Termites in Cheyenne, Wyoming?!

Over the last five posts as The People's Entomologist, I have made it a special point to blog on topics that I think you, the public, would take interest in like bed bugs, interior pest harborage, and reduced impact methods of controlling pests.  Wasps, flies, bed bugs, boxelder bugs, ants, mice; seasonal invaders of all types.  I work with them, I understand them, I can control them, and I can educate you about them. But, truth be told, I don't love them.  Or at least, they were not my first entomological love.  It's time that I share with you readers the unvarnished truth about the The Peoples Entomologist.  Recently dubbed 'the Garrison Keelor of urban entomolgy', he speaks about himself in the third person, and he loves subterranean termites!
I know this probably comes as a shock to you because I have done such a convincing job of suppressing that side of myself in this blog.  I did it because I thought that people had heard enough about termites in the media, in our advertising, and in conversations with easily entertained pest controllers like myself.  I jumped on the bed bug bandwagon like so many other attention grabbers and hoped for all the optimal search engine results I could get.  But the time has arrived to end my silence.  The time is now to talk about subterranean termites and all of their hijinks here in Nebraska and Wyoming. 
This revelation came to me on a day while I was doing inspections in Torrington, Wyoming, some of them for purchasers in real estate deals, some for concerned private parties.  In the course of a day I inspected four houses, three of which had evidence of termite infestation.  That's right Torrington, you're odds of avoiding termite infestation are not so good.  On that same day I got a call from +Terron Soto who had found termite swarmers in a home in Glendo, Wyoming.  Now, some of you who are not involved in pest control industry might not know how exciting this short sequence of events is for someone like me, but let me tell you that I was thoroughly stoked.  Termite swarmers are the winged reproductive members of a termite colony, bred and groomed to enable that colony(usually a healthy, thriving, and expanding colony with resources to expend) to export their progeny to the far flung corners of their usual foraging territory to begin procreation. What exactly does that mean?  Termite swarmers fly away from the colony and start new termite colonies.  If and when this takes place, it usually happens in the Springtime.  However, for the last 8-10 + years, it seems like hasn't happened at all.  The reason why is a long and complicated list of theories that we won't get into here.  The point is, subterranean termites are alive and well here in Nebraska and Wyoming, always have been, and will, apparently, become all the more so in the future.  With those facts in mind, I thought that it might be a good time to mine the memory banks of the area's most seasoned termite experts to inform and entertain you readers with our adventures in termite control.
To start, let me take you back to 1993 when your's truly was about to begin middle school.  I had one very simple desire, to arrive at the first day of school sporting a $90 pair of Nikes.  The desire was simple enough, but it was the execution that was not as clear.  $90 happened to be roughly three times the budget allotted me by my parents and it was probably twice what my Dad was spending on his work boots at the time.  Not one to be easily swayed from my determination, I didn't see these as insurmountable problems, just problems.  Fortunately, there was a solution.  You see, obviously I wasn't born into money, but being born into a family operated pest control business, I was born into a job.  Come to think of it, in post-2008 America, that is the same as being born into money, I just didn't know it at the time.  But, I digress.  At the time, my Dad was two years into sole ownership of the business and selling termite treatments in Scottsbluff, Gering, Torrington, Sidney, Alliance, and Chadron.  He was selling them at an average of two a day it seemed, which was a good amount of work in itself just to sell them, but then they needed to be done as well.  He had a small crew working with him to complete the work, which at the time amounted to some dirty routine labor like drilling holes in concrete, vacuuming concrete dust, digging trenches in soil, and hauling scrap lumber out of crawlspaces.  At the age of 12 I was nearly foreman material for this type of work, so I joined in 2-3 days a week.  In a day's work I could pull down $25.  With Summer vacation being about 3 months long, it didn't take too long to reach my goal of rocking some fresh kicks.  In fact, compared to my friends who had paper delivery routes that netted them about $90 a month, I became a well bankrolled young man.  It was then that I realized that I loved termites.  Many years later, I became as fascinated with the insects themselves as I was with their capital potential!
"But what about Termites in Cheyenne, Wyoming?" you're asking yourself.  I won't completely answer that right now, that is for next time.  I will just leave you with this; I have seen termites do some amazing things, including a number of things that they are said to do infrequently or not at all.  I have worked alongside some other seasoned termite pros and we have marveled at the seeming determination and will of the subterranean termite to thrive and forage at all costs.  So tune in next time to learn about some of these amazing feats of the social insect known as the subterranean termite.  Until then, you have been reading 'The People's Entomologist', who is where the pests are, which happens to be where you are.

