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!