Insects in the City

Insect Superbowl Ad

2012-02-10T09:48:00.002-06:00

I may be one of the few Americans who didn't see this ad when it came out during the Superbowl (I missed the first half), but since one of our pest management agents forwarded it today, I am now up-to-speed.

The animation on the ad is impressive, and the artists obviously did their homework in designing their lovable bugs. I identified a caterpillar, bumble bee, ants, grasshopper, lady beetles, a praying mantis, dragonfly, and (the star of the lineup, in my opinion) a jumping spider--all rendered pretty accurately from an anatomical perspective, if not a behavioral one.

It's fun to see insects being included in popular culture, especially when people are encouraged to see the world from a new (insect) perspective. But in real life cars are not especially kind to insects. Some of you may remember that about a year ago Dutch biologist Arnold van Vliet decided to estimate annual insect mortality due to cars. After enlisting 250 drivers and counting insect mortality on a small part of each car (the license plate), he estimated nearly a trillion insect fatalities caused by cars every six months in the Netherlands alone. Extrapolated to the U.S., where we drive our 200 million cars about 2.5 trillion miles annually, blogger Stephen Messenger estimates this would mean we're killing around 32.5 trillion insects on the front grills of our Tahoes, Camrys and Ford F-150s each year.

Chevrolet may be doing the insect world little good by introducing its fancy new sports car, but at least its ad is clever.

CDC publishes Morgellon's Study

2012-01-27T17:31:00.001-06:00

Skin lesions and fibers on patients with unexplained
dermopathy. (from Pearson et al. PLoS ONE)

Yesterday the Centers for Disease Control officially released their long-awaited study of people suffering from a condition that has come to be called Morgellons. Preferring to use the term "unexplained dermopathy," researchers provided no scientific support for the condition, leaving open the possibility that many such cases may be psychological in origin.

While the conclusions of study may be shocking to members of the media, public health experts and entomologists who regularly see people with non-existent bug problems are not surprised. A smaller study published last May found no connection between similar unexplained dermopathies and skin parasites. And professional entomologists who regularly interact with the public are very familiar with samples of supposed biting insects and far-ranging descriptions pests that fit no profiles of real insects or mites. As I discussed in a post last year, some of these samples come from people with a special kind of delusion called delusory parasitosis, while others come from people experiencing allergic reactions, drug side effects, or other medical conditions. All of these can produce sensations closely resemble tiny bites or creeping sensations on the skin like a plague of bugs.

In recent years, some people with these unexplained skin conditions have sought an alternative explanation for skin lesions and the accompanying itching sensations. The name Morgellons is a lay term supposedly originating from an obscure 1690 reference in a medical monograph referring to a similar condition of the time called "the morgellons." Though the condition is poorly defined, it usually involves seeing unidentified fibers associated with the skin, and many feel it is related to some as-yet-undescribed parasite.

The findings of this week's study in the online journal PLoS ONE, include:

Approximately 50% of patients who underwent clinical examinations had fibers in or on skin lesions (open or crusted sores). However, when the fibers and other particles collected from participants were photographed and analyzed, they were found to be either hairs, cellulose, or polyester. There was no evidence that the fibers preceded the lesions, caused the lesions, or occurred in normal skin.
Evidence of prior drug use (i.e., from amphetamines, barbituates, benzodiazepines, cannabinoids, cocaine, opiates or propoxyphen) was found in 50% of clinical participants. Drug use could account for some cases of unexplained dermopathy--formication (the sensation of tiny bugs, like ants, crawling on the skin) is a well-known side effect of drug use withdrawal.
Over 75% of case patients reported some exposures to solvents through hobby activities. The prevalence of such exposures among the healthy adult population in the U.S. is unknown and not enough data on type and duration of solvent exposure was collected to draw conclusions.
The rate of functional impairment and disability found in case-patients was higher than the general population and similar to that detected among people with serious mental illness.

Prevalence of cases with Morgellons-like symptoms was low in the California study group, approximately 3.65 cases per 100,000 people (or one in 27,000 people). While being the largest, most comprehensive study of unexplained dermopathy to date, the study had limitations. It lacked a control group and was mainly descriptive in nature. Nevertheless the researchers say that they could find no unifying of definitive cause of the condition among people reporting Morgellon-like symptoms. The authors were unable to confidently say whether unexplained dermopathy represents a new medical condition or is another manifestation of delusory parasitosis; however a peer review panel concluded that in the absence of a single, well-described, published case with fibers emerging from intact skin, "it will be difficult to justify the resources needed to start a new study."

Ultimately this study will not end the debate over unexplained dermopathies, like Morgellons. People who believe they suffer from the condition will point to the inability of the researchers to definitively say that "there is no such thing." Dermatologists, physicians and mental health experts will point to the lack of evidence for the condition, the innocuous origin of the "fibers" seen in Morgellons cases, lack of any parasites in skin biopsies and data that suggests a correlation of the condition with psychosomatic illness and drug interactions.

The study concludes with the recommendation that, given there is still no definitive explanation for unexplained dermopathy, sufferers may benefit from standard medical therapies or those recommended for treatment of delusory infestations. For sufferers of the latter I find the recommendations of Misha Heller and colleages especially humane and sensible. In their letter published in the Archives of Dermatology, they note that the most important step toward successful treatment of delusional patients is developing a strong doctor-patient relationship of trust. Without adequate rapport, they say, patients are unlikely to comply with prescriptions for anti-psychotic medications, which can make all the difference in the life of someone suffering from delusory parasitosis.

All of this can be baffling to pest management professionals. After all, we're not doctors, nor are we trained to diagnose medical or mental health conditions in patients. Nevertheless, this is an issue that affects nearly all of us at some time over our careers. When you encounter a customer who claims to have Morgellons, or who points to tiny pests that can not be seen, it's important to stick to what you know.

Don't allow yourself to be persuaded to apply unnecessary insecticides to control insects that cannot be detected or do not exist.
Advise your customer to seek medical assistance for bite-like symptoms (Keep in mind, however, that many doctors are not well informed about pests or even delusory parasitosis. If you know a local MD or dermatologist who is informed about this condition, refer them).
Inspect the home, making use of sticky cards and pitfall traps, to ensure it is free of bed bugs, biting mites, and other biting insects. Remember, providing a customer assurance that their home is pest free can be as great a service as pest control itself.

Structural Pest Control Service Winter Update

2012-01-26T17:53:00.000-06:00

Whether companies who provide canine bed bug and termite
sniffing services should be licensed or require certification
was a topic of discussion at the January Advisory Committee
meeting.

The Structural Pest Control Advisory Committee met today after a (literally) stormy day in Austin--and I don't mean politics. Yesterday brought some wet relief to parched central and north Texas, as well as rare winter tornadoes in several communities.

Today's committee meeting was mostly uneventful in terms of actions; however some interesting topics were introduced that should lead to follow-up discussions in later meetings. The meeting started off with a moment of silence for Bill Stepan, our committee member who passed away in November. David Kostroun then led the committee through responses to the Self-Assessment Questionnaire that we were asked to fill at the end of the year.

Priorities for the Committee
One of the priorities for the coming year that some respondents mentioned was better communication with the public about pest control issues and how to help the public find answers to questions about pest control, the reliability of pest control businesses, and pesticides. Tommy Kezar noted that the TDA website formerly allowed visitors to view regulatory actions to see what companies had been recently cited or fined for violations. This page is no longer view-able on the agency's new home page. In fact, apart from information on how to file a structural pest control complaint, there is relatively little useful pest control-related information for consumers on the new consumer protection site. Given that the site is new, I trust that this will change. One feature I always found useful was the ability to check a company's license information to assure myself that it was operating with a valid license. I hope this feature is restored.

Kezar also noted a couple of cases that he has seen where license renewals have been held up because of problems with background checks. Department staff were, allegedly, not very helpful in responding to efforts by licensees to discover the particulars about why a background check failed. Chief Administrator Kostroun promised to look into procedures for responding to such requests for information.

