The 2012 National Conference on Urban Entomology (NCUE), which took place May 20-23 in Atlanta, covered several topics of interest to pest management professionals (PMPs). Drs. Doug Mampe and Austin Frishman summarize some of the highlights.
Dr. Mampe’s NCUE Notebook:
Termites
- A lab study utilizing 800 colonies showed that the king and queen lived a full year. Egg production was intermittent. The number of workers peaked in the third month, then stabilized until the 10th month. The biomass of the king and queen decreased during this period (they were feeding young), then stabilized when workers began bringing in food.
- A study used fipronil dust to treat termite tunnels. Tunneling decreased within 24 to 48 hours. This could be an adjunct to soil treatments to hasten the decrease of activity within structures. Termidor Dry, a dust, is transferred to other termites within 20 hours. This technique may be applied to flight ports and shelter tubes. Watch for labels.
- There were several studies using DuPont Professional Products’ Altriset in soils. This product has shown seven years of 100% control in field tests. Exterior-only treatments might permit some activity to show up after treatment. An indoor spot treatment to active areas prevents this. At five years, 57% of the Altriset remains in the soil.
Bed Bugs
- When using heat for control in a room, PMPs must apply a residual to the perimeter so bed bugs cannot move out of the heated area. Temprid and Transport were not affected by heat, and provided the best control when used with heat, according to the study.
- Bed bugs produce two chemicals that alert trained dogs. These chemicals disappear one hour after the bug dies. However, crushed skins have high levels of the chemicals. Trained dogs in lab situations can be 98% successful detecting bed bugs, but in the field, they often fall below 50% accuracy. Dogs perform best when their handlers are trained as well. Past military or security people who have worked with dogs make good handlers. The best bed bug dogs have their “alerts” confirmed by visual inspections, and rewarded with food or play.
- The best monitors are pitfall monitors. A new one will be on the market later this year. The use of carbon dioxide (CO2) enhances monitors, but only if the room is vacant. If a person is in the room, his or her CO2 competes with the monitor.
CO2 rates of 400 ml/minute work best. When using active monitors (CO2 or lures), use two per room for one night. When using passive (climb-up) monitors, use four per room for at least one week to detect bed bugs. Monitors can reduce populations, but will not eliminate infestations.
House Dust Mites
A study showed it requires 23 to 30 days for a house dust mite to go from egg to adult. There can be up to 9,300 mites in
a gram of dust. Mattresses could contain tens of thousands of mites.
Rover Ants
The best baits tested were Terro and Advance Gel. Granular baits produced poor results.
Caribbean Crazy Ants
There is some debate among researchers as to whether we have more than one species. Regardless, these ants do not feed on oily baits. They want protein baits most of the time, but switch to carbohydrates in the fall. Amdro Pro bait was the best performer, with Maxforce Complete a close second. These ants like vegetation and leaf litter. They need high relative humidity. PMPs should bait in early February, when populations are small, for solid, seasonlong control. More work is needed to develop best control methods. Natural (“Green”) Insecticides Most natural insecticides are repellent and have no residual effect. They are great as contact sprays for pests such as spiders. The potential for slip-and-falls (from oily surfaces) and odor can be problems, however.
Dr. Frishman’s NCUE Notebook:
Every other year since 1986, urban entomologists from academia, industry and government gather to share their
latest research. They exchange ideas and concerns. My head is still spinning from the surplus of information shared at the 13th National Conference on Urban Entomology (NCUE), held May 20-23 in Atlanta. In an attempt to digest and share the plethora of pest management information dished up at NCUE, I’ve compiled highlights
from the nearly 70 NCUE presentations I attended. It should be noted that it’s impossible to attend concurrent lectures, so I zeroed in on the topics I believe are most relevant to Pest Management Professional (PMP) readers. That is, I concentrated on general household pests including ants, cockroaches, and of course, bed bugs.
Bed Bugs
Molly Stedfast, a graduate student from Virginia Tech’s entomology department, talked about the high cost of bed bug work and how low-income sites can’t afford it. Stedfast explained a six-point program she’s developed, which includes:
vacuums; diatomaceous earth (DE); mattress covers; passive monitors; heat boxes; and a focus on training staff and the
public on how to inspect for and identify bed bugs.
