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QUESTION:

We have worked in the past year with Quick Bayt from Bayer for fly treatment and the results were very good. This season Bayer changed the formula and this product does not work very well. Please give me advice for combatting flies efficiently.
Thank you

ANSWER:

The Quick Bayt from Bayer appears to be the trade name they use outside of North America, and within the U.S. at least it is called Maxforce Granular Fly Bait. They likely are much the same product, with imidacloprid as the active ingredient, along with 2 additional ingredients – the attractant Muscalure to enhance the attraction to the bait and the bittering agent Bitrex, which helps to prevent animals and children from eating the bait. I had not heard myself that the ingredients or formulation had changed much recently, but perhaps it did and that information just passed me by.

This bait can be used two ways – either dry as a granule that is scattered where this is an appropriate method or within a fly bait station where the bait needs to be contained. Misting the granules with water will increase the attraction to the bait by flies. It also can be mixed with water and applied as a paint-on slurry to surfaces where the flies gather, such as fences or walls of out-buildings. This causes the granules to stick to the surface and be readily available to the filth flies, such as house flies. If eaten it should cause the death of the fly within 30 minutes, so with luck you can enjoy the results by observing the dead flies lying around.

But, as with any bait for any kind of animal, sometimes the intended target just does not want to eat the bait, and perhaps this is the case for you. If the formula of the Fly Bayt has changed it could be that flies in your area are not as attracted to it. I really doubt that there could be any resistance or immunity to the active ingredient (the imidacloprid), so avoidance of the bait would seem to be more likely. If this is the case my best suggestion when baiting is needed would be to try alternative products, and these could be one of the other granular baits (Elector, Bonanza, Golden Malrin, Stimukil) which may contain other active ingredients and food attractants. There also is Quikstrike fly strips, which can be placed in areas of high fly activity and which kill flies within minutes. Offering alternative products not only increases the likelihood of acceptance, but also helps reduce concerns of resistance beginning to any one ingredient.

Of course, I could never end a sermon on fly management without suggesting that chemical controls should be used only after the other IPM options are put into motion – sanitation, exclusion, habitat modification, etc., as well as the use of non-chemical tools such as light or bait traps. Fly management is very difficult, and is only successful if the whole bag of tools is used.

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QUESTION:

Wasps in a drop ceiling are coming down into an office. Are there traps available, or what would be the best approach?

ANSWER:

I normally would say that whether or not there are traps available would depend on the kind of wasp you are dealing with, but since this is indoors it is unlikely that any of the pest wasps would be interested in a trap. The only exception could be UV light traps that could draw these wasps to the light, particularly at night, to capture them on the glue pads. For outside use there are yellow jacket traps that are relatively effective for some species of the pest yellowjackets, but no really effective traps for the other paper wasps we call Umbrella Wasps. These ladies stick to natural foods, and are not interested in artificial lures or baits that we have in traps for yellowjackets.

From my experience, and this early in the year, you probably have umbrella wasps in the genus Polistes. These make smaller colonies than yellowjackets (YJ’s) and generally leave the bottom of their nest open and exposed. Very often the overwintering queens will become active in the spring and begin looking for a way out of wherever they spent the winter, and often move down into living and working areas from attics and other spaces overhead. YJ’s also end up in living areas, but this often happens later in the summer when their nest-building has created such a massive nest that they need more room, and they chew through sheetrock or ceiling panels to move downward.

At this point I suggest putting on the proper protective clothing (hood, gloves, hat, thick clothing) and taking a really good look in the attic space above this drop ceiling. You may be able to locate the nests themselves if this is an active colony, and if so you can treat it directly with one of the directed “freeze” type wasp aerosols. If you cannot locate a nest, or if it is just overwintering females, you might try placing a UV trap up in that space for a week to see if you can draw the wasps to it. It also would be prudent to make a careful inspection of the outside of this building to see where the wasps may be finding access to the attic space, and if at all possible close off that opportunity with better screening or some other exclusion material to prevent future problems.