Performance Data for SPCS
Stephen Pahl, Administrator for the Consumer Protection Division of TDA (the new division that houses structural pest control) gave a brief presentation on data that the agency is required to report to the LBB (Legislative Budget Board). The data includes statistics on numbers of new business and individual licenses issued, complaints resolved and inspections conducted each quarter. Some of the more interesting numbers for the Sep-Dec Quarter included:

275 SPC business inspections were conducted in the fall of 2011 (slightly exceeded target goals).
45 complaints were resolved that resulted in a formal enforcement action (more than double the target goal).
The 43 non-commercial establishment inspections (hotels, restaurants, local governments, etc.) was about a third of the target for the quarter; however staff attribute this to the priority they have placed on conducting school IPM inspections and some difficulties with new schedule-optimization software.
139 schools were inspected, representing nearly 70% of the schools scheduled for inspection in the year. I understood that the rate of quarterly school inspections will likely taper off this year as software improvements are made to rebalance the scheduling of commercial and non-commercial establishments over the next few months.
Although quarterly data on school compliance rates for FY 2012 were not available, last year 52.4% of Texas schools were found to be in (complete) compliance during inspections. This metric, however, gives little insight in to the type or significance of non-compliance issues found by inspectors.
Complaint case sufficiency rate is the percent of cases sent to Austin from local SPCS inspectors that ultimately are approved for enforcement action. A high sufficiency rate indicates that inspectors are not submitting many frivolous or unenforceable cases. This year's sufficiency rate was 92%.

School IPM Coordinator CEUs

Michael Kelly noted that the Department will be prioritizing the effort to publish formal rules for the new school IPM Coordinator CEU requirement imposed by Sunset committee action two years ago. To refresh your memory, as of January 1, 2011 School IPM Coordinators are required to obtain 6 CEU hours on pest control, pesticide and IPM-related topics every three years. We are now 13 months into the three year period, and rules for how this system will work have not yet been published. Kelly handed out the draft rule which specifies that only one of the six hours must be in laws and regulations specific to IPM programs in schools (I have stated in the past that I think this is inadequate, but won't go into that today). What is still missing from the rules, however, is a mechanism for approval of the school IPM laws and regs CEU, and specific instructions for when CEUs will be due. It was suggested that there may need to be a new CEU category for School IPM rules and regulations. The committee agreed that coordinators who were certified prior to Jan 2011 should be required to complete their six hours by Dec 2013. Newer coordinators should be required to get their 6 hours within three years of taking their initial 6 hour orientation course (which they must take within six months of appointment as IPMC). Presumably the Department will be publishing new rules for public review within the next quarter.

Should Bed Bug Dogs be Licensed?

One of the most interesting discussions was a review of some information collected by Leslie Smith on bed bug dog certification, and discussion about whether dog handlers should be licensed. While no one is actually proposing that dogs be licensed, handlers and companies who provide dog-sniffing services appear to be another matter. The committee asked if Kelly would come up with some proposals on possible licensing options so that the issue could be discussed more rigorously, and recommendations formalized by the committee at the next advisory committee meeting.

Agency Legal Staff

Deputy General Counsel for Enforcement, David Gipson, reported that the SPCS has been without an official attorney for several months. It has been difficult, he said, to find qualified lawyers willing to work for the salary offered by TDA. As a result, legal work for SPCS has been divided among three TDA legal staff. According to Gipson, this has the added advantage of minimizing the impact on SPCS programs when an attorney leaves for any reason.

The next committee meeting is tentatively scheduled for April 26. The SPCS is receiving applications for positions on the advisory committee, especially the two open seats for industry and a consumer position. If interested, you should contact Michael Kelly.

Some competition

2012-01-13T13:59:00.000-06:00

After all the political discussion this week in the media about "vulture capitalism" I'm reminded that battles in the pest control industry can become just as heated as any political campaign. According to an article this week in Pest Management Professional, after 21 months of legal battles between BASF and rival manufacturers, it looks as if at least one company has won the right to sell generic fipronil.

Control Solutions is currently selling a granular and SC formulated version of fipronil that will compete with Bayer Top Choice and BASF Termidor. The current label for Taurus G (granular fipronil) lists only fire ants as a target pest, although additional pests may be added in the future. Like Termidor, the Taurus SC label includes instructions for perimeter pests and termite control. For termites it allows for an "Exterior Perimeter - Localized Interior" treatment, a form of treatment pioneered by BASF. According to Control Solutions, both products are now available through most distributors (Univar is not yet selling the Control Solutions' fipronil, pending additional negotiations) in Texas.

I don't usually post about battles between chemical manufacturers over market share; but as I pointed out in an earlier post, this is a big deal for the pest control industry. Patent expiration always leads to price reductions for the industry, and this one will be no exception. And when it comes to a leading termiticide, we're talking lots of money.

For its part, BASF has worked hard to protect its patents and develop new uses and formulations to stay ahead of the competition. Termidor DRY is one example of a unique BASF formulation, as is a new formulation that will require less trenching and less water for perimeter treatments.

I won't weigh in on whether it's a good idea to go with a less expensive, off-brand insecticide; however I will make a generic observation about generics. Everyone should know that despite having the same active ingredient, generic products are never identical to the original. For example, the way an active ingredient is formulated will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Formulations include solvents, adjuvants and stabilizers to make the technical ingredient easier to mix, store and use. If you choose to switch to a generic product in your business, be sure to make sure it's giving you the same performance you expect from the original. As with any new product, it's important to decide what works best for you and your business. After all, wise decisions are all that stand between you and the "vulture capitalists".

Verdict in Utah deaths

2012-01-09T16:00:00.000-06:00

Follow the label directions. How many times have I heard this, and how many times have I said this in CEU courses for pesticide applicators? Unfortunately, the most important lessons are sometimes the ones we get so used to that we forget to heed.

I don't know if that was the reason a Utah fumigator placed Phostoxin pellets in a rodent burrow too close to a home. Or whether it was disbelief that the pesticides that we work so closely with on a daily basis would really sicken (or in this case, kill) a customer. Whatever the reason, failing to observe the directions on a pesticide label led to the deaths of two beautiful Utah children, and there was no excuse.

I think all of us who work with pesticides owe it to ourselves, our employees and our customers to read the reports about the final disposition of the Utah pest control operator originally charged with negligent homicide in the death of the two children.
Exterminator Given Probation-Fox 13 Salt Lake City
Parents Speak Out - Salt Lake City Tribune

The lesson of thalidomide

2012-01-06T11:40:00.000-06:00

According to an article appearing today in the New England Journal of Medicine, the end of 2011 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the withdrawal of the controversial drug, thalidomide, from most worldwide markets. For anyone interested in the role of federal regulation of consumer/professional products, the thalidomide story is one well worth remembering.

In 1961 the same debates about intrusive federal regulations were raging that we hear today. One debate at the time was whether a federal agency, the Federal Drug Administration, should have the authority to set standards for whether a drug should be registered based on health and safety standards set by the government. Physicians, the argument ran, should be the final arbiters about whether a drug should be available. About this time, a rookie medical review officer in the FDA made the decision to deny registration to a drug with the trade name Kevadon, based on the scanty human safety data available at the time. As a result, Americans were largely spared the large number of thalidomide babies that were being born to women in Europe and other developed countries. By the time doctors raised the alarm, over 10,000 were born withsevere limb-reduction defects, in some cases with hands or feet emerging directly from their torsos.

The story got me thinking about the value of regulatory standards and the role of government as a, supposedly, unbiased gatekeeper for drugs or pesticides or allowable pollutants. Although we don't always agree with the governing authorities, I, for one, am grateful that someone is looking out for my welfare through science-based standards. And let's hope we never have to relearn the lesson of thalidomide.

Universities teach their students about bed bugs

2012-01-05T16:21:00.002-06:00

Thanks to Don Baumgartner, EPA Pesticides Section (Region 5, Chicago), for compiling this list of web sites related to bed bug control in college student housing. If you are already servicing, or are considering servicing, university dorms for bed bug control, some of these links might prove useful.