However, the portion of Stedfast’s presentation I found most interesting concerned projected costs analysis for performing bed bug work without heat treatment. A hypothetical preventative bed bug model was used to
illustrate this cost formula for treatment in multi-unit buildings: Number of units X average time spent (in minutes) on each unit X $1 (based on the estimated cost of a technician working at $60 per hour).
In her example, Stedfast stated the model property consists of 120 rooms, and 36 minutes is the average time spent treating each unit. Thus: 120 units X 36 minutes X $1 = $4,320 In my opinion, it would be impossible for PMPs to sustain this formula and continue to be profitable. However, Stedfast’s $600-perapartment
heat treatment model put this price in perspective. This time, the imaginary property contained 26 infested units:
26 units X $600 = $15,600. Consider that you might need to treat adjacent apartments, Stedfast added, and the price could be closer to $30,000.
The obvious point of this presentation was to address the primary problem with bed bug management: It is not cheap. Furthermore, bed bug management in low-income housing has more challenges and costs than with most single-family home treatments. She suggests bed bug management also requires preventative programs because the chance of reinfestation is notoriously high.
To this point, Allison Taisey, project coordinator of Cornell University’s Northeastern IPM Center, presented a program
she helped develop for bed bug management in low-income housing. The centerpiece of her program is communication with residents. For example, a PMP or well-educated member of in-house staff might teach the bed bug basics — including what to look for and how to look for it. Taisey explained that when there are individuals inspecting every apartment at least once a month, the efforts go a long way toward preventing or slowing the spread of bed bugs throughout a multiunit complex.
Dr. Jason Meyer, a BASF Pest Control Solutions market development specialist, offered his own proactive approach to
commercial bed bug control — treating on a regular basis. This includes:
1. Dust treating primary areas every six months; and
2. Treating secondary areas (picture frames, baseboards, box springs, behind electrical outlet plates) once a year.
Meyer explained that this approach was taken at a 65-unit building with six known infestations documented in the six months prior to treatment. After nine months of monitoring, the building remains bed bug-free. Dr. William Donahue Jr., founder and owner of Sierra Research Laboratories in Modesto, Calif., shared findings that indicate susceptible
strains of bed bugs will try to avoid pyrethroid-treated surfaces. His studies show that in lab conditions, bed bugs deposited 20 times more eggs on nontreated surfaces than on treated surfaces.
Richard Cooper, technical director of Cooper Pest Solutions, Lawrenceville, N.J., shared results of his studies on evaluating bed bug detection dogs. Cooper’s work in this area is both valuable and practical to the pest management industry. Highlights of his findings include:
A dog and trainer showing zero false positives on one day can show 43% more false positives
the next day. A dog starting out with a 100% detection rate on Day One can see that rate drop to 25% over the next two days. Accuracy rates for bed bug scent-detecting dogs are well below the claims of many advertisements, and the dogs with high detection rates also often had high falsepositive
rates.
From a legislative perspective, Susan Jennings, the public health liaison for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of Pesticide Programs, indicated that until now, the EPA was looking at bed bugs as it had every other indoor pest — not as a public health issue. Jennings reported that eventually, the agency teamed with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to assert the public health importance of bed bugs. According to her, the two agencies have issued a joint statement declaring this.
Unfortunately, Jennings said, there are no additional resources to do anything more. The EPA is, however, in the process of establishing standards for testing the efficacy of products claiming to kill and repel bed bugs.
Ants
A wide array of ant topics, including presentations on baits and the chemicals used to manage ants, drew interest at this year’s NCUE. Dr. Laurel Hansen’s survey found Formica ants (mound builders), which typically are found outdoors, do invade structures, nest in wall voids and occasionally bite people. Sierra Research Laboratories’ Dr. Donahue explained how he’s come to the conclusion that most PMPs in California are spraying with pyrethroids for active Argentine ant infestations. Recent changes in the use of pyrethroids outdoors stemmed from research conducted in California; more than 90% of water samples analyzed in northern, central and southern regions of the state contained detectable amounts of fipronil and bifenthrium. Dr. Donahue went on to discuss “minimum effective rates” of pyrethroids, functioning under the assumption that this will result in less product runoff.
Christina Boser, a researcher with the Nature Conservancy in Arlington, Va., revealed specific ants are beginning to show up at unexpected locations. For instance, she reported that stinging ants of the genus Hypoponera were found in three
of nine Canadian provinces. Similarly, ghost ants (Tapinoma melanocephalum) were found in two Canadian locations separated by significant amounts of geography. Finally, the European red fire ant (Myrmica rubra) is located in five different Ontario locations — as well as the northeast U.S., including one isolated case in Pennsylvania.