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QUESTION:

How long do fipronil (Termidor) and Imidacloprid stay active in wall voids? I have read through your archives and in one response on the length of residual chemical sprays have outside on a foundation you said they may last 30 days. If this is true is quarterly spraying really a value to customers? I only do monthly spraying, as here on the coast of Washington with our extremely wet weather I consider quarterly spraying a poor choice and a financially poor value to my clients.

ANSWER:

I always apologize for dancing around a specific answer to the question of “how long does it last”, regardless of the active ingredient. The fact is that the residual length of any active ingredient varies wildly depending on where you put it, and thus the varying conditions that active ingredient will face. The chlordane we used to apply to the soil under a structure might have lasted over 30 years, with enough a.i. still there to kill termites that entered the treated soil. That same chlordane applied to a hot asphalt driveway in the sunshine in July might be destroyed within a couple of days, a victim of the UV light and heat beating down on it. Add some errant sprinklers or a rainfall and the a.i. takes a further beating.

So, according to what we were initially told when imidacloprid (Premise) first came on the market, within a few months after application for termites there was a dramatic drop in the amount of a.i. remaining in the soil. BUT, after this initial drop the residual sort of settled down and over the next 4 or 5 years it dissipated slowly until there was no longer a level that would kill termites. So, in the protected soil (cool, shaded, dry-ish) under a home the imidacloprid lasted a few years. That same active ingredient placed around a shrub or tree for aphid control gives “season long” control, and is no longer there the following year. That same a.i. applied around a foundation outside for ant control is likely gone within a few weeks, falling victim to sunshine, water, pH factors, heat, etc.

Thus, it is very difficult to put a definite number on how long something lasts at a level high enough to kill insects that crawl on the treated surface over the coming days and weeks. However, at a seminar some years ago one of our industry’s noted experts stated that he would be surprised if ANY of our current products (mostly pyrethroids then) would give more than 2 weeks of effective residual when used for occasional invader pest insects outside. I recognize that this contradicts what some manufacturers tell us about their products, but I reserve the right to be suspicious. Perhaps some of them could last up to a month, especially where temps are lower and intense sun does not beat down on the treated surface. But, expecting the a.i. to last for 3 months would be wonderfully optimistic.

However, quarterly treatments certainly provide benefit, particularly if you combine them with the appropriate other steps in an overall pest management approach, meaning IPM – exclusion, source reduction, habitat modification, sanitation, etc. All of these steps minimize the ability of an arthropod pest to move into an environment and to breed and thrive there. The insecticide application is best viewed as a way to knock down the existing population so that it cannot recover quickly, and if your non-chemical steps have made life miserable for the pests in the landscape it will take them much longer to rebound and repopulate that area. If nothing is done other than treating around the foundation with a 2 foot band of chemical you may kill encroaching bugs for the next couple of weeks, and after that the constant pressure from areas beyond that 2 feet will be able to cross the treated zone and find a way inside.

I hope this answers the question without offending too many people, but we need to accept that a total reliance on pesticides is not the best approach to pest management, and customers of yours need to understand that changing the environment so that it is not conducive to pests living there is an important part of the program. Exclusion, in particular, should be explored, as our overall goal is not to eliminate all living things on the property, but to keep unwanted bugs and other animals out of the home.

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QUESTION:

I am dealing with spiders in the attic! Would BP-100 work? Could you please explain how BP-100 works, how long it will last, and is it a good product to use?

ANSWER:

Let’s deal with the residual question first, and this one is very subjective. You will find answers such as it deteriorates within minutes, maybe within a couple of hours, or it lasts for days. My personal opinion is that pyrethrum applied where it is exposed to light (sunlight or fluorescent) will degrade within 2 to 3 hours. If applied into a dark and relatively cool wall void I have heard it might last a few day. If applied into a dark but HOT attic we again are probably looking at no more than a few hours. Regardless of the length of time the molecule remains intact, pyrethrum should be considered as effective only if it can contact the arthropod while wet. This might be droplets of a fog or mist landing on the bugs or the bug crawling on the surface that still is wet from the spray landing on it.