The University of Florida has possibly the most detailed set of specifications/recommendations for treating student housing. This publication by Wayne Walker and colleagues is definitely worth checking out at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in880

Other related Univ guides to bed bugs are:

University of Indiana http://www.ehs.indiana.edu/BedBugs/preventionquickfacts.shtml
University of Pennsylvania http://www.business-services.upenn.edu/housing/assets/pdf/pestcontrol/bedbug_facts.pdf
Stanford: https://www.stanford.edu/dept/rde/cgi-bin/drupal/housing/living/what-you-should-know-about-bed-bugs
University of Florida guide for housing staff: http://ipm.ifas.ufl.edu/pdf/Bedbug_Guide_for_staff.pdf
From bedbug.com: http://www.bedbug.com/Page-Bedbug-tips-when-residing-in-a-dormitory_192.aspx
From Rick Cooper at Bed Bug Central: http://www.bedbugcentral.com/bed_Bugs_college.cfm
From About Insects: http://insects.about.com/od/insectssociety/qt/How-To-Keep-Bed-Bugs-From-Coming-Home-With-Your-College-Student.htm
Video interview of Rick Cooper about sending your child to bed bug colleges: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG0fZbZWfF8&feature=related

A word to the wise. It might not be a good idea to share these links with a nervous parent sending their child off to college for the first time.

Certification Year One winds down for school IPM coordinators

2011-12-20T17:44:00.000-06:00

One of the big changes to school IPM rules during the last legislative session was to expand education requirements for IPM Coordinators (the individual in each Texas school district responsible for overseeing pest control and ensuring the district complies with state regs). Beginning last January, every IPMC is responsible to obtain six hours of CEUs every three years (See the Administrative Code Rule 7.150 (b)(2)).

The problem is that after a year of the rule we still don't know precisely what qualifies for continuing education units. Let's review what we do know:

Anyone who began duties as an IPM Coordinator for a public school district on or before January 1, 2011 will have until December 31, 2013 to obtain six (6) hours of CEUs.

What we don't know for sure is what exactly qualifies as those appropriate CEUs. The Structural Pest Control Advisory Committee argued quite strenuously about this topic about a year ago, and some general guidance from that discussion will be used as the basis of whatever rules are drafted in the next few months. The committee suggestions were:

One of the six CEUs must be in laws and regulations specific to IPM Programs in Schools. The remaining five credits can be obtained by doing one of the following:

Attending one of the TDA-approved training courses for IPM Coordinators (this would be the same 6-hour course taken within the first six months of appointment)
Attending any five hours of TDA-approved pesticide CEU training in areas relevant to a school IPM coordinator's duties (e.g., Pest, L&O, Weed control, or General IPM). These CEU classes are pretty commonly available around the state.
Attend classes not approved by TDA as long as you send information into the agency and get the class approved within 30 days (see Section 7.135(g) of the Administrative Code for details)

The committee wanted the CEU requirement to be as easy to obtain as possible, but I'm not convinced that we didn't make it too easy. Specifically, I think coordinators need more than one hour of school IPM rules-specific training every three years. Of course training in herbicide selection, or termite identification or cockroach biology is valuable for someone in charge of a school pest control program; but ultimately a coordinator's job is administrative, and much or most of it has to do with knowing the laws and regulations inside and out. For schools who contract out pest control, the coordinator may be the only person in the district keeping outside applicators square with the law.

And these laws and regulations are not especially simple to learn. I find myself learning new things every year when I teach the class; so I'm skeptical that one hour every three years is going to do much to keep coordinators at the top of their game.

I know many of you know this. My proof is the number of repeat attenders we see in the introductory school IPM coordinator training classes I teach each year with Janet Hurley. And my sole consolation is that I know many of you will go the extra mile and get those extra school IPM dedicated classes, regardless of whether you have to. I'm more worried about the folks who haven't had a refresher course in 5-10 years, and don't see a reason to do so.

The trouble is that the clock is ticking on these CEU requirements. One year is passed and we still don't absolutely know what criteria will be used to fulfill the six CEU requirement. So if you're a Texas IPM coordinator, keep alert for the proposed new regulations. If you have an opinion about the CEU requirements, please let them be known at that time. And if you think I'm crazy to want tougher requirements, that's OK. But let's think these things through and have a good debate.

The power of appreciation

2011-12-15T11:28:00.001-06:00

What do you look for when you hire a new person for a pest control technician's position? Experience with pest control? Dependability? Good driving record? How about the ability to value other people?

I’m just an entomologist, not a psychologist; but even an entomologist can recognize the power of an appreciative word. And as an integrated pest management (IPM) specialist, I’ve come to value people who can build a loyal IPM team.

In its most basic form IPM is about people. This is true on all levels, but especially for IPM programs within large institutions that require the cooperation of many departments and individuals. If you look at dysfunctional IPM programs (yes, they exist) one of the first things you notice is a lack of appreciation for the jobs and accomplishments of others in the organization. The best programs, on the other hand, have leaders who are able to value and recognize the contributions of others.

I was reminded of this yesterday sitting in on a simple ceremony in the staff kitchen of Memorial Elementary School in Plano, TX. David Lewis and Leo Largaespada, IPM Coordinator and IPM technician, respectively, for the Plano Independent School District (PISD), invited me to attend an appreciation lunch for one of their top kitchen teams in the district. The lunch was a simple affair, but illustrated powerfully a principle that often gets overlooked in our fancy ideas about what IPM is all about.

The most powerful words in IPM tool box may well be, “we appreciate you”. Take a look at the video below and see if you don't agree.

Crazy ant update

2011-12-14T12:21:00.001-06:00

Rasberry or Caribbean crazy ants have been confirmed in
Travis County near the Burnet and Travis county
boundary. (Texas AgriLife Extension Service photo)

According to a story published yesterday in AgriLife Today, College Station and Austin have recently been added to the list of county locations with confirmed identifications of the exotic, new crazy ant species, Nylanderia sp. near pubens. As reported in an earlier post, this means that PMPs should be able to use the expanded Termidor label for perimeter applications of fipronil as ant barriers around homes in Travis and Brazos counties. The Texas Department of Agriculture automatically extends the Section 18 amendment of the Termidor label when a new county is added to the list of infested counties.

Under the expanded label, Termidor applications may be made three feet up the side of a structure and 10 feet out (the standard label restricts applications to one foot up and one foot out), and may be made two times a year, no less than 60 days apart. To be legal, however, you must have a copy of the label AND these Section 18 use directions.

This new exotic crazy ant has several common names including the Rasberry crazy ant (in Texas), the Caribbean crazy ant (Florida) and the hairy crazy ant (Louisiana and Mississippi). A definitive study to confirm whether these ants are in fact the same species has yet to be published, but I suspect that when the dust clears they will all be the same. A fresh cycle of news stories came out earlier this fall under the name "hairy crazy ant" confusing some people to think that there was yet another invasive ant.

Salute to Don Stroope

2011-12-12T17:01:00.001-06:00

I'm sad to report that Don Stroope, 86, passed away last week at his home. Anyone who's been around pest control for any length of time in Texas has probably met Don, founder of Stroope Pest Control in Waxahachie, TX and one of the oldest active PMPs in the state. Don was a 1950 graduate in entomology from Texas A&M, and was one of the founders of the Texas Pest Control Association. I always enjoyed talking with Don and hearing his many stories about the business and his observations about people. He was one of the memorable characters in pest control in Texas.

As a sign of Don's love for the industry, his family has asked that any memorial contributions be made to the Texas A&M Foundation; in the memo of your check include Don E. Stroope Memorial Endowed Scholarship. Mail your contribution in Don’s name to Dr. Roger Gold, Urban Entomology 2143 TAMU, College Station, Texas 77843. Funeral services are being held tomorrow, December 13, in Waxahachie. For an obituary, click here.