Boser also presented a paper on “Argentine Ant Management on Santa Cruz Island.” Boser revealed data that compared two different specialty formulating ant baits — one containing thiomethoxam and the other methoprene. The product containing thiomethoxam was applied to an infestation four times at monthly intervals in the summer. The methoprene product was applied once in early spring and again in late fall. (According to Boser’s data, the methoprene product was ineffective at controlling Argentine ants.) By monitoring the before and after effects, they were able to show how some pesticides play an important role in saving native ants, horned lizards and endangered bird species, and prevent a decline in invertebrate diversity.
Dr. Art Appel of Auburn (Ala.) University led a discussion on the use of natural pesticides on ants. He described the complexity of natural pesticides and the difficulty involved in analyzing these products. Stability, he explained, is very difficult to attain. For example, in one test, limonene killed ants — but one month later had no effect.
Dr. John Paige, a field development representative of Bayer Environmental Science, added that California’s Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) would consume large amounts of sugar baits once aphid populations are significantly reduced.
Finally, Dr. Roberto Pereira, an associate research scientist at the University of Florida, made three interesting points about the Caribbean crazy ant:
1. They drive fire ants out of an area;
2. Cold months knock back their populations; and
3. In the spring, the ants have a single principle focus, although in the summer they disperse over a wider area.
Ticks
Maine Medical Center Research Institute Field Biologist Charles Lubelczyk reported on the use of “minimum-risk” botanical compounds to control vector ticks and Lyme disease. Lyme disease incidents continue to rise in Maine, Lubelczyk said. He compared IC2 (rosemary-wintergreen oil) with bifenthrin and their effects on ticks. Both had an adequate knockdown effect on larval and adult-stage ticks. (Non-target insects were shown to rebound more quickly from IC2 treatments compared to bifenthrin.)
Cockroaches
North Carolina State University’s Dr. Coby Schal discussed his study of cockroach allergens, reporting that 37% of innercity children with asthma are sensitized to cockroach allergens. The question remains: Do allergen mitigations improve the health of asthmatic children? Though we don’t have the answers, millions of dollars have been spent trying to find out.
According to Schal, a hydramethylnon product that provides more than 97% knockdown in most apartments, reduces allergens by 96% in the same apartments. Reporting on cockroach allergens in schools, Schal referred to a report in the 2008 Journal of Medical Entomology. The report, Schal said, compares monthly conventional services using baseboard and crack/crevice applications to an integrated pest management (IPM) bait program. Results revealed that the baiting program was tied to a significantly lower number of cockroach allergens in schools. As an aside, he explained that allergens existing at the test sites are not removed, and that removal requires expensive cleaning. The Blattella germanica allergen 1 (known as Bla g 1 allergen) is produced in the midgut of the cockroach and excreted in the feces.
The adult female German cockroach produces 1,152 times more Bla g 1 than a first-instar nymph. Natural Pesticides
Keith Willingham, vice president of technical services for Anaheim, Calif.-based Western Exterminating, explained how his company’s pesticide use has changed significantly since 1990. According to Willingham, Western had a 99.3% decrease in the use of pesticides labeled with the words “danger” or “warning.” Additionally, Western technicians have stopped spaying eaves at every account, and now use a cobweb brush instead. The company’s training program also now covers the effects of chemicals applied in the open. They now primarily rely on essential oils. Insect baits, Willingham explained, are Western’s first choice — but during the hotter months, Western techs sometimes have to fall back on the use of pyrethroids. Willingham also noted that the use of fipronil products have significantly reduced callbacks.
“Depending on pest pressure, our primary products are ‘green’ and low-impact,” Willingham said. “And depending on ant pressure, a possible [fipronil] treatment in April or May. In the summer months, the green products can still be used, but they might need to be supplemented with a second fipronil and/or pyrethroid treatment.”
Editor’s Note: The next NCUE will take place May 18-21, 2014, in San Antonio, Texas. Learn more about this conference online at http://ncue.tamu.edu. You can reach Frishman, an industry consultant since 1967 and president of AMF Pest Management Services, at mypmp@northcoastmedia.net. You can reach Dr. Mampe, an industry consultant, at dentomol@aol.com.
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