One way to lengthen the residual is to use a microencapsulated formulation like Microcare CS. The active ingredient (the pyrethrum) is contained within those millions of microscopic capsules, and this protects it somewhat from environmental degradation until it slowly oozes out of the capsule. This might get you a couple of weeks of residual and also be effective once dried on the surface. Better for spiders are the synthetic pyrethroids, and most of them are not labeled for use as a space spray, which seems to be what you are looking for. They would need to be applied directly onto surfaces the spiders will crawl on, and this means crawling around in the attic. A possible option though would be a total-release aerosol such as Pro-Control Plus T/R aerosol with synergized pyrethrum AND cyfluthrin (a pyrethroid). This is labeled for attics and for spiders. You also could consider the use of a contact dust such as Drione or MotherEarth D. These are desiccants that last forever, are extremely low in hazard to people, and kill by causing dehydration of the arthropod when they scratch into the exoskeleton.

How does pyrethrum work, and BP-100 is a 1% pyrethrum with 5% dual synergists. The synergists are there to enhance the ability of the pyrethrum to kill arthropods by blocking their ability to metabolize the pyrethrum before they are killed by it. The specific mechanism by which pyrethrum actually causes the death of an arthropod goes like this, and it sounds a bit technical. Pyrethrum is an “Axonic Poison B”, which also called a “GABA-gated Sodium Channel Blocker”. Within an animal’s nervous system the nerve impulse is carried along through axons, and several “channels” in that axon are involved. In the case of pyrethrum it attaches to a protein in this sodium channel that normally would halt a nerve impulse from continuing. Binding to this important protein results in continuous firing of that nerve cell, and thus the insect cannot control it, organs are over-excited, and in a short time the organs fail and the insect dies.

This is the very same manner that some other insecticide families work on the nervous system, including the Synthetic Pyrethroids and some chlorinated hydrocarbons such as the old DDT. In general, pyrethrum is an excellent active ingredient with limitation on its use. It works only on exposed bugs and usually cannot penetrate under or into hiding places, and since it degrades so rapidly it cannot be counted on for residual results.

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QUESTION:

Are the chemicals safe to spray on
hardwood floors?

ANSWER:

You don’t indicate what kind of pest problem you are concerned with here, so I will just talk generally about the use of insecticides on hard floors. If this happens to be a wood infesting beetle problem in a hardwood floor you may be considering the use of a borate or some other WDO product on the floor, and this may not be appropriate. Since the floor likely has a finish on it you would not be able to use the product according to the Label, and the finish would prevent it from penetrating into the wood where it would do the most good.

Another consideration to keep in mind is whether or not treating that hard flooring for a pest is going to have any effect on the pest problem. Hard floors such as wood, linoleum, or tile are not places where most pests like to hang out. They may run across the floor on the way from one place to another, or in the case of fleas may end up hopping around on a hard floor as they search for a host animal, but treating general expanses of hard floors is not going to put your chemical active ingredient and the pest into much contact. If the floor needs treating at all the application might be best around the perimeter against the walls, where the crawling insects are most likely to be moving along. If it is fleas then a light mist of pyrethrum over the floor will kill the adult insects, and this could be released a couple of feet above the floor so that it does not wet the floor.

One concern with finished surfaces of natural wood is the potential effect your insecticide mixture may have on the finish. Aerosols have been the worst culprits in the past, as they often contained fairly strong solvents, and these solvents could permanently disfigure the finish. They might discolor it to create white patches or they might eat into the finish to cause pitting that cannot be altered without refinishing the surface. Many of the old liquid concentrates we used to have used solvents like xylene, and these also could affect the look of the clear finish on hardwood surfaces. Fortunately, today’s products have for the most part moved away from these kinds of solvents, and many even are water-based. Water alone should not affect the hardwood floor, other than leaving spots from the hardness of the water or from the active ingredient after the water evaporates. Hopefully these could be removed easily with a towel or a towel and a wood surface cleaner.

