, and must be accepted. Within an infested home bed bugs are going to hide close to anyplace they can find that blood meal, and they are also not restricted to feeding only at night. There is evidence that daylight feeding also occurs routinely. 

So, chairs, couches, recliners, etc. all are potentially infested and must be dealt with in some way. The couple of bed bug eggs that may be glued within the workings of that recliner represent a continuing infestation if they are not killed in some manner. Obviously, spraying every nook and cranny within a complicated recliner becomes a problem, as does opening up all those possible cavities within a large couch. Top this off with our current dilemma that insecticides are still not the ultimate answer to bed bug control, and you may hesitate to treat all the surfaces with a toxin anyhow. Heat, fortunately, is a very effective enemy of bed bugs, and a temperature of only 115 degrees, held for just 1 hour, should be lethal to all stages of the bugs. Get that temperature increasingly higher and the exposure time drops quickly. According to some previous studies a clothes dryer at 175 degrees takes just 5 minutes to kill bugs and eggs, and our experts now even tell us that running things through a hot wash first is not needed if the dryer can be used. 
At the recent NPMA Conference there were no less than 25 vendors showing products or solutions for bed bugs, many of these offering heat treatments. More and more companies are setting up their bed bug management with localized or whole room/structure heating. The advantages are many, including eliminating the use of toxins and, if done properly, completing the eradication quickly. Some of the top companies still do use dusts and certain other insecticides along with the heat treatment to be doubly sure the work is done effectively, but heat is an excellent option. 
You need two things – a sealed container that will hold the temperature at the effective level for the effective period of time, and a heat source. These are becoming more and more available. Some companies even use portable chambers that are modified (sealed) so that larger items like furniture can be placed in them, the doors closed and sealed, and the heat injected for the prescribed length of time. I hate to name brand names, but one image I have seen shows one of the “Pods” used for this. 
One of the speakers at this recent NPMA Conference offered her results using a home-made “heat box”, and the results were very positive. Essentially the box was made from plywood and uses a simple propane heater for the heat source. She suggested that you can Google “heat box Phil Koehler” to find the instructions online for building this device yourself, along with step by step instructions on using it. I just tried this and found an excellent PowerPoint presentation by Dr. Koehler (et. al.) from Univ. of Florida that would be extremely helpful to you in providing the options and instructions for this. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 08, 2012

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Jan 7, 2012 – The BMSB Strikes Again

QUESTION:

I have a situation where a large 1-story office building is experiencing Brown Marmorated Stink bugs coming down from the suspended ceiling. This is a building with central HVAC system. Workers leave in the late afternoon. Any suggestions for treatment? Here in Maine these guys are pretty new. Thanks.


ANSWER:

You are not alone in your concern with these invaders. The BMSB entered North America somewhere prior to 1996 and in the next 10 years just exploded across the U.S., now found in California and other western states. But, it is the Northeast that still seems to be the epicenter, and the problem seemed to increase dramatically in the past couple of years. Initially it seemed that the BMSB was only a nuisance pest, found occasionally in agriculture but a bigger problem with its over-wintering habits in structures. Recently it has been tagged as a serious agricultural pest and its numbers entering structures for the winter are increasing. There currently is not specific strategy in place for dealing with this insect, much less eliminating it. The BMSB is native to Asia but seems to be here in the U.S. to stay. 