Overwintering Until Winter is Over

This is what happens to bugs that don't find a suitable spot to spend the winter.

About this time of year, we seem to get a lot of phone calls from very surprised customers that say things like  "I can't believe I have flies in the middle of the winter! Where could they be coming from?"  That is a typical statement in which you could replace 'flies' with all sorts of things like wasps, boxelder bugs, assassin bugs, ants, elm leaf beetles, etc.  Our customer's sentiments demonstrate that not only do many people assume that in the dead of winter(no pun intended), all of the seasonally invasive pests that they associate with the outdoors are dead, but also that these pests are not indeed dead!  So let's walk through some scenarios by which you find your home inundated with insects while the weather outside is frightful.   Since we started with flies, let's continue with flies.  This will be entitled ' A Fly's Journey Home', only it's not the fly's home, it's yours.
     All through the Summer months you notice flies here and there.  House flies gather on the shady side of your home on the really hot days, bottle flies billow up from the dumpster every time you take out the trash, and they all join with the yellow jackets to help you with your weekend barbecue.  Moving into early Fall, you notice that their activity is not quite as consistent throughout the day as it has been, many of the flies you find in the morning hours are clustered together in corners of window frames or behind gutter downspouts.  They don't seem to be as active as they once were, until the warmer afternoon hours of the day.  Every time you walk into your house, it seems like they are trying harder to follow you in.  By late Fall, the nighttime temperatures are dropping into the mid 30's and you are seeing fewer and fewer flies all of the time.  Your anticipation for the first frost to come along and kill every last one of those ants, flies, wasps, boxelder bugs, earwigs, and beetles is high, right? Wrong!  The truth is that every time you noticed a change in the behavior or number of flies throughout the changing weather conditions, they were moving, not dying.  Now that statement is not absolute, in that some insects do not find warmer places to go as the weather gets colder, and the Asian lady beetle that tries to weather a 0* night on the bottom side of a picnic table is in worse shape than the above pictured Volkswagon; but it is true for many, many invasive pests.
     Early on in my pest control career I was controlling flies at a dairy farm and I learned a lot about the preferences and behavior of flies.  I once observed an extension cord that ran from an outdoor electrical outlet to a water tank where it powered the heater that kept the cows' watered thawed during freezing temperatures.  This yellow extension cord that laid on the ground was absolutely encrusted with fly feces.  Now all around me were things that I knew flies loved, milk, manure, moisture, molasses!  Why were so many flies clustering on this electrical cord?  For the same reason that the tank heater was in the water, heat.  I don't know any dazzling scientific facts to emphasize the fly's magnificent heat-seeking abilities, but I do have that extension cord covered in fly poop during the winter to prove my point.  Fact is, as the weather outside cools down during the day and then does so even more drastically during the night, all sorts of pests have the ability to detect small amounts of warmth and to move towards it's source.  A boxelder bug who spends most of it's time near your home's foundation might find good opportunities in following heat through an aged window frame or gaps in the home's siding.  Since flies can fly, they are not limited in the location of the entry points into your home, so in addition to windows, doors, and vents, they often end up behind gutters, and in the cracks of soffit and facia.  These areas can lead directly into your attic which might happen to be a very comfortable place, at least for a while.  Before I continue with part two of 'A Fly's Journey Home', let me break to give you one example of what pests are looking for in the Fall months. 
     During the course of a given Winter, let's say for example that your daytime highs are in the high 30's and your nighttime lows are in the low 20's.  Your soil temperature at a depth of 4" away from a heated structure is 28*F.  The ground is not frozen because it doesn't rain or snow in Southeast Wyoming or the Nebraska Panhandle, at least not in 2012-2013.  You approach the outside of your home's foundation and rake away the mulch to expose the soil, or you lift up a yard ornament like a whiskey barrel planter, and what do you find?  Ants, live ants!  The ants that were supposed to be killed off by that hard frost months ago.  That's because for every 1 inch of mulch or other dense ground cover that those insects can scurry into, they gain 10* of warmth.  Amazing eh?  Alright, enough of this fun-facting and back to flies in an attic.
     I once entered the attic of a rural home located about a mile from a feedlot(that's a feed facility for cattle, in case anyone from New England is reading this).  The customer complained of a Wintertime plague of flies in the window sills, dozens a day, at a time when it didn't feel 20* warm in the sunshine.  When I lifted the attic access, before I could even shine my light around, the problem was made obvious by the sound of hundreds of buzzing flies occupying the attic space.
     Since most of us don't heat our attics(at least intentionally), eventually those flies who once had a good thing going  by escaping the elements and warming themselves in your attic, realize that the attic is now too cold for comfort and they use their super heat-seeking abilities to find the next warmest spot, which happens to be the living space of your house that can be easily accessed through a number of light fixture penetrations between your attic and ceiling.  Ever wonder why you find bugs in light fixture covers?  Once in your home, the fly is warm and perhaps recently fed. Time to indulge one of the fly's other insatiable desires, ultraviolet light.  Cue the window sill and fly is  basking in the glow, literally. He or she then expends whatever remaining energy and lifespan that remains in them trying to fly through a pane of glass.  Repeat this process daily for a two week period that results in piles of dead flies and then you call Benzel Pest Control and say "I can't believe I have flies in the middle of Winter!  Where could they be coming from?"
 "Have you read my blog?" replies The People's Entomologist.
     You can cancel your DishTV and your Netflix subscription because I can tell stories this good all day long, once a week.  You are the residents of Bayard, Bridgeport, Albin, Burns, Cheyenne, Crawford, Sidney, Alliance, Wheatland, Lusk, Torrington, and Scottsbluff.  I am The People's Entomologist and I can be found where you are, and at www.BenzelPest.com.