Wettable powders and microencapsulated formulations generally have no solvents of concern, so if the water alone will not harm the look of the finished wood surface then they should be appropriate. It is strongly advised that if you have a concern about this that you treat a very small, out of the way spot first, and then inspect it a couple of days later to see if there has been any negative effect. This might be in a closet, a corner under some furniture, or even a scrap piece of that flooring if it’s available. Installers often leave leftover pieces of the flooring with the homeowners.

In general I would say that most of our products today “could” be used on hardwood flooring without causing problems, but test it first to be sure. And, evaluate the pest problem there to decide if an application to the exposed floor surface really is necessary. Since the pest will normally be spending only moments on that open floor the better place to apply your treatment would be along edges, behind floor molding, within walls, etc. These all offer a much better chance to get the pest and the active ingredient together for the longest period of time, and also eliminate human exposure to the material.

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QUESTION:

I have a client with fleas but she does not have any pets and has had a home inspection to determine if there are any rodents trapped or dead inside of her chimney, walls, etc. She has the occasional cats (not hers) walking around the house outside, but it has been that way for three years with no issues. We have treated the home twice and she has indicated that the living areas are virtually free of fleas. However the basement has now become their home. I’ve used Demize as well as Transport GHP and she seems to think that the Transport GHP has worked the best. Do you have any idea as to where they might be coming from? Any suggestions of what else to use?

ANSWER:

A couple of observations or thoughts to start. First is that those outdoor cats could suddenly become the source of a flea infestation even if they were not creating one in the past. It is a matter of the cats themselves acquiring fleas from some other source and now carrying the fleas around on their bodies, shedding flea eggs wherever they happen to spend time. However, this should not account for a lot of fleas indoors if the cats stay only outdoors. What normally will happen, though, is that feral cats or wild animals such as raccoon or possum will find a way to live under a house or an adjacent deck, seeding the soil there with thousands of flea eggs over time, and the ensuing adult fleas can find their way into the home. I have seen this twice recently with major invasions of bathrooms in homes where the source was the crawlspace below or the soil under a wooden deck immediately outside.

Aside from those thoughts we know that fleas must come from a vertebrate host animal. The typical flea is the Cat Flea, and it is a permanent ectoparasite, meaning it prefers to remain on the host animal and does not readily hop on and off. But, the eggs fall of the host animal and the larvae live independently in carpets, on soil, or any other protected substrate where they can find food, and one part of their food must be dried fecal pellets of blood produced by adult fleas. These also fall off the host animal along with the eggs. So…….somewhere nearby you must have some location where host animals have been spending time, and this is important to locate. We would consider this to be the source of this problem, even though the adult fleas may be found some distance from the source, as they will move about looking for a new host animal to get onto.

Since this seems to be a lingering problem in the basement you either have continuing production of flea eggs coming from host animals that are resting, sleeping, living nearby, or it is the vestiges of a flea problem that occurred there but still is not gone. Your enemy in flea control is the flea pupa, as the flea that has developed within the pupa can remain there for a very long time – many months – waiting for the proper “stimulus” that signals that a host animal (food) is nearby. This may be physical contact or strong vibration. To get these last fleas out of that pupa and into the exposed adult stage you can recommend that this customer THOROUGHLY vacuum every square inch of the basement before you treat again, and if it is carpeted to vacuum again each day for the next week. You might even have her vacuum the upper living areas again just for the heck of it.

The products you have used should kill adult fleas just fine, but the Demize is more of a short lived contact product that provides little residual. Better might be a residual material such as the Transport or some other pyrethroid that will last a couple of weeks to affect new adult fleas. It also is important to use an IGR with the treatment. The growth regulators are terrific products that can mess up both flea eggs and larvae so they do not develop properly, and if you stop getting new adult fleas you break up the life cycle. The IGR can be applied along with the adulticide, and should last up to 6 months.