Ideally the best long term strategy for our industry is going to be exclusion, and this is probably the path you need to propose to this customer. If the bugs cannot get inside they will not become a nuisance problem. It certainly is overwhelming to consider insect-proofing an entire large commercial complex, but if this cannot be done then you are resigned to constant applications of insecticides to minimize the problem, both inside and outside. But, if the pest proofing can be taken one bite at a time over this next 10 months you should be able to have a decent impact on the problems inside this building come this fall. Every gap and hole you close permanently is one less opening stink bugs can enter, and this effort also now keeps out other insects, rodents, birds, bats, etc. Our homes and other buildings are generally pretty porous, and offer lots of entry opportunities to pests. 
In the fall your effort can also begin, where you anticipate the BMSB to be, with applications of residual products on the outside surfaces of the building. With your customer’s cooperation you may be alerted to the first bugs to show up on the outside walls, and at this time apply a contact residual insecticide that can kill a great many of them before they enter. On the inside the use of UV light traps may be very effective, and in a drop ceiling that should be wide open to the sides this could capture a great many of the bugs. If there are large numbers the glue pads will need to be changed frequently as the bugs cover the surface, but placing several of the traps at strategic distances from each other in the drop ceiling could greatly reduce the population, particularly at night when the traps could be the primary source of light. 
An advantage to capturing the bugs on glue traps is that they then can be eliminated from the building. Insecticide applications inside can probably kill great numbers of them, but the dead bodies then become an attraction to scavengers such as carpet beetles, and one problem may lead to another. The use of inorganic dusts in the drop ceiling may kill the bugs as well as future carpet beetles, but dusts in drop ceilings are just too likely to sift down onto the office areas where employees are going to be concerned. If the bugs also are within wall voids the inorganic dusts may be a more appropriate option. 
And, of course, a vacuum is a quick way to remove any exposed insects, but the concern with vacuuming large numbers of stink bugs is that they release a rather unpleasant smell when disturbed, and in a short time that vacuum may be an unwelcome device to have around. Placing some other deodorizer or masking odor within the vacuum may be helpful, or changing the bag regularly as well. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 07, 2012

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Jan 4, 2012 – To Bite You Gotta Have Jaws

QUESTION:

Can house flies bite? Are there times in the life cycle when this would occur?

ANSWER:

No, The House Fly (Musca domestica) is completely unable to bite at any of its stages. The mouth of the adult fly is essentially a sponge, which the fly uses to soak up liquids that it ingests. If the tasty food the fly is sitting on is not yet in liquid form the fly will vomit on it, slop it around with that spongy mouth, and then slurp up the now liquid material. This mouth is far too weak to be able to penetrate skin in any manner. The larva of flies – maggots – also have no mechanism for biting, as their mouths are far too small and a maggot is not a blood feeder. However, let’s have fun discussing this a bit. 

A fly similar to The House Fly that DOES bite and ingest blood is called the Stable Fly – Stomoxys calcitrans. This nasty critter readily bites, feeding on livestock, dogs, and our ankles if we leave them available. The mouth of the stable fly is a long, sharp beak or proboscis that it plunges into the skin, and it is not necessarily as polite as many other blood feeders are that first numb that area before biting. You generally feel the sharp pain of the bite from this fly. 
While The House Fly maggots are not generally the ones involved, other maggots may be found feeding on human and other animal flesh, and in fact this may be purposely induced and referred to as Maggot Therapy. Blow flies are the ones that most often seek out fresh wounds on mammals, the adults depositing eggs on the wound and the maggots then feeding on the tissues in that area. If all goes well with blow flies the maggots feed only on dead tissues and leave the live stuff alone, and while we may prefer just some band aids and an aspirin there really seems to be a benefit from letting the maggots do their thing. Eating away the dead tissue helps to cleanse that wound, and the writhing and wriggling of the maggots seems to stimulate the healing process. I suppose an open-minded individual could describe the sensation as “ticklish”, but there probably are not too many of those individuals out there. 
We also have plenty of other blood-feeding flies around us, the largest being horse flies, next down deer flies, and then much smaller at no-see-ums, black flies, and mosquitoes. Seems as if Nature provided plenty of them and didn’t need to toss The House Fly into the mix. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 06, 2012

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Jan 5, 2012 – Changing A Pesticide

QUESTION:

Is the physical modification of pesticides by a commercial applicator legal in any state in the U.S.? For example, if Niban Granular Insect Bait were purchased and then modified into smaller granules by a physical blending/sifting process, would that be legal? If nothing like that is prohibited by the label is it something that can be done in Florida? Is the label only appropriate for the form that the pesticide is sold in? I imagine there MIGHT be some variance in the recommended application rate, but then again I think it is rated per pound, not by volume. I know this is an odd question and believe I know the answer, but appreciate your insight and appreciate having you to ask!