The Death of a Bedbug

Last week, readers of this blog enjoyed the special treat of a one-of-a-kind first in human understanding of insect behavior.  I know that many of you, still reeling with delight from last week's engaging conversation, were looking forward to a bit more time with our new friend, Leon Redbelly, an adult bed bug.  But what I have to tell you readers may be one of the most difficult things I've been called on to do in my nearly four weeks as a blogger who focuses on urban entomology.  You see, Leon Redbelly enjoyed his last blood meal on the morning that we spoke. 

     I returned to the place in which Leon and I had our first conversation, just two days afterward.  With none of our agreements concerning his privacy any longer in place, I can disclose to you that the headboard that Leon called home, was in a hotel.  I expected to find Leon feverishly pursuing the things that we all know he loved: idle time, blood meals, and mating.  Instead I found a hotel room completely devoid of any insect life, disassembled, sanitized.  The headboard had been removed from where it once hung and leaned against a wall, bed rails taken apart and arranged on the floor, the mattress and box spring encased with zippered covers.


Leon Redbelly
April 2012-January 2013

     I found out from the hotel staff that the evening after my visit with Leon, the guest that had stayed in the room called the hotel in a panic, demanding a refund for what they had spent on their stay, and wanting compensated for a professional treatment of bed bugs in their own home.  The reason was that while unpacking their belongings at home, the guest had found two bed bugs in the contents of their suitcase.  The hotel management responded by immediately ordering professional treatment of the room with the report of bed bugs, and requesting that thorough inspections take place in all surrounding rooms.  We do not know if Leon was one of the bed bugs that traveled in the suitcase to the guests home or not, but we do know that there were no survivors of the incident.  While this was a difficult reality to face on a personal level, it is just a small demonstration of what occurs daily on a global scale; human vigilance eradicating bed bug infestations.
     So what specific things are people doing that results in the deaths of countless millions of bed bugs?  How is it that people are intentionally and effectively eradicadicating entire household populations of bed bugs?  We're going to review a few of the most common methods.