Without physically visiting this home and seeing the basement and configuration of the building it would be hard to know just where the initial host animals were living to begin this infestation. It’s possible those animals are still living around the home and continuing to seed the area with new flea eggs, or it’s possible this is just the remnants of an old infestation and the pupae that have not yet hatched. Take a fresh pair of eyes in there and look at that basement and the areas outside it to see what you can find. You might find a lot of those outdoor cats residing comfortably under some bushes or a deck or some other cozy place right outside the basement, and if so they should be discouraged.

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QUESTION:

What are the correct and effective preventive
measures to minimize mosquitoes and blood-
sucking flies activity around a given structure?


ANSWER:

Controlling flying insect pests can be one of the toughest things we do, especially if the focus has to be on the adult insect. We can concede that we cannot stop a fly from flying, and if there is some food attraction (in this case humans) these pests will head toward where we do not want them. I like to use my fingers to count on, so our choices for controlling biting flies are (1.) killing them after they enter the property we are managing (2.) killing them as adult flies before they reach the property (3.) controlling them in the larval stage before they become the biting adult insect. I suppose we also could toss in preventing them from biting, such as the use of long sleeves and repellents, and on a private property this advice may be useful to a homeowner, but on a commercial property such as a hotel it is not of any value. You are not going to get all guests at a nice hotel to put on repellent and long sleeved shirt and pants when they want to lay around the pool.

Larval control is the ideal method if it is possible. If you prevent the production of flying, biting adult flies you save yourself all that time and effort swattting at the adults. For mosquitoes this is very possible, as they must breed in standing water and the adult mosquitoes generally will be problems fairly close to where they grew up. Identifying all of these sources around that property and either draining the water away or treating it with a larvicide can be highly effective. You can educate customers to keep standing water eliminated where possible, such as clogged rain gutters, empty containers on the property with rainwater in them, tarps and other covers that hold water, depressions in the soil that can be filled, etc. They can manage bird baths, pools, ponds to keep water clean. And, you or they can use labeled IGR’s or bacterial products in the water that must remain to kill the larvae.

For other biting flies source control like this may not be practical. No-see-ums, sand flies, horse and deer flies – these all breed in any wet setting such as leaf litter, wet soils, etc., and controlling these larvae at their breeding sites may be impossible. Here you are stuck with dealing with biting adults. None of these flies, mosquitoes included, is highly attracted to UV light. Instead it is CO2 that is the primary attraction since this indicates a warm blooded host animal is present. Mosquito traps are one option you can consider, and while they will not eliminate mosquitoes they do help cut down the overall numbers.

Another effective option for mosquito adults is the use of barrier treatments, applying residual insecticides to the places you expect the adult mosquitoes to rest. Since all insects have to rest somewhere every day, and perhaps for much of the 24 hour period, if you can have a contact insecticide on those surfaces you will kill the adult flies. This may be vegetation such as shrubs or trees, may be within out-buildings such as sheds or pet houses, or under the eaves of the roofline around the structure. Some of the pyrethroid insecticides have been tested for this, and up to 3 weeks of good relief from biting adult mosquitoes has been the result.

There also is fogging with pyrethrum to kill adult insects that are present. This does a very good job of killing any flying insects that happen to be present at the time the fog is released, but pyrethrum leaves no residual, so you can plan on having more of the insects moving back into the treated area right away if the breeding sources are still producing them. However, you will definitely get some relief for awhile with fogging. On a small scale the “misting” products can extend this relief. These are permanently attached to a structure and on a programmed interval they release a timed amount of pyrethrum mist. Numerous nozzles can be used to provide this over a wider area to enhance the effect. Some regulatory agencies are concerned about misting devices, probably because they are used quite often around homes with no ability to control where the mist travels once emitted, and a neighbor may object to having their yard treated too.