Spider bites and MRSA: A medical dilemma

2011-11-28T18:27:00.000-06:00

A customer shows you a blackish, oozy bite on his hand and asks if it could be a spider bite. The wound looks like pictures of brown recluse spider bites you've seen on the Internet, but no spider was seen. How do you respond? A recent paper by Jeffery Ross Suchard, MD, in Orange California, in the Journal of Emergency Medicine (2011. Vol 41, No. 5, pp. 473-481) addresses this difficult dilemma.

The paper notes that previous studies have found that spider bites are often confused with other arthropods, or other diseases (in one paper cited, 80% of spider bite reports were erroneous). Suchard reports on a survey he conducted of 182 emergency room patients admitting themselves for what they believed to be a "spider bite". Only 7 (3.8%) of these patients were diagnosed by emergency room personnel with actual spider bites. One hundred and fifty-six patients (85.7%) were subsequently diagnosed with skin infections. At least in this California clinic, the author reports, clinically confirmed spider bites were rare, and when confirmed, were most commonly black widow spider bites.

Of course California is not Texas, nor Oklahoma, nor Missouri. Neither is it home to native populations of brown recluse spiders like these states. Nevertheless, even in brown recluse-endemic areas, numerous papers have appeared in recent years suggesting that spiders, including brown recluse spiders, are often erroneously blamed for wounds thought to be spider bites (e.g., Vetter and Furbee. 2006. Caveats in interpreting poison control centre data in spider bite epidemiology studies. Public Health 120: 179-181). Many purported spider bites are increasingly being attributed to staph and other bacterial infections. In some areas, methycillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is the most common culprit. Such misdiagnoses are potentially dangerous because MRSA can be deadly if not treated appropriately. And if you don't believe me that MRSA and brown recluse bites can look alike, click here.

But there's danger in the other direction too, as pointed out in another paper published this year. Rogers et. al (2011. Annals of Emergency Medicine 57(2): 138-140) describe a case study that illustrates the danger of misdiagnosing a real brown recluse spider bite as MRSA. In their case a patient with a brown recluse spider bite underwent what was, ultimately, an unnecessary surgery as a result of an initial misdiagnosis of MRSA.

The message we should be hearing from this research is to be slow about jumping to conclusions about spider bites. Ultimately it's a doctor's determination to make. And I figure that if even doctors have a difficult time diagnosing a spider bite, I am going to be wary of offering an opinion about a suspect bite.

The pest control profession can, however, provide customers with good spider identifications, and help monitor for the presence of venomous spiders. Sticky cards are pretty effective at trapping brown recluse spiders, the most likely culprit of an ulcer-like spider bite. Of course, if a spider is caught in the act of biting, or found near the victim, by all means collect and preserve it properly. And remember that spiders do not commonly bite people. If a customer complains of multiple "bites", chances are low that spiders are the culprit.

Both infections and spider bites can be serious. Anyone with a dark, weepy wound should be referred immediately to a local doctor or emergency room. Worry about assigning blame later.

Bed Bug program in Houston

2011-11-28T12:01:00.000-06:00

If you work in pest control around the Houston area and want to learn more about the bed bug business, now's your golden opportunity. Dr. Paul Nester with Texas AgriLife Extension is hosting a bed bug workshop in collaboration with the Greater Houston Pest Control Association this week, on Thursday, December 1. The program will be held at the Harris County Extension office at Bear Creek (3033 Bear Creek Drive, Houston 77084) and will run from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm.

Paul has taken pains to include a diverse group of trainers from both the university and from industry. Speakers include myself (history, identification and facts about bed bugs), Raleigh Jenkins with ABC Home and Commercial Services (control "nightmares"), Dr. Kate Johnson with Research Associates Labs (detecting bed bugs with DNA), Dr. Bob Davis (products labeled for bed bug control), Dr. Robert Puckett with Texas A&M University and Howard Franklin with ThermaPure Texas (control strategies), and Jay Jorns with JNJ Pest Control (the art of bidding). Continuing education units will be provided. Click here for the complete schedule.

This is a unique opportunity, both to learn from experts in the field, and to take part in a small, personalized, training environment. If you're interested, you can reserve a spot between now and Thursday by calling 281-855-5600 and asking for Diana Todd. Registration cost at the door is $45 per person. This is a great opportunity to build your business. Hope to see you there.

EPA improves pesticide search tool

2011-11-23T13:10:00.001-06:00

Back in August I reported on a new label search engine web site from the EPA. I complained at the time that the Pesticide Product Label Search was not a full-functioned database that allowed searching for all products labeled for a given site or pest (which it's not).

After reflection, and perhaps in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I've decided that perhaps my summer criticism was a little harsh. Or maybe it's the new portal to the site, called Pesticide Chemical Search, that has mellowed my judgement. In any case I think all of us in the pest control industry should have this new web-based application bookmarked on our phones and computers. While not meeting all of our searching needs, it does provide an excellent and unique point of contact to search pesticide labels, toxicology information, and registration history and resources. To check it out, go to:
www.epa.gov/pesticides/chemicalsearch

To find pesticide labels for a given chemical, search on the Quicklinks Label Information link to go to the Pesticide Product Label System. If you have a particular active ingredient in mind, simply type in the pesticide common name, like deltamethrin, and you will have one-stop access to all kinds of scientific studies, toxicology information and registration status for that product. When searching on deltamethrin, for example, I clicked on the Science Reviews tab to find 15 otherwise obscure EPA scientific study reports on the compound. This is a good way to brush up on the safety information for a given product before speaking with a customer with chemical safety concerns. This site would also be invaluable for service managers researching what products they want to use in their company.

My only bone to pick with this site during my quick tour this morning was under the Laws and Regulations tab. This site offers a choice to review regulations by business sector, and there is no sector for pest control. That seems like a huge oversight to me. Also, once you visit one of these sub-pages it is hard to get back to the PCS homepage.

But, overall I like the revamped application a lot. There is even a short instructional video on how to use the PCS site. So on this Thanksgiving holiday, thanks to EPA for making government a little more transparent.

The Bed Bug Chronicles: Part II

2011-11-23T10:16:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I presented some of my highlights of the 2011 Entomological Society of America (ESA) annual conference, most of which had to do with bed bugs. Today I wanted to share some notes on bed bug monitoring, a subject which I think will be key to developing effective IPM programs for this pest.

Some of my almost indecipherable notes from a bed bug
talk at ESA

Apparently I'm not alone in this belief. There were several papers at ESA this year on monitoring-related topics. The ability to detect bed bugs early, before they become abundant in an apartment or hotel room, is critical to quick elimination of infestations. A good monitoring method should be inexpensive (if it's to be deployed in hundreds of hotel rooms or apartments), easily checked, and effective at detecting bed bugs at low infestation levels. To date, the ideal monitoring tool does not exist; but much work is going into the search.

For cockroaches, the simple sticky trap has performed quite well as a cheap and effective monitoring tool. Unfortunately, bed bugs are not readily captured with sticky traps, for reasons that have not been well studied. The best alternative approach so far is use of various pitfall trap designs. Pitfall traps consist of a container into which insects fall and cannot get out. These work well with bed bugs because bed bugs are not very good climbers on slick surfaces. The first successful manufacturer of pitfall traps was the ClimbUp Insect Interceptor trap, sold by Susan McKnight Inc., and designed to be placed under bed posts. When placed correctly it traps bed bugs either exiting or climbing on to beds.

Narinderpal Singh and Changlu Wang (Rutgers University) have been using the ClimbUp to investigate ways to make pitfall traps more attractive to bed bugs. They found that CO₂ was more effective at luring bed bugs to ClimbUp pitfall traps than heat. However they also tested several volatile compounds as potential lures. The compounds nonanal, spearmint oil, octenol, and coriander mixed together was more effective than any of the compounds individually. They also found that when these compounds were added to CO₂ they attracted more bed bugs than CO₂ alone. Of these four compounds, nonanal (aka nonanaldehyde or pelargonaldehyde) was the most attractive. This compound is emitted by humans and was recently found to be highly attractive to Culex mosquitoes.