1.  Inspection.  Whether you are a professional or a person who is concerned that they may have an issue with bed bugs, inspection is key.  A flashlight and a willingness to inspect on a closer level than you ordinarily would will help you to determine if your suspicion/fear is correct.  Remembering that bed bugs aggregate in narrow cracks, crevices, and tight spots will help as you inspect the corners and undersides of bed platforms, mattresses, headboards, baseboards, nightstands, couches, recliners, and suitcases.  Additionally, it has been my experience that bed bugs will more likely be found on stable items that move less often, meaning that you are more likely to find a bed bug on your bed's platform than you are your pillow.  Look for live insects, shed exoskeletons or skin casings, black circular fecal spots which stick to surfaces, and translucent barrel shaped eggs.
2.      Extreme Temperatures.  While bed bugs prove themselves to be resilient creatures, their durability meets its limits in the face of extreme temperatures.  If bed bugs at any life stage including eggs are exposed to temperatures at or above 122*F they die.  The same is true for exposure to freezing or lower temperatures for what is usually described as several days.  What this means in practical terms is that if you have an article of clothing, upholstery, window covering, pillow, etc. that will survive a normal cycle through your drier, do it.  This includes dry-clean only items because you do not have to wash the items, only dry them to be effective.  If you have something that would not fair well tumbling through the drier such as books, dvds, hard sided luggage, or a lamp, you can place these items in the freezer for 3-5 days and you will get the same result.
3.      Insecticides?  I put this tip out there with a bit of reservation.  Often times when a person is in a bed bug-inspired frenzy, the first reaction is to grab the strongest available insecticide and apply as much of it as possible to as many places as possible.  This can result in applications that end up doing more harm to the occupants of the home than it does the bed bugs.  The point is, always read and follow the label.  If you are finding bed bugs in your room or suitcase, it is ok to spray them with an insecticide provided that what you are using is labeled to control bed bugs, and that the site or item which you are treating is also on the label.  EPA approved insecticide labels are not published for the benefit of the printing industry, they are published for the benefit of people like you who have to live side by side with the insecticides that are applied in your home.  No one knows this better than your local professional, which brings us to our next point.
4.      Call a Professional.  What is the difference between most people and your average pest management professional?  Besides a strange enjoyment of working with bed bugs, spiders, mice, ants, termites, flies, etc, your local pest professional has experience, expertise, products, methodology, and resources that are not available to the general public.  How do you know if your professional is making the most of these things that are available to them?  One good indicator is their level of professional involvement, how well they keep up with changing scientific findings and technologies in their field.  A great way to find the best professionals is by visiting www.Pestworld.org, the official website of the National Pest Management Association.  This website has loads of quality information about detecting and managing numerous household pests, as well as a locator that will help you find the professionals in your area that are committed to providing the highest level of professional pest control possible.

      What we have touched on are just a few of the practices that you can individually employ to protect your home from bed bug infestation.  It is a shame that we never got to finish our discussion with the late Leon Redbelly, but I wasn't about to let him stay at my place.  Where do bed bugs live?  Chadron, Alliance, Hemingford, Sidney, Kimball, Scottsbluff, Gering, Torrington, Guernsey, Lusk, Wheatland, and Cheyenne, to name a few places.  What should you do if you find them?  Visit www.BenzelPest.com to schedule a visit with the professionals, maybe even The People's Entomologist.  If you like this post +1 it, repost it on Facebook, or comment on it.  Thanks!
    

Fireside chat with a bed bug

http://kdvr.com/2013/01/18/denver-ranks-high-on-list-of-worst-bed-bug-cities/
This article and so many like it have people, including workmates of reader +Penny Innes of Aurora, Colorado asking "how do people get bedbugs?".  Having a number of long conversations with customers, particularly in the last two years, people want to know fundamental things about bed bugs.  How are they transmitted?  How do I know if I have them?  How do I get rid of them? Are they dangerous?  These questions can be answered and they can be answered well.  Extensive research into bed bug behavior and control methods are very developed and occurring globally  as you read this blog.  You can visit Wikipedia or even a bed bug focused web site such as www.bedbugcentral.com to educate yourself on everything that you have ever wanted or not wanted to know about bed bugs.  Fortunately though, you are reading my blog.  Being The People's Entomologist, and wanting to educate you, the people, in the ways of the bedbug, I arranged a special and unprecedented visit with a very seasoned and candid bedbug.  It seemed to me that so much of the information being disseminated about bed bugs and their behavior was biased by a hostile media reporting to a hostile audience.  I thought that it was time that I, the science-minded objectivist, give voice to the often maligned "pest", the bed bug.  What better way to answer people's questions about bed bugs than to probe the mindset, behavior, and motivations of an actual bed bug.