If this is a private home you have some hope of educating the customers to wear long sleeves and long pants during those periods outdoors when biting flies will be present. You can strongly encourage the use of repellents, and new repellents are coming into the market to offer alternatives to DEET, which long has been the product of choice for effective and extended repellency. You can evaluate the home to ensure all windows are screened, doors closed or screened, and no other obvious entry points are present to allow biting flies to enter. Where these insects are a real problem you also can encourage the use of mosquito netting at night.

It is the use of these many options altogether that begin to put a dent in the problem, rather than relying on a single option that does only part of the job.

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QUESTION:

I am presently studying the Purdue course on “Termites and other wood destroying pests”. I have read that expansion joints are an entry way through which termites can attack a building. What is an expansion joint? How can I find them in the structure? How does one treat an expansion joint?

ANSWER:

Expansion joints are those seams you see in concrete as you walk along a sidewalk, and appropriately that seam is a cut all the way through the concrete. Like so many other materials concrete expands and contracts with changes in temperature, and if the concrete cannot expand slightly it might just crack and buckle, giving you a bigger problem. This joint may have only dirt in it or it may be filled with some kind of pliable sealant that fills it but still allows the sideways expansion to occur. Because the termites are able to burrow through this soil or the soft filler it does provide them with a way to pass through what otherwise would be impervious concrete.

Exterior slabs of concrete show the expansion joints pretty obviously. Another line you may see on concrete walkways is only a depression that goes an eighth of an inch or so into the concrete, and not all the way through. This is not a legitimate expansion joint. Instead, according to one account I read, this line is there only to allow normal cracking of the concrete upon drying to occur at this weakest, thinnest point. The crack then, hopefully, occurs as a straight line across the walkway at an intended location rather than haphazardly anywhere.

In the slab of a structure you might normally have a solid pour, and there are various kinds of slabs under structures – floating, monolithic, etc. Some may have expansion joints, particularly around the perimeters over the foundation. A Floating Earth slab is a slab poured on top of a gravel fill, with the expansion joint around the perimeter. A Supported Earth-filled Slab is similar, except it is poured on top of the foundation, but after the foundation already is in place and hardened. A Monolithic slab is one solid pour creating the slab and the foundation all at once, so no expansion joints exist around the perimeter.

Even if there is a solid slab with no expansion joints there are usually many other invading objects that go through the slab, such as pipes, drains, etc., and where these enter they may offer that break in the concrete around them that the termites can find a way through. Over time it also is normal for slabs to settle and crack, and even a thin crack could eventually become wide enough to admit the tiny worker termites. The only way to identify the presence of these expansion joints and stress cracks would be to pull back any coverings over them to see the concrete itself. This usually is carpeting, but the tough one for you would be hard flooring such as tile or wood, which you are not going to be able to destroy just to expose the slab. A basement may already have the slab exposed, easing the problem for you.

Treating expansion joints generally is done by drilling holes next to each joint and treating under the slab through those holes, just as you would treat any other location under the concrete slab. The goal would be to ensure that the soil under and around that expansion joint has been treated so that termites are forced to contact treated soil if they are attempting to access that joint.

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QUESTION:

I have a customer that has fleas. Not a big deal right? My question is that they have land turtles that roam around inside of the house. I know they need to be gone for 4 hours. Will it be safe to have them on the floors inside the house after we have treated for the fleas?

ANSWER:

There is an issue here regarding perception vs. reality. I asked a similar question of a product manufacturer years ago, where turtles or tortoises roamed the yard and a flea treatment was planned. The response was that in reality once the spray has dried it is highly unlikely that these reptiles would acquire any dangerous level of the active ingredient, and that keeping them off treated surfaces until those surfaces are dry “should” be sufficient. However, if anything were to happen in the near future to one of those animals you would probably be blamed. The suggestion then was to remove the animals entirely for a longer period of time, perhaps a week or two, and then wash down the treated areas before bringing the turtles back in.