Figuring out how to take basic scientific research like this and turn it into a successful product for PMPs has generally been role of the specialty products industry. The chemical manufacturer FMC has been busy doing just that with bed bug monitoring. For over two years FMC has been developing technology to build a better bed bug trap. The result of this project is a prototype of a new bed bug trap they announced to bed bug researchers at the meeting. Tentatively called Verifi™, the trap uses a combination of CO₂, pheromone (scent produced by other bed bugs) and kairomones (host odor components) to tempt bed bugs to enter their trap.

The Verifi™ trap design is based on the idea that bed bugs have two basic search behaviors: host searching when looking for a meal, and harborage seeking after consuming a meal. When searching for a host, bed bugs use both CO₂ and host odors as orientation cues. When searching for harborage, they use scents associated with groups of other bed bugs, called aggregation pheromones. The good folks at FMC claim to have identified and produced two lures that effectively mimic host odors and aggregation pheromone. The aggregation pheromone is cleverly vented through one side of the trap to lure bugs into a dark harborage area. The kairomone and CO₂ canister are designed to lure bugs into a pitfall trap. When the trap is checked by a PMP both harborage and pitfall sections of the trap can be observed to detect and monitor bed bug activity.

Data presented at the meeting by university personnel who tested a trap prototype in field situations looked promising. One of the major advances that FMC seems to have made is in the technology needed to provide a slow release of attractants used in the lures. One of the big questions I was left with, however, was cost. A lot of engineering has gone into this trap and cost will certainly be a factor. Nevertheless, I hope the industry will put this product through the most rigorous testing protocol--the real world--when it comes out in 2012.

Unfortunately for science, discovery of compounds that are attractive to bed bugs is a lucrative, and therefore often secretive, activity. For this reason, FMC is not sharing its “secret attractants” with others. Even some university researchers, like Emma Weeks (University of Florida), who is working on bed bug aggregation pheromones, are remaining tight-lipped about their research results until the research, and presumably patents, are published. Weeks reported finding some 21 compounds that were active in attracting bed bugs to filter paper. Meanwhile, until more is known and better options come around, we should all work on our visual bed bug inspection skills, perhaps the most basic and indispensable monitoring technique of all.

The Bed Bug Chronicles: Part I

2011-11-22T18:02:00.003-06:00

Lake Tahoe is only a short drive from the casinos of Reno.

One of the meetings I try to make every year is the Entomological Society of America annual conference. It's the only place in the world where you can see more entomologists than bugs in a given day--over 2400 of them this year. This year's meeting took place in Reno, the prettier of the two big gambling destinations in Nevada.

The ESA conference is lots of great information packed into a grueling marathon of paper sessions that seem to go on forever. So today you're the lucky ones because you get to experience ESA without the gluteus maximus crampus (sore patootie).

For a week there were more entomologists than insects
in Reno.

This year's bed bug theme is a continuation of last year, though I think the papers and the research are getting better scientifically every year. Of course no one person can take in the whole conference, so my highlights are admittedly selective. There were many good talks on urban entomology that I did not attend.

The lab of Changlu Wang (Rutgers University) continues to be a great source of practical research relating to bed bugs (BB) and other urban pests. This meeting Changlu reported on practical uses of carbon dioxide to control bed bugs. He found that putting 3 lbs of dry ice in a 42 gallon (3 mil-thick) garbage/yard waste plastic bag was sufficient to suffocate all stages of bed bugs in up to 22 lbs of clothes, when held for 24 hours. This amounts to a cost of approximately $4 to disinfest 22 lbs of clothes or other items that would fit in the bag. This adds another practical method for do-it-yourselfers looking for an inexpensive way to ensure disinfestation of personal items.
In a related study, Dini Miller from Virginia Tech, found that Nuvan Prostrips (dichlorvos) achieved incomplete BB adult (4%), nymph (6%) and egg (45%) mortality when used at the label rate on clothing in 42 gal. yard waste bags. On hard items (e.g., books, computers, shoes and other personal items) Nuvan strips at the label rate achieved 48% mortality for adult BBs, 84% mortality for nymphs and 100% mortality for eggs. [According to Miller, to follow the label rate for a 42 gal. bag, one must cut a single Nuvan strip into 22 pieces (1/22 strip/bag)] If a whole strip is used in the bag (22X label rate), and the strip is held for 14 days, all nymphs and adults were killed, but only 63% of eggs were killed. Nuvan is commonly used as a fumigant by our industry, and does kill BBs; however this study suggests that it will not guarantee a kill of all BB life stages, even at higher than label rates (which we would, of course, never suggest).
Susan Jones from Ohio State University tested bed bugs from six populations (five pyrethroid resistant populations, and one susceptible population) and found that three commonly sold “bug bombs” (total release aerosols) were ineffective in killing resistant bed bugs (0-30% mortality) held in open containers only 2-7 feet away from the aerosol emitter. The susceptible strain (unlikely to be found today in the field) was killed (100% mortality) under the same conditions.
When provided with harborage to hide in during application, even the susceptible strain had very low (10-15%) mortality. These results confirm current recommendations by most Extension publications that “bug bombs” do not provide effective control for bed bugs for consumers.
Joell Olson, of Ecolab in MN, reported on the effectiveness of cold temperatures for killing BBs. She found the egg stage to be the most resistant to cold. Her research suggested that items to be disinfested be held in a chest freezer (<= -13 degrees C) for a minimum of four days. This is longer than previously reported freezing times for BBs.
Many conference participants came away from the meeting with a greater appreciation for bed bug resistance to commonly used insecticides. Pyrethroid-resistant BBs are now predominant throughout the United States, with few susceptible populations remaining. Although I was unable to attend many of the resistance papers, I did catch one by Reina Koganemaru, a PhD student Dini Miller’s lab (Virginia Tech). With the aid of scanning electron microscopy she documented increased cuticle thickness in pyrethroid resistant bed bugs. Steven Kells (University of Minnesota) collected a different kind of data that supports Koganemaru's findings. Using both BBs and German cockroaches, Kells exposed both pests to Phantom insecticide (chlorfenapyr). He then washed and cut up his subjects and found 9X more insecticide on the outside of bed bugs compared to cockroaches. Similarly 9X more insecticide was found internally in the cockroaches compared to BBs. So, in addition to known target site (kdr) and enzyme-based detoxification resistance mechanisms, resistant bed bugs are thick-skinned as well. This suggests to me that surfactants/penetrants added to current bed bug insecticides might be one way to increase the effectiveness of existing products.
I unexpectedly came away from this meeting with a much greater appreciation for the role of bacteria in entomology. Bacteria got my attention during the Founder’s Memorial Award lecture by Angela Douglas, from Cornell University. In talking about the role of bacteria in the bodies of insects, Dr. Douglas stunned me with the fact that 90% of the cells in an insect are bacteria (the same ratio is reported for humans). This is possible because of the tiny size of bacteria compared to the cells in our bodies. The relationship between insects and bacteria is far more complex and important to the ecology of pest control than I’d previously appreciated. Wolbachia, an intracellular parasite (lives in the cells of its hosts) is a type of rickettsial bacteria that has now been found in bed bugs. This same genus plays an important role in mosquito biology and reproduction. In some cases, Wolbachia has evolved to play important symbiotic roles (beneficial to both host and parasite) in insects. For example, some mosquitoes are unable to reproduce successfully without this bacterium in their bodies, while males of some mosquitoes are rendered sterile by Wolbachia infections. We don’t know exactly what roles Wolbachia plays in the ecology of bed bugs, but its presence opens up some doors for possible biological control options for bed bugs. Indeed Wolbachia is thought to play a role in the bed bug immune system. Remove Wolbachia and the survivorship of bed bugs goes way down after traumatic insemination (the bed bug equivalent of rough sex).

My next post I will cover some of the papers related to monitoring for bed bugs.