ANSWER:

Well, let’s see how deeply I can get myself into trouble on this one. First, of course, if you were planning to RE-sell any pesticide you could not alter its form first. You could not blend it with other materials nor change the form it originally came in, as this would make you somewhat of a manufacturer yourself, and of course that would not be legal. If you do resell pesticides they must be resold in the form and original container that you yourself bought them in, unless you are licensed to make those kinds of changes. 

But, if you are only talking about making some changes prior to your use of a product, then I will offer two answers. The first would be to ask your own local regulatory agency for their guidance on this, as they would be the ones who would impose any action against you if it turns out to be illegal. The second answer is that “the Label is the Law” for a pesticide product right up to the moment that it is applied, and it would not matter what other things you add to a product or what changes you might make to it prior to use, you always have to follow the Label. If you mix several different products together, which is perfectly legal as long as any one of the Labels does not prohibit this mixing, you would have to follow the most stringent of the precautions and statements that exists on any of those labels. In other words, if one of the products was prohibited for use in a food area, the mixture of that product with others for application makes the whole stew illegal for use in a food area. 
You would be correct in saying that the Label for dry products like granules and dusts will state that product’s use as a certain weight per surface area – e.g. 1 lb of granules per 1000 sq. ft., etc. So, even if you ground those granules down to a finer texture you still would have to follow the Label on the amount used over that area. I think we would have to be realistic when it comes to changing the physical form that you purchase it in, and for a couple of reasons. First, the manufacturer has gone to a lot of trouble to come up with that product in the form you find in the package, and making granules smaller, for example, might actually be detrimental when it comes to effectiveness. Second, if we stick with this scenario of modifying granules to a smaller size, you could create some environmental hazard such as increased dust or drift when it is applied. 
I will reveal a story about this from many years ago, and this I believe was with respect to some of the early insect granular baits. A complaint was that the granules were too large for some small ant species, such as Argentine or Odorous House ants, to easily pick up and carry away. Some vendor reps suggested putting those granules in a coffee grinder and pulverizing them to a smaller size. I somehow doubt that Costco would like us doing this in their public coffee grinders, and even worse this would be terribly illegal to put a pesticide in ANY container or device intended for human food. So, I don’t know how you would be able to modify granules to a smaller size and still be legal. 
If we think in terms of other kinds of formulations, such as a liquid pesticide, it may be legal to mix more than one product in the same application device, but it would not be legal to combine two concentrates in the same container and put them back on the storage shelf. Or, even if this turns out to be “legal” it probably ranks as a pretty bad idea. You would be starting to create a witch’s brew that could get out of control. So, bottom line I suppose would be that if you needed a smaller granule for a particular pest or job the better answer would be to buy a different product that already offers that preferred particle size. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 05, 2012

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Jan 2, 2012 – Sensitive Settings

QUESTION:

Silverfish in a hospital setting. What’s the best control for them?

ANSWER:

Silverfish can be a real challenge, particularly in a very large building such as a hospital, and particularly given the sensitive nature of hospitals. These fast moving insects can cover a lot of ground between the voids they hide in and the places where they are seen foraging for food. Hopefully you can attack them in a very localized area if they are only being seen in a few rooms. Silverfish and firebrats feed on a wide variety of materials that includes dry grain-based human foods, dead insects, starchy materials such as the glue in book bindings or behind wallpaper, and even certain kinds of papers. On the exterior they often are found within piles of firewood or lumber, under items on the ground or concrete, and within debris such as piles of old cardboard boxes. On the interior they often will be noticed when some items are lifted from floors or tables and the hidden silverfish runs out from under. They are nocturnal, so they are usually seen only when disturbed in the daytime. They also commonly get trapped in sinks and bathtubs because they fell in, perhaps drawn to water, and could not get a grip  on the slick porcelain to climb back out. 

