Sep 27, 2011 – The Role of Additives in Bed Bug Control
QUESTION:
I know you mentioned Kicker and Exciter for helping with the knockdown phase of treating bed bugs, but what about Exponent. What purpose does this serve and does it help with bed bug treatment as well?
ANSWER:
I like to play it shy and wait for the official information from our excellent researchers at some of our major universities, such as the Univ. of Kentucky, before going too far out on that limb with my own conclusions. But, so many PMP's are using pyrethrum with their other bed bug treatment products, and telling us that it seems to improve the control effort, that there must be something to it. Just what this is I can only guess at for the moment. Perhaps it is the pyrethrum itself that adds to the overall chemical load on that bed bug to help cause its death. Perhaps it is the immediate effect that pyrethrum has on insects that stuns the insect long enough to keep it in contact with your residual products longer, or to help absorb more of the residual into the system of the bed bug, or to weaken the bed bug initially and allow the other molecules to work better. What is well known is that there is HIGH resistance by bed bugs to many of our commonly used products, so overcoming this resistance somehow is needed.
Way back in the Olden Days of organophosphates and Carbamates we had a product called Ficam, a carbamate with the active ingredient of bendiocarb. Initially the manufacturer touted the fantastic results Ficam would give killing German roaches, but the industry found otherwise, and eventually it was realized that the German Roach could somehow metabolize the bendiocarb molecule and excrete it efficiently enough to survive that exposure to this molecule. So, they came out with Ficam Plus, which added synergized pyrethrum to the bendiocarb, and this worked better. Note the word "synergized", because there are two primary synergists used in pyrethrum products - piperonyl butoxide and MGK 264. These synergists are there for one reason - to BLOCK the ability of insects to metabolize pyrethrum and survive its effects. Pyrethrum knocks things down quickly, but does not easily kill roaches on its own. Flies yes, roaches no. Exponent is piperonyl butoxide (PBO).
Later we also got aerosols that combined residuals like propoxur (Baygon) with PBO with the realization that the PBO somehow enhanced the effect even of an excellent residual like propoxur. So, maybe it is the PBO in Kicker and Exciter that is doing the additional work when we add these pyrethrum products to our residual materials. Hard to say, but that is why our researchers are madly working on the answers to these concerns in the effort to improve our ability to kill bed bugs with insecticides.
I suspect that Exponent would also have a very positive effect when added properly to your mixture of the residuals that you use. If PBO somehow blocks the resistance to active ingredients of other kinds in other insects maybe it also would help to overcome the resistance bed bugs are showing to so many pyrethroids. Just my unofficial conclusion, and not based on anything I have read to date.
View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.
I know you mentioned Kicker and Exciter for helping with the knockdown phase of treating bed bugs, but what about Exponent. What purpose does this serve and does it help with bed bug treatment as well?
ANSWER:
I like to play it shy and wait for the official information from our excellent researchers at some of our major universities, such as the Univ. of Kentucky, before going too far out on that limb with my own conclusions. But, so many PMP's are using pyrethrum with their other bed bug treatment products, and telling us that it seems to improve the control effort, that there must be something to it. Just what this is I can only guess at for the moment. Perhaps it is the pyrethrum itself that adds to the overall chemical load on that bed bug to help cause its death. Perhaps it is the immediate effect that pyrethrum has on insects that stuns the insect long enough to keep it in contact with your residual products longer, or to help absorb more of the residual into the system of the bed bug, or to weaken the bed bug initially and allow the other molecules to work better. What is well known is that there is HIGH resistance by bed bugs to many of our commonly used products, so overcoming this resistance somehow is needed.
Way back in the Olden Days of organophosphates and Carbamates we had a product called Ficam, a carbamate with the active ingredient of bendiocarb. Initially the manufacturer touted the fantastic results Ficam would give killing German roaches, but the industry found otherwise, and eventually it was realized that the German Roach could somehow metabolize the bendiocarb molecule and excrete it efficiently enough to survive that exposure to this molecule. So, they came out with Ficam Plus, which added synergized pyrethrum to the bendiocarb, and this worked better. Note the word "synergized", because there are two primary synergists used in pyrethrum products - piperonyl butoxide and MGK 264. These synergists are there for one reason - to BLOCK the ability of insects to metabolize pyrethrum and survive its effects. Pyrethrum knocks things down quickly, but does not easily kill roaches on its own. Flies yes, roaches no. Exponent is piperonyl butoxide (PBO).
Later we also got aerosols that combined residuals like propoxur (Baygon) with PBO with the realization that the PBO somehow enhanced the effect even of an excellent residual like propoxur. So, maybe it is the PBO in Kicker and Exciter that is doing the additional work when we add these pyrethrum products to our residual materials. Hard to say, but that is why our researchers are madly working on the answers to these concerns in the effort to improve our ability to kill bed bugs with insecticides.
I suspect that Exponent would also have a very positive effect when added properly to your mixture of the residuals that you use. If PBO somehow blocks the resistance to active ingredients of other kinds in other insects maybe it also would help to overcome the resistance bed bugs are showing to so many pyrethroids. Just my unofficial conclusion, and not based on anything I have read to date.
View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.