Bill Stepan

2011-11-17T08:48:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry to report that our friend, Bill Stepan, passed away this week in Houston. Bill was Orkin branch manager in Houston, and had served for many years in the pest control industry. Bill was both a skilled professional and a very nice person to know.

According to an email from Leslie Smith at the Texas Department of Agriculture, there will be a visitation on Wednesday, November 16, from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM at Garmany and Carden Funeral Home Chapel, 1201 4th Street, Rosenberg, TX 77471(281-342-4671). A funeral Service will be Thursday November 17 at 2:00 PM at Calvary Baptist Church, 4111 Airport Ave., Rosenberg, TX 77471 (281-232-0372). Bill battled aplastic anemia in the last years of his life, and requested that anyone wishing to make a memorial Donations to The Aplastic Anemia Foundation, American Liver Foundation, or The National Kidney Foundation.

Stink bug sighting

2011-11-07T11:15:00.001-06:00

Last July I wrote about the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB). This insect is a new invasive pest from Asian and has been spreading pretty rapidly across the eastern states. Last month I got a report from John Rourk, ACE with Certified Termite and Pest Control in Corpus Christi, about what may be the first confirmed report of this pest in Texas.

Fall aggregation of BMSB and other stink bugs under light outside a home.
Photo by Leske, 2010. (not from Texas)

According to Rourk, he received a call from a resident about a large number of bugs in their travel trailer after a recent visit to Pennsylvania. When he got to the residence he saw two stink bugs flying from the RV flying towards the residence. He also found and collected three specimens from the RV and was told by the owner that they had already killed “more than we can count.” He he was unable to find any more evidence of activity or live specimens in the RV or on the premises.

Rourk knew what he was doing when he collected specimens. The only way to confirm an unusual or exotic pest is to collect it. A photograph is better than nothing but is still not as good as a specimen (dead or alive). According to Dr. Roy Parker, Extension entomologist at the Texas AgriLife Center at Corpus Christi, the identity of Rourk's specimens has been confirmed by the Texas A&M University entomology museum, and has been reported to USDA.

In a 2010 report by USDA's Plant Epidemiology and Risk Analysis Laboratory (APHIS/PPQ), BMSB is projected to be agriculturally important in east Texas and the panhandle regions. According to the report, once BMSB invades a new area it is very difficult to control because of its high mobility and large number of host plants.

Called by some the "Interstate bug" because of its habit of hitching rides on trucks, RVs and vans, the BMSB will often be found clustered in engine compartments or other warm protected areas of vehicles. Besides being an agricultural pest, once it becomes established it also becomes a household pest as a fall invader (see picture).

Just because the BMSB was found in an RV in Texas does not mean it is likely to have become established here. Several hurdles have to be leaped before an invasive pest can establish a viable breeding population. Dispersing bugs may not be able to find one another for mating and reproduction in a new area. There may not be a critical density of acceptable host plants at the point of introduction, and weather conditions must be favorable at time of import. According to USDA, we still don't know the minimum population level needed for successful establishment of BMSB into a new area, although the insect has been successfully introduced to at least seventeen states. Since 2003, however, BMSB has been intercepted or trapped in at least seven states (Florida, Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Rhode Island, and South Carolina) where they do not appear to have established breeding populations.

Remember, as a PMP you are on the cutting edge of surveillance for new pests. Observations made by the pest control industry are, and will continue to be, an important part of urban entomology research and knowledge about insects.

New TDA leadership learning pest control

2011-10-28T18:04:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the first Structural Pest Control Service Advisory Committee (SPCS-AC) meeting since the retirement of Jimmy Bush, and the new leadership showed up eager to listen and learn. Leading the meeting was David Kostroun, new Chief Administrator for Agriculture and Consumer Protection. Also in attendance was Stephen Pahl (Administrator for Consumer Protection) and Leslie Smith (Director for Consumer Service Protection), who directly supervises Michael Kelly the Coordinator for SPCS.

David Kostroun is one of the good guys. By that I mean that he's an entomologist and former Extension specialist (:-)). He has has worked for TDA for 16 years, has little background in structural pest control, but is eager to be better acquainted with the industry. Leslie Smith has 23 years in pesticide programs, but is also new to structural pest control, as is Stephen Pahl is a former TDA ag inspector. Over the next year or so it's important for all of us to get to know these new leaders, so if you run into any of them at industry functions I know they would like to meet you and learn about your interests and concerns.

Impact of Legislative Session on TDA

Last summer the agency that regulates pest control and oversees the state's agricultural programs was hit by the state legislature with a 40-45% budget cut. This meant reducing TDA staff by 140 full-time equivalents (FTEs) and forcing the agency to rely even more on "cost recovery". Fortunately the cuts did not affect inspector ranks, but it did require the agency to raise fees by 57%. House bill 2742 also reinstated the agency's powers to regulate advertising and soliciting pest control business.

The budget cuts and layoffs spurred the agency to reorganize. This fall the agency has gone from ten divisions to three: food and nutrition, Trade and Business Development, and Agriculture and Consumer Protection (home of the SPCS, our regulating agency). Jimmy Bush, former agency head who steered the SPCS for the past three years or so, retired at the end of August. His successor, David Kostroun, has a big job in front of him as he tries to balance a smaller budget against the need to maintain public safety. His mantra for the agency is "quality, consistency, and efficiency."

Clean Water Permit program for pest control

In earlier blog posts I wrote about the clean water permitting system slated for implementation this year. According to TCEQ staffer Joy Tegbe, the permitting system is scheduled to go into effect on November 2; although a recent article by the Delta Farm Press reports that a possible two-year moratorium is still being debated by Congress. If the NPDES rules do go into effect, cities and agencies who meet the thresholds in the law will have 90 days to apply for permits to use pesticides that might be applied to, or drift into, waterways. This will affect pesticide applications made for mosquito control, aquatic weed or animal control, area-wide pest control and forest canopy pest control.

Since my original post, several clarifications have been made about who is required to get a permit. For one, the thresholds for groups requiring permits have been liberalized. For example, a permit is only required for entities that apply pesticides for mosquito control, forest canopy pests or area-wide pest control to more than 6,400 acres of land. A permit for pesticides to control of aquatic animal or plant pests will only be required when treating more than 100 acres of water or 200 miles of stream bank each year. Contrary to early reports, re-treatments of the same land or water are not counted toward the annual acreage count. In other words, if you treat the same 640 acres ten times, you've still only treated 640 acres--not 6,400 acres as we were originally told.

Now that the cards are all on the table, I believe the new NPDES rules will not greatly affect us in the pest control industry, although some of you may be asked to help explain these rules to large customers, such as municipalities. The requirement that will affect most people are those for Level II entities. These are public or private entities that annually treat more than one acre and less than 6,400 areas of land with General or Restricted Use pesticides. These folks will have to keep on hand a letter of self certification, stating their intention to comply with the state's general use permit. Failure to have such a letter would put these folks out of compliance with the law. Golf courses, cities, park systems, and school districts are likely Level II entities and will probably need letters. Most homeowners and smaller scale pesticide users will be classified as Level III entities and will not self-certify, rather they will only be required to follow label directions and precautions. More about self certification letters in another blog.

To read the whole permit: http://www.tceq.texas.gov/permitting/stormwater/pesticidegp_stakeholder_group.html
WARNING: this permit is long and dense reading. If you have questions, I suggest calling a real human such as Joy Tegbe or James Moore at 512-239-4671.

Need for New Members
The SPCS-AC was formed two legislative sessions ago to serve as a sounding board for TDA on structural pest control issues. The committee gets its mandate from Chapter 1951.101 of the Texas Occupations Code, and consists of nine members (two experts in structural pest control application, three public members, one member from an institution of higher education knowledgeable in pest control, one member recommended by the pest control industry, a consumer member, and a designee of the commissioner of state health services).