The goal is to attack them at their source, but easier said than done. You can discourage their presence beginning on the outside, which presumably is where they originated, by removing all unnecessary clutter that brings them close to a building. For a hospital this is a challenge, but a walk around the exterior still might reveal a lot of things that encourage their presence next to the building. This particularly is the case at loading docks and back areas that customers do not normally see. On the inside you can recommend storing all boxes off the floor and on metal racks if possible, and if at all possible eliminate corrugated cardboard boxes. Silverfish commonly reside within voids such as wall voids and attics and drop ceilings, and with the permission of the hospital management you could treat these areas with a fog, using a product labeled for this application method in hospitals. On PestWeb you can view a list of ALL products labeled specifically for hospitals. Go into Product Documents, select  “Products By Approved Site” / Structures / Commercial Structures / Hospitals. Similarly you can view a list of all products labeled for silverfish by selecting the tab “Products by Target Pest”. 
Given the sensitive nature of hospitals you need to show discretion on how you apply insecticides, and absolutely must ensure they are contained within whatever space you apply them to. Fogging may be tough to manage in this manner, other than fogging with wall voids using a void injector machine. If you can interview the people who work in the area where these insects are being seen you might get a handle on the likely voids the bugs are hiding in. For wall voids you might consider the use of an inorganic dust such as silica gel or diatomaceous earth. They can be injected with a duster that creates some turbulence to move the dust around in the void, and these products last for many years to kill insects by desiccation. 
Silverfish also will accept some granular bait products, and I have seen good results using them in a hospital setting. Some of these include Dekko Silverfish Packs that are pre-loaded bait packets that could be placed in drop ceilings or attics. Another excellent product is Niban Granular bait, as well as some of the Intice granular baits from Rockwell. The granular baits can also be applied directly into wall voids using a small granule applicator such as the Centrobulb. You might also consider a careful application of a liquid spray, concentrating on likely travel locations of the insects, such as junctions of floor to ceiling or wall corners and wall to ceiling junctions. A microencapsulated product that is properly labeled for hospitals would probably offer the longest residual and perhaps be most easily acquired by the passing insect that crawls over the treated surface. 
Insect glue traps also can be placed strategically to monitor the results and to determine where you may want to direct your treatments. These can be placed where they will not bother people working there, and you might even enlist some of the employees to check these for you and pass along whether or not they find any silverfish in them. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 04, 2012

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Jan 3, 2012 – Blood Exposure

QUESTION:

A question on blood borne pathogens and disease in engorged bed bugs. It has not been shown that bed bugs transmit disease through routine feeding, but
what about when a pest control operator is exposed to the blood the bug has consumed, such as when or if engorged bugs are inadvertently “popped”? Also, is exposure to large quantities of bed bug fecal accumulations dangerous to the p.c.o.’s health?

ANSWER:

Interesting question Richard, and my answer will probably weigh heavily on my own speculation or thoughts, but we can start with the current standard opinion of our most respected researchers on bed bugs, and this is that The Common Bed Bug – Cimex lectularius – continues to NEVER be shown to be capable of vectoring any blood borne pathogens from one human to another. Now, this generally is with respect to a pathogen being ingested by a bed bug and then passed along to the next blood host in a second feeding in the same manner that fleas or mosquitoes vector diseases. There appears to be no mechanism within a bed bug for this to happen. Two years ago, when Swine Flu became a health threat and the media overwhelmed us with horror stories about it, the internet came alive with opinions, blogs, and chat rooms stating that bed bugs could spread swine flu. This simply was inaccurate and unfortunate. Gee, gotta love the internet. 