In your case it should be simpler, as there must be some recourse for keeping these animals OUT of the house for a week or two. I won’t comment on the sanitation issues of allowing wild animals to roam freely through a home. Or did I just make a comment? We know that synthetic pyrethroids are relatively more toxic to cold blooded animals such as reptiles than they are to warm blooded animals (dogs, cats, birds, people), so the more you can avoid exposure to the recently applied material the better.

A few more thoughts. First, the “4 hours” restriction on allowing people and pets back into treated areas is only a guideline that we often use. The more appropriate guideline, and it is on most product labels, is to ensure no one re-enters “until the treated surfaces are dry”, and depending on the weather and other factors this may take much longer than 4 hours. They should test the carpets with a tissue paper first, pressing down on it with their shoe and checking for dampness, and only if it is dry should they re-enter.

Second, I believe that the best flea control includes the use of an IGR, and the growth regulators should have no effect whatsoever on reptiles or any other vertebrate. The IGR will last for months to interfere with proper development of eggs and larvae, and will prevent production of new adult fleas from these early stages. To eliminate the many fleas currently sitting within their protective cocoons in the pupa stage you MUST have the customer vacuum, vacuum, vacuum – before you get there for the first treatment and each day after for a week or more. They should vacuum every square inch of carpet and all edges of hard floors. This removes organic debris, some flea eggs, and causes the pupae to hatch to the adult stage so that it is exposed to your treat. You then could consider using only a pyrethrum product for the adult stage if there is strong concern about the use of a residual material. The pyrethrum/IGR combination will have a good result but you may need to retreat due to the lack of residual of the pyrethrum.

Determine WHY they have fleas, and presumably this is due to dogs or cats also in the home. If so these must be treated properly to eliminate all fleas, and some steps taken to prevent more fleas from infesting them, such as a topical product. After your first treatment it would be helpful to place a number of insect glue traps around the home to monitor your success, and again tell the customer that the more they vacuum the sooner this problem will be resolved.

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QUESTION:

What makes foam better than regular surface
sprays?

ANSWER:

Foam is only a carrier, but if you have watched some of the home improvement shows you may have seen where they applied foam insulation by spraying the liquid into a wall void. Immediately the liquid converts to an expanding foam that fills that void completely. While this is a bit different than using foam with insecticides it is similar. The foam you inject into a void expands to fill that void, carrying the insecticide mixed with the foam along with it to apply the active ingredient to all the surfaces the foam contacts. Since you are injecting this into an inaccessible void it offers an excellent means for getting the active ingredient onto all the surfaces, increasing the chances that insect pests will contact it.

Some of the first applications our industry had for this was foam injections under slabs. The termiticide is mixed in a tank along with the proper amount of foaming agent, and when it was injected the result was the foam expanding to push outward from that point. Since subterranean termites often would tube along the underside of the concrete where there had been settling and subsidence of the soil below that slab, this applied the active ingredient to all surfaces and kept the termites from bypassing the treatment.

Now we have various formulations of insecticides in foaming aerosol cans for injection into wall voids or directly into termite galleries in the wood. We could foam into a wall void for ants or termites using a contact insecticide mixed in a sprayer with the foaming agent, and using the proper equipment that is designed to create the foam upon release we increase the chances of depositing the active ingredient on more surface area. The trick is to regulate the foam output so it is a “dry” foam that expands and dissipates slowly, much like shaving cream, rather than a “wet” foam that runs down quickly and whose bubbles disappear rapidly. We also have foaming injection of drains for fly management, such as the Invade Bio-Foam products, perhaps using the Foamer Simpson for application.

We might use Fast-Out CS Foam for roach or bed bug control to increase surface area coverage in the hidden voids these insects hide in. We can do odor control using a liquid concentrate deodorizer, again mixed properly with the foaming agent in an applicator that will create the foam, and injecting it into voids where there is a source of a foul odor. Many pesticide labels will have specific instructions on how to use them with a foaming agent and a dedicated foaming applicator.

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