Almost all of the advisory committee terms have either expired or will expire in February, meaning that the SPCS is accepting applications for most seats on the committee. If you are interested, call Michael Kelly of the SPCS for an application. The consumer seat on the committee has never been filled, so if you are a consumer with interest in the pest control industry, this is your chance to get involved.

Bill Stephan in hospital

2011-10-28T09:39:00.000-05:00

The empty chair at our Advisory Committee meeting yesterday belongs to Bill Stepan, with Orkin Pest Control in Houston. Bill is the Branch Manager for Orkin; long-time, active industry member and one of TPCA's appointees to the advisory committee. We learned that Bill went into the hospital this week with complications due to recent cancer treatment. He was rushed to emergency on Monday, but I understand from close friend and Orkin colleague, Steve Dogner, that he has improved greatly this week and is in good spirits.

If you would like to send Bill a card of encouragement, Steve asks you to send them to his office and he will see that they are delivered. Send them to Bill care of Steve Dogner, Orkin Pest Control, 3901 Braxton Drive, Houston, TX 77063. I don't know if Bill checks his Facebook page often, but you can also leave messages there.

Bill, here's to seeing you back on your feet soon. Godspeed.

How much would you pay for a bed bug?

2011-10-21T14:07:00.000-05:00

Bed bugs (Photo by Bart Drees)

I was speaking with the Greater Tarrant County Pest Control Association (Fort Worth/Arlington) last night and we began discussing how much people pay for live insects. My audience was amazed to learn that I will be paying more than $2 apiece for bed bugs for an upcoming project. I could see the wheels turning in every head, calculating "if I had $2 for every bed bug I've killed!" And I had to admit that getting paid for both removing and delivering bed bugs sounds like a pretty good deal in this tight economy.

My bed bug-requiring project is an insecticide trial; and I need insects of a certain life stage, of guaranteed health and known lineage to ensure that results are consistent and can be replicated. Field caught bed bugs typically vary in age and life stage, and can be damaged during collection. They also are more likely to be genetically variable (making results more difficult to analyze), are of unknown pesticide susceptibility, and can not be easily re-collected by another researcher who might want to reproduce the results. For these reasons, you can't just scoop up a few bed bugs and turn around and sell them on Craig's List (at least for research purposes).

It surprises most people to learn that there are a number of companies (called insectaries) that make money raising and selling live insects for something other than pet food or fish bait. If you have a need for silverfish or cockroaches, cat fleas or house flies, chances are you can find a reputable seller (like my friend Bill Donahue's Sierra Research Labs) of these and other pest species. Bed bugs are reared not only for research labs, but also to keep canine handlers supplied with fresh bed bugs for bed bug sniffing dogs.

In addition to pest insects, there are dozens of "beneficial insectaries" that sell beneficial insects for use in biological control programs. They are represented by a trade group called the Association of Natural Biocontrol Producers. Most of the insects produced by ANBP member companies are probably of little use to PMPs unless your company also controls insect pests of interiorscapes (indoor live plants) or greenhouses, where biological control has proven most effective. One biological control agent exception is for cockroach parasites, especially tiny parasitic wasps that control brown banded cockroaches. Beneficial nematodes are another example of a non-insect predator that can control some difficult to control soil inhabiting pests like fungus gnats (to give an indoor example).

Finally, consider the butterfly rearing business. There are a growing number of people who rear butterflies for profit. A few weeks ago I paid a visit, with an eager class of master volunteers learning about insects, to a small business in the Dallas area called Butterflies Unlimited. Owner Dale Clark explained that the butterfly business is still growing as public and private gardens, museums, and even weddings are incorporating butterfly releases into their events.

There appears to be a lesson for all of us in this. There's more than one way to make a living off of insects.

Structural Pest Control Advisory Board to meet this month

2011-10-12T18:35:00.000-05:00

Leslie Smith, new TDA Director for Consumer Service Protection (and replacement for Jimmy Bush), has announced the next Structural Pest Control Advisory Committee to be held on Thursday, October 27th, in Austin, Texas. This will be the first meeting of the committee since last spring, and the first opportunity to hear first-hand from the new director about changes at the Texas Structural Pest Control Service since massive agricultural department budget cuts this year.

Anyone interested in the activities of the SPCS is welcome to attend this meeting. Since the merging of the old Structural Pest Control Board into TDA three years ago, this is the only regular public venue for agency to hear and respond to public comments about its programs and plans.

The committee will meet at 9:00 am in Room 1003A of the Stephen F. Austin Building in Austin, Texas. Anyone who wants to make a statement about anything can sign up to do so at the beginning of the meeting.

The Texas Structural Pest Control Service is the TDA division that regulates structural pest control in the state of Texas.

Fall and winter is growing season for PMPs

2011-10-12T18:07:00.000-05:00

The Texas State Fair is open. We've had three days of rain and cooler temperatures. I think I finally believe that summer is done for, and fall is here. I thought Dallas had it bad this summer with over seventy 100 degree days, beating the previous north Texas record heat wave of 1980. But Wichita Falls, TX crushed their previous (1980) record of 79 days with 100 days of triple digits this summer. Add to all of this the exceptional drought and add some of the worst wildfires in history--it's enough to put 2011 in the record books.

The Fall 2010 IPM Seminar in Dallas drew over 300 pesticide
applicators for their required annual training.

Besides relief from the heat, the end of summer means a busier time for us on the education side of things. In October my Extension colleagues and I generally start a new round of CEU courses around the state. I look forward every year to the chance to see many of you Texas readers again in the coming months. Here are some of the meetings in Texas and around the country you might want to check out.

Texas

The Texas AgriLife Center at Dallas will be hosting the annual Fall Integrated Pest Management Seminar on November 8. The focus of this training is on pest control of landscapes, although a full range of CEUs is available for PMPs (except termite control). To register, click here and search on the Dallas location, or the term IPM.
If you live near San Antonio or Austin, our Extension Entomologists there will be hosting two programs for credit on November 9-10 (Austin) and December 2 (San Antonio).
Texas A&M University will host the 66th Urban Pest Management Conference and Workshop on January 11-13, 2012 in College Station. This is one of the most educational pest control workshops in the state. It always attracts interesting speakers and provides a unique opportunity to learn about the latest research in urban entomology from the premier university in Texas.

National
An increasing number of PMPs are getting certified and learning about the educational opportunities of participating in the Entomological Society of America's annual conference. The largest scientific society devoted to entomology in the world, the ESA annual meeting may be just the kind of challenging educational event you've been looking for. Swarming with Ph.D. entomologists and eager graduate students with an enthusiasm for insects, there are always dozens of presentations and posters on urban entomology subjects. This year's meeting is in Reno, Nevada. Click here for more information.

The National Pest Management Association's annual meeting, Pest World 2011, is in New Orleans, October 19-22. Serveral thousand PMPs, industry experts and entomologists attend this prestigious meeting each year. I've always found this meeting to be entertaining and informative. Many of the new products for the year are also introduced at this meeting.

Cirque du Insecte

2011-10-12T17:45:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling guilty about not posting more in the past two months, so to make up to my Insects in the City subscribers I thought I'd broadcast a link to this very clever YouTube video posted a couple of days ago by SnapDragon Cell phones.

After watching the video I wondered what kind of person gets to come up with these fantasies and make them a reality? Since this is advertising, I assume it wasn't just done by someone with too much time on their hands. To whoever's responsible I say, "Congratulations on figuring out a way to have so much fun and get paid for it."

Bed Bug Academy offers surprises

2011-08-12T15:19:00.000-05:00

I wasn't sure what to expect when I got invited to attend the Bed Bug Academy event sponsored last month by the Texas Pest Control Association. I knew that I knew something about the subject of bed bugs, but I also knew there was a lot more that I needed to know. Boy was I right on the last part.

In case you haven't been paying attention, over the past year or so bed bugs have generated an incredible new business in products that offer control as well as conferences on how to build your bed bug business. The North American Bed Bug Summit offered last year and again next month in Chicago, IL is perhaps the biggest venue.