I was fortunate enough to arrange some time with a "typical" bed bug.    Leon Redbelly agreed to meet me on his own turf and visit about some of the things that he wants the general public to know about him and all of those identified as Cimex lectularius.  He asked me to keep his exact whereabouts private, but I can tell you that he lives on the backside of a wood crafted headboard, a desirable piece of real estate amongst his peers.  Freshly engorged from a blood meal, I found him receptive and more than willing to divulge the mysteries of bed bug life.

The People's Entomologist:  Leon, I would first like to thank you for this opportunity.  I realize that you don't often verbally communicate with your host species but I hope that you and I can forge new lines of open communication between our kinds with this interview.

Leon: It really is my pleasure, I believe that we bed bugs have enjoyed so much success over the last few years, and it is an honor for me to potentially be a spokesperson for my community.  Most of the feedback I overhear from humans is negative, which can be difficult, but I know in my heart that if my ancestors, the bat bugs, could see how developed and widespread we bed bugs have become(tearing up), they would be engorged with pride, and blood.

TPE: So let's talk about your typical day.  What is it common for Leon the bedbug to do on any given day? 
LR:  Oh boy, typical day?  I vascilate between something and nothing, some days I'm motivated  to find a blood meal and then mate, some days I'm not.  And I can't really tell you why either.
TPE: A blood meal eh?  I can tell by your protruded abdomen and bright red color that today was your day to eat.  Am I right?
LR:  You better believe it.  There I was, nestled tightly into my spot of the headboard, just sitting idly among my favorite things.....
TPE:  I'm sorry to interrupt, but to help our audience know you, please describe your favorite things before you go on.
LR:  Sure, sure.  Here's what makes a bedbug's home, really a home.  It has got to be a tight spot, us bedbugs are like cockroaches only sophisticated, we like to wedge ourselves into areas where the walls are touching our bodies.  It's the only way to relax.  We decorate our homes with our shed exoskeletons, our fecal spots, our fallen brothers, and eggs that never hatched.  These are all reminders of where we've been.
TPE:  Fecal spots? The idea of painting your own dwelling with fecal spots is a difficult concept for humans to understand, can you expand a bit?
LR:  One thing every successful bed bug knows is that you don't question a good thing, you capitalize on it.  All I can say is that fecal spots are the trail that I follow home each and every morning.  You want to find me?  Where's the feces?
TPE:  Very enlightening.  So let's return to your activities leading up to this moment.
LR:  As I was saying, I'm sitting idly, I spend a lot of time doing that.  So the glowing billboard on the nightstand says 2:00am, and I remember distinctly wave after wave of carbon dioxide floating past my corner of the headboard, and so warm!  It wasn't just the CO2 that was warm, everything was warm, like somebody turned on the heater.  So I said to myself "today is the day you do something Leon!"  When I got out there, I realized I wasn't the only one who smelled dinner, bed bugs of all sizes started pouring out, some of them obviously hadn't eaten in a while, but all of us out there headed in the same direction.
TPE:  What determines what size a bed bug is going to be?
LR:  In a word?  Nutrition.  When a bed bug nymph emerges from the egg, he or she knows that the only way they will advance to adulthood is by eating.  You've got five instars, or sheddings to accomplish before you're one of the big boys, and the only way you're going to get that done is by eating.  Guess what happens before you mate?  Eating.  What happens before a female drops her eggs?  Eating.  Why are my buffet pants at full capacity right now?  Eating.
TPE:  I think I'm starting to get the picture.  With such an emphasis placed on nutritional intake, what can you tell us about the physical act of taking a blood meal from a host?
LR:  Funny thing that is, how we feed on our host.  Let me ask you a question.  You humans, what do you think of anesthetics and anticoagulants?  You like em?
TPE:  Well, for certain medical problems, yes we employ both of those substances...
LR:  We know!  That's why we inject both of them into you while we extract your blood!
TPE:  Freaky.
LR:  Right?  I know.  So, I pick a spot, start injecting/extracting and somewhere inside of 10 minutes I am fat and happy.
TPE:  How happy?
LR:  Well, remember how I told you that eating has to occur before a little somethin' somethin' happens?  Well that happens.
TPE:  Leon, if I can stop you for just a moment to remind you about our conversation before the interview.....
LR:  I know, I know.  Humans have different standards of propriety and taboo when it comes to mating, I get it.  That's what you say, but I've watched Jersey Shore!  Don't pull your superior species rank nonsense on me!
TPE:  Leon, Leon, can we get back to the part of the interview where humans are learning about bed bugs?
LR:  Yes, forgive me.  I really need to watch my anger levels, I've got blood pressure problems, and I've been working on it is all I can say.  So do you want me to talk about mating?
TPE:  In a tactful way, yes.
LR:  So when a male bed bug is full of blood he tends to get all sentimental about ensuring a prosperous future for our kind.  Naturally, he displays that by violently and indiscriminately mating with anything that resembles another bed bug.
TPE:  Awwwwww.