But, what about fresh blood in a bed bug suddenly ending up on your skin? Let me tell a story from a vector control class I attended years ago, when the topic of mosquitoes and AIDS was addressed, since so many people firmly believe that mosquitoes could be vectors of AIDS. This too has been soundly refuted with a great many studies, but the instructors of this course suggested that (purely hypothetical, I might add) if any insect is capable of transmitting AIDS from one human to another perhaps it could be deer or horse flies. Again, I stress that this was purely hypothetical and these insects have never been shown to be vectors of this disease. But, what they were suggesting was that these flies are “messy” feeders, slashing the skin open with their scissors-like mandibles and allowing the blood to flow. If they began feeding on infected blood and were interrupted before getting a full meal perhaps…….purely “perhaps” …… they could fly to a second human host, open the skin, and perhaps allow some of the fresh blood from the first host to enter the blood stream of that second host. 
May I stress once again this was purely hypothetical. I don’t want anyone saying Mr. Pest Control says horse flies spread AIDS. But, in order for this even to work it would require that the infected blood somehow find its way into the second host via an opening in the skin and into the blood vessels. Simply popping an engorged bed bug or any other insect and getting that blood on unbroken skin to be washed off immediately should pose no potential for transmission. Pathogens in the blood would not be capable of burrowing through the barrier our skin provides. So, as long as you do not eat the bed bugs or have open sores available for that blood to get into I don’t believe this is an issue for pest control technicians. 
With respect to exposure to the fecal material, which of course is just dried blood, this also has not been discussed at any of the many bed bug seminars I have attended. I do believe that the fecal matter of any living organism should be considered “filth”, and filth has a potential to have undesirable things growing on it, so I personally would protect myself from exposure to it and recommend that the feces be removed and the surface sanitized. Just as with rodent and bird droppings, it is less the dropping itself and more the pathogenic bacteria, viruses, and fungi that grown on this material that we do not want to inhale or ingest. Blood probably provides a great growth medium for pathogenic micro-organisms. Therefore it would be good policy to wear an appropriate respiratory device and gloves when working around these materials. It’s also possible that the greater concern could be an allergic reaction due to foreign proteins in the fecal material, and our immune systems generally are not fond of foreign proteins that get into our bodies. 

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Pest QuestionsJanuary 03, 2012

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Dec 31, 2011 – Do You Hear A Ticking?

QUESTION:

I am in Arizona and found a few ticks on my two dogs. One was gray and fat and the other three were clustered together and were small with a brown/blackish color. My other dog had a cluster of something (either a scab or maybe eggs) by its ear with red skin irritation. My question is can ticks lay eggs somewhere on the dog’s body too? I know they can lay them in the house, but I want to be sure. This is a new problem. My dogs have never had ticks and I want to get a good jump on them early in the game. I’m about to spray inside and out. Do you have any suggestions for treatment /eradication of dog ticks. Thank you in advance.

ANSWER:

I never say never when it comes to bugs, but it would seem to be highly unusual for the female tick to remain on the dog to deposit her eggs. I looked at a lot of references and scanned the internet and did not come up with any reliable sources that mentioned this possibility. Typically the female engorges during her final stage as the adult, drops off the host animal, and finds some other sheltered place to dump her mass of up to several thousand eggs. The fat gray one you saw was the engorged female and the others could have been males that may have clustered around the female looking for the opportunity to mate. They also could have been nymphs that all just found a good spot to feed, and sometimes ticks do cluster in certain places. 

Pyrethroids should be effective against ticks, but the problem is getting the active ingredient into the possible places where the female has deposited those eggs. Certainly the best course of action is to inspect pets regularly and remove and kill the ticks immediately when found, crushing them thoroughly or cutting them in half. Their leathery bodies just don’t want to die easily. This will prevent the full development of that female which then can wander into some hidden place where you may not find her during the application. She may go behind baseboards or some other obvious place, or she may crawl up into furniture, draperies, clothing, or any other hidden place where an insecticide treatment would not typically be done. This could leave those thousands of eggs available to hatch and the new (hungry) nymphs not exposed to any insecticide material. The eggs may not even hatch for a couple of months, possibly long after any active ingredient you applied has degraded and is ineffective anyhow. Prevention by early detection definitely is the best protocol. 
But, if you do feel the need to treat it may need to be repeated a few times to ensure some residual material is still there when those new “seed” ticks, called the larvae, come out of hiding. Using a microencapsulated formulation could extend the residual considerably as well as place those thousands of microscopic capsules where the wandering ticks can gather them up on their bodies as they move about. Thoroughness will be the key for placing active ingredient anywhere the female may end up. It might be useful to place a lot of insect glue traps along the edges of walls to, and inspect these daily when you feel tick activity may begin. 

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

Pest QuestionsJanuary 02, 2012

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