Tips & Tricks from Industry Suppliers
Flies
Joe Barile
Technical Services Lead
Bayer Environmental Science
Pest management professionals (PMPs) servicing their accounts for large filth fly infestations should focus on localized resource sites that provide adult flies a breeding medium that attracts oviposition (egg-laying) and the food, water and shelter for immature flies to feed and develop. These sites are almost always associated with waste-handling or poor localized sanitation (dumpsters, trash cans, drains).
It is highly recommended PMPs “turn around” and make sure they take a strategic view of their fly accounts. Large filth flies (house, lesser house and blow flies) can travel for miles from their original infestation sites to invade new facilities.
Population pressure and/or weather can move flies to seek new resource sites — like your accounts. Migrating flies are attracted to new sites by odor, color and shelter a structure might provide. Educating your customers on the location(s) of potential perpetual fly pressure is part of your responsibility as a practitioner of integrated pest management (IPM).
During your outdoor inspection, turn around and look for natural and manmade features that direct and guide migrating flies toward your accounts. Examples include highways, rivers, streams and tree lines. These pathways direct inbound migrating flies to specific approaches to your accounts. These approaches are key areas to concentrate management practices like sanitation and baiting to intercept invading flies.
Visit BackedbyBayer.com for additional information.
Chris Swain
Technical Services Manager
MGK
Flies can be hard to control in residential and commercial settings. Locating the source of the infestation is important in fly management. During inspection, look for conducive conditions. Like all insects, flies seek out food, water and shelter.
It’s extremely important you know which fly species has infested a structure. Species identification gives you a better understanding of what is required to accomplish control. Flies have habits and behaviors unique to each species. This information is important when constructing a control plan.
For example, fruit flies can breed and survive inside a structure, while house flies are often found outside a structure and find their way inside through available entry points. Fruit flies may require indoor treatments, while the house fly may only require exclusion.
Sanitation is probably the most important aspect of fly control. The removal of supporting conditions makes it difficult for flies to thrive. Sanitation includes the removal of breeding sites, limiting the access of food and water, and routine cleanings.
To have a successful fly control program, PMPs must communicate with their clients. It is important to educate clients on the specific insect’s behavior, and what they can do to help the PMP reduce, eliminate and prevent re-infestations.
Visit MGK.com for additional information.
Jared Harris & Brian Mann
Sales Specialist & Marketing Services Manager
BASF Pest Control Solutions
Flies in and around commercial food establishments annoy customers, prompt the assumption of unsanitary conditions and can serve as vectors for disease. A common misconception that control is as easy as installing insect light traps (ILTs) has created a tendency to overlook the importance of a comprehensive control program.
Effective, long-term fly control requires an integrated approach that includes identifying threats, locating breeding sites and access points, and employing the right environmental, procedural, mechanical and chemical tactics. We offer the following seven steps when approaching any customer fly control program:
1. Identify the species of flies infesting or threatening the facility.
2. Locate all likely breeding sites indoors and outdoors, as well as likely access points.
3. Determine the distribution of the flies within the facility.
4. List all environmental, procedural and mechanical improvements needed to reduce or eliminate the susceptibility of the building to fly infestation.
5. Select the chemical (contact and residual insecticides) and non-chemical (ILTs, exclusion materials) best suited for the particular facility.
6. Explain the appropriate control strategies to the customer, and identify those elements of the process the customer is responsible for, such as cleanup, operational practices and repair.
7. To the extent possible, simultaneously deploy all control tactics.
Visit PestControl.BASF.us for additional information.
Pat Callahan
National Sales & Marketing Manager
LG Life Sciences
Fly control is as varied a subject as almost any form of pest control. There are multiple species with different behaviors, breeding locations and preferred infestation sites. In large commercial food processing or warehousing facilities, the use of air doors and fans providing air movement around loading docks is often a good, non-chemical strategy. Using ultra low-volume fogging chemicals and equipment is often the best way to treat large-area accounts.
In restaurants and delis, the use of fans, especially in food preparation areas, can help.
Make targeted applications of encapsulated residual liquids through a sponge applicator around the upper part of door frames, ceiling moldings, exit signs, light fixtures, flood lights, track lights or emergency lights to provide residual kill when flies land. Outside the back of food accounts and around dumpsters, apply fly attractants. The use of insect light traps can be helpful indoors in these accounts as well.
E-mail pcallahan@lglsna.com for additional information.
ElRay Roper
Senior Technical Representative
Syngenta Professional Pest Management
Warmer weather means the return of flies as a major control challenge. Filth flies not only are a nuisance, but also are known to transmit diseases such as salmonella and E. coli.
The key to any control program is sanitation. Spraying for adult flies will not break the reproductive cycle. PMPs will continue to battle flies through the summer season unless breeding sites are removed or treated. Ask property owners to clean up garbage, wash garbage cans and dumpsters, and repair leaky pipes and drains.
External treatments to the resting sites of adult flies can help reduce breeding adults. Apply a fast-acting pyrethroid insecticide around the property. Keep in mind, though, repeated use of a pyrethroid insecticide for fly control may result in resistance to the insecticide. Improved, long-term control can be achieved by the use of an insect growth regulator (IGR), especially to potential breeding sites. This will help break the reproductive cycle by preventing molting in the juvenile stages.
Visit SyngentaPMP.com for additional information.
Leave A Comment