With a good introduction to bed bug behavior now in our knowledge bank, we will break there until next week.  What would you like to ask Leon?  If you have bed bug related questions or comments, comment below!  Thanks for reading, and as always you can find me, The People's Entomologist, at www.BenzelPest.com.  Or you can find me in Torrington, Gering, Cheyenne, Alliance, Sidney, Lusk, Wheatland, Scottsbluff......
 

Why do I have (insert pest species here) in my house?

"Since it can be said that humans are generally creatures of habit, the state of a person's home has been known to physiologically influence their behavior, emotions, and overall mental health".  That statement about the value of the place we call home comes from the Wikipedia page about 'home', under the heading 'psychological impact'.  Knowing that the condition of a person's home fills such an important role in their psyche, effecting behavior, emotions, and mental health, it is completely understandable for a person whose home is infested with wasps, spiders, ants, termites, mice, or bed bugs, to ask "Why are these pests in my house?!"
Most of us consider our home, at very least, to be our own retreat from certain routine struggles in our life, whether that be the elements, work, traffic, school, social pressure, or Wal-Mart.  Home is where we cultivate our own identity, pursue our preferences, and nurture the ones we love.  So when spiders invade our laundry room, ants invade our kitchen, wasps invade our backyard, termites eat our door trim, or bed bugs (you can finish that one if you like....),  we react with all types of emotion ranging from shock to disbelief to outrage to lasting emotional trauma.  If you think that I am overstating the real psychological effects of insects in the home, I invite you to contact me or any other pest management professional for some real case histories, with names changed of course. 
A brief look at the factual realities of why certain pest species happen to end up inside our dwellings may leave you with an appreciation of how few and how infrequently these pests take up residence in our home, and may, in fact, leave you wondering why more unwanted organisms are not competing with you for certain basic needs inside your own house!
Let's take a look at insects in particular, knowing very well that focusing only on insects leaves out very significant pests like mice, rats, pigeons, spiders, clover mites, and ticks.  However, zooming in on insects alone allows us to learn a bit about pests that we most encounter inside of man-made structures.  For starters, insects are among the most diverse groups of animals on the planet, including more than a million described species and representing more than half of all known living organisms.  Now, to summarize a comparison, if we generously inflate our numbers and simply refer to ourselves as primates, it took me about 10 minutes to realize that we do not rank highly in the groups of known living organisms in terms of numbers.  Simply put, there are way more of them than there are us.  Secondly,  insects may be found in nearly all environments, the exception being that only a small number of species occur in the oceans, a habitat dominated by another arthropod group, crustaceans.  Again, I have not researched this very extensively, but the similarities between crustaceans and insects seems to me to be remarkable and probably has something to do with their successful oceanic domination. And to put a finer point on the prior point about insects being found in nearly all environments, humans are the most widely distributed primate on earth.   Hmmmmm, humans are present in most places on the earth, insects are present in more places on the earth than any other organism, and there are many, many, many, more insects on earth than humans(so much so, in fact, that the total volume of just the termites on the earth in terms of weight is greater than that of all humans).... Now how did those ants get up on the counter?
Let's talk about one final point regarding invasive insect species before I leave you to enjoy your pest-free kitchen, couch, deck, or wood shop.  Conducive conditions!  All living organisms on this earth (with the exception of pandas in my own opinion) have an innate desire to thrive and reproduce.  To accomplish these goals they seek conditions that will allow them to optimally achieve this.  Many of the pest species that we loathe and work so hard to manage here in Western Nebraska and Southeast Wyoming (not unlike pests the world over) are looking for food, shelter, and desirable temperature and humidity levels.  Does that sound like anyone you know?  Fact is, while we put so much effort into to creating the perfect environment for ourselves to thrive in as we do inside our home, we are creating the most desirable environment for the insect pests we so detest.  When they find it they realize that the struggle is over and it is time to thrive!  So why are these pests in you house?  Why not?  It's great to be in your house, that's why you're in it everyday!
Thank you for reading my blog to this point.  This last week I received some great compliments on something that I have dreamed about doing for a long time, so with your support I will continue.  Don't be afraid to post comments telling me that something was inaccurate or even just plain dull.  Conversely, if you found my post informative or entertaining, please comment on that as well.  If you have a question, post it.  If your kids have a question, I look forward to having a 'kids ask' post now and then because kids love bugs.  In short, I was surprised at how many people read my blog in the last week, so if there is anything I can do to be The Peoples Entomologist, just ask.  Find me at www.BenzelPest.com.

Better Pest Control Through Science

"Ever since they took the good stuff off of the market, I don't suppose there is much you can do.." 
The assumption here is that stricter standards and regulations on the products used to control pests such as bed bugs, termites, flies, and ants, somehow result in the use of less-effective products and methods going forward.  In my 12+ years in the structural pest management business, this is a viewpoint taken by many of the customers I've worked for, and unfortunately even some inside my own industry. 
Now don't get me wrong, I am not in favor of regulatory agencies burdening all types of pest control product users, including homeowners, with rules that make it nearly impossible to address serious problems, which I have seen attempted at times.  I would just like to counter the notion that "the good old days" were so good, and now we have to make due with our limited options.

Let me give you a brief demonstration of what I mean.  Bed Bugs and Termites.  Termites eat your house, and bed bugs eat you(or your blood more specifically).  These are serious pests that require serious actions to control.  Decades ago there were insecticides widely available that effectively controlled these and a number of other pests.  The simplified history is that the decision makers of the time decided that the manufacture and use of these products was no longer safe for the environment.  Let me break momentarily to tell you that I am not an expert in the area of global public health, third world countries, or the implications of an insecticide being available or not.  I am simply commenting on the realm of structural pest control inside of the U.S.  That being said, let's return to our demonstration using Bed Bugs and Termites.  Decades later, without the use of the old and very effective insecticides, are we able to control bed bugs and termites?  YES!  And in fact, in most cases we are able to control them more effectively for a number of reasons.  First off, once the old stuff was no longer available, there was a large unfilled demand for new products.  New products are based on science and in these cases, it needed to be new science.  The best pest control products usually result from the most in-depth scientific research which results in greater understanding of your target organism, which results in ingredients and modes of action that are more specific to your target pest.   More specific ingredients and modes of action usually result in lower exposure risks to non-target organisms, i.e. you, me, your family pet, the birds in the trees, and the fish in the river.  So, in shorthand, without the "good old" insecticides, scientists and manufacturers were forced to understand the bugs better, and make a new product which most likely kills just that bug and less likely the animals we don't want to harm.  Not to mention all of the non-chemical methods of inspection, prevention, and control that a person discovers when he better understands the insect he wants to control.
Now maybe I have taken my geekcraft too far out into the realm that is occupied by people who enjoy discussing pest control to even have one reader left, but my point is this; knowledge IS power, and in pest control that means the power to effectively control pest species.
Check out www.BenzelPest.com if you are looking professional service in Cheyenne, Torrington, Wheatland, Lusk, Scottsbluff, Sidney, Alliance, or anywhere close.
If you have any related subjects that you would like to see addressed on this blog, give me a shout.