The experience and manpower behind these conferences, including the smaller Bed Bug Academy here in Texas, is Bed Bug Central. Brainchild of Phil and Richard Cooper, of New Jersey's Cooper Pest Solutions, Bed Bug Central has established itself as the premier training provider for pest control companies wanting to enter the bed bug arena.

After attending the summit I've concluded that the Cooper brothers do a pretty good job of presenting information in an understandable and comprehensive way. No one could criticize them of being superficial in their coverage either. Their main instructor, Jeff White, is obviously well experienced and a good communicator. The result was a stimulating and helpful boot camp for anyone wanting to begin, or get better at, bed bug treatments.

I have to admit that I’ve yet to personally treat an apartment or hotel room for bed bugs. I have, however, attended a number of presentations by bed bug researchers and PMPs at Entomological Society of America meetings where the process has been described. I’ve always come away amazed at the amount of work these folks say needs to be done to thoroughly treat an apartment or room.

Typical research-based recommendations for treating a room include removing all furniture and belongings, treating every square inch of room and closet, and thoroughly inspecting, treating and replacing every furniture piece before returning to its place. In addition, the standard scorched earth protocol requires extensive preparation on the part of the tenant or homeowner to clean up and bag most of their personal belongings. Just describing the process makes me tired.

The BBC approach evolved from the real world where tenant cooperation and follow up is unreliable, and technician time costs money. Consequently the stripped down approach taught in these classes is different from what I expected to hear. This is not saying that the BBC system is not a lot of labor--it is. But the BBC approach, I think, is more sustainable and practical for most accounts.

According to White, the biggest challenge in bed bug control is to make bed bug control more affordable. So rather than charge all accounts a higher rate based on worse-case scenarios, they hedge their bets with a careful assessment and cost estimate for each account. Standard service starts with a two-technician, 20-minute inspection to evaluate the numbers of bed bugs and the complexity of the account. All sites are then classified as low (less than 20 live bed bugs), moderate (21-100 live bed bugs) or high; and treatment complexity is assigned on standard room contents plus additional costs for more cluttered or complex living situations.

Service of units with low level infestations is the most stripped down. It includes a thorough inspection and treatment of the bed and all furniture within two feet of the bed. Unless other furniture or closets are seen to be infested, they receive only minimal treatment with residual sprays. Other rooms of the house are only given thorough inspections and treatment if other people are known, or suspected, to be living there. Wall junctions and baseboards are treated, but not ceilings unless bed bugs are observed. Steaming, which is a slow, but essential part of the service, typically takes only about five to ten minutes per apartment with this targeted treatment approach. Vacuuming is used to remove live bed bugs encountered during the inspection. A two foot area is steamed around any spots where live bed bugs or their droppings are found. Only in high- or moderately-infested accounts does the company begin to come close to the "scorched earth" strategy.

Perhaps the most surprising difference in the BBC approach is their Limited Prep model. The idea behind limited prep is that when tenants scramble to clean things up before the treatment date they inevitably scatter bed bugs into sites where they would not normally be found, such as closets or bookshelves. By leaving things in place, bed bugs are more easily found and treated or vacuumed. Using this model the tenants are asked only to the clean the unit enough to allow technicians access. Items under and around the bed are requested to be left in place. If the technicians encounter anything that needs to be laundered or emptied, they leave the items bagged with an instruction sheet on top telling the tenant what to do for the next service.

Evidence for the success of the limited prep and tiered treatment approach is Bed Bug Central’s customer promises. Moderate infestations are charged on the assumption of have three to four services. If bed bugs are still a problem after four services, the client is not charged. The company also boldly offers a five-month "No bugs--no bites" guarantee for most accounts.

Refreshingly, the focus of the BBC approach was not on which insecticides work best. All current bed bug insecticides have their limitations, we know. According to Dr. Dini Miller, the best we can expect with the current arsenal of insecticides is contact kill. In other words, “you only get what you hit.” None of the pyrethroid insecticides are consistently providing residual kill--that is, once they have dried. This means that good application skills are absolutely essential. Heat treatments, barriers, traps, steam, cold, and vacuuming all should play a part in an effective bed bug control plan.

Of course the Academy covered much more than what I can in this short review. If you have a chance to attend one of these programs, I think you’ll find it worth your time. As to the inevitable question lurking in the backs of everyone’s mind, “Can anything good come out of New Jersey?” In this case I think the answer is YES.

Imprelis Recall Shows Limits of Registration Process

2011-08-09T09:57:00.002-05:00

In case you didn't catch the flurry of news stories about a week ago, a herbicide from DuPont has recently been associated with tree damage in a number of northern states. This article from the Detroit Free Press lays out the story pretty well.

In response to the reports, last Thursday DuPont sent a letter to its turf management product distributors and announced a voluntary suspension of sale and product recall for Imprelis.

According to the letter, the damage appears to primarily affect certain sensitive tree species, "such as Norway spruce and white pine, but DuPont has also received reports of damage to other species. The majority of the reported damage is concentrated in a geographic band that includes Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Wisconsin."

According to Dallas Urban Forester, Micah Pace, no reports of tree damage have been reported here in Texas, but certainly this is an issue PMPs engaged in weed control should be aware of. Any questions about the suitability of Imprelis for use in southern lawns should be directed to the DuPont hotline at 866-796-4783.

So what does this northern herbicide story have to do with Insects in the City? The Imprelis crisis illustrates one of the inherent limitations of the pesticide registration process. Our country has an excellent system for testing and regulating pesticides, but it's not perfect. Imprelis had been tested on a variety of tree species and under a variety of conditions, but not on all species under all conditions. The fact is that safety testing for all products continues even after a pesticide has been registered and sold. The process is sometimes referred to as product stewardship, and it provides an extra measure of protection for consumers.

Obviously it would have been better and less costly for DuPont had the alleged tree sensitivity been detected during the testing phase, prior to its sale and use around the country. But to some extent real world testing is always going to be more comprehensive and rigorous than the pre-registration screening process. It shouldn't come as a complete shock that problems would arise with a new (or even older) commercial pesticide.

Rank and file PMPs should recognize this and be ready to report any unusual problems with an insecticide to the manufacturer. These reports, in turn, are supposed to be reported to EPA as part of the product stewardship process. This is the way that our regulatory system, as imperfect as it is, must work.

UPDATE (August 12, 2011). There are two recent EPA updates on Imprelis:

http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/cases/civil/fifra/dupontimprelis.html Describes stop sale EPA issued August 11, and notes that 7,000 incident reports have been filed with EPA since June by the Manufacturer.

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/regulating/imprelis.html Additional notes on the issue as well as some discussion about the label limitations on Imprelis regarding use of treated clippings in compost.

Like a search for an honest man

2011-08-03T13:30:00.003-05:00

When I started working as an extension entomologist I began a collection of books and files containing all the pesticide labels that I might have to reference in the course of answering questions from the public. Today I've pretty much trashed all the hard copies of labels in my office, because nearly everything is available online.

This doesn't mean, however, that finding things is easy.

What got me thinking about this was an email announcing EPA's latest update of their search engine called the Pesticide Product Labeling System (PPLS). According to the email, PPLS is a collection of over 170,000 current and historical pesticide product labels that have been approved by EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs under FIFRA.

The newest version of PPLS contains enhanced features to help you locate labels and label information you might need. For example, you can:

Search by product name
Search by company name
Search by EPA Registration Number
View labels in PDF format
Search label content
View the history of products that have been transferred from one company to another

It seems to me that the ability to quickly trace an EPA Registration number is a useful feature here, especially when trying to decode a service ticket where the number was given, but not the actual label name or formulation. The history function of this website is also interesting. For example, if I want to see how a Termidor 80WG label read from 2001, I could look that up. You can also read the cover letter from the manufacturer explaining what amendments were made to each label revision.

I guess this is something that would be useful to lawyers, so it's good to know that it's out there; but the EPA site still doesn't quite do it for me. If I know what I want to kill, or where I want to treat, and want to see my product options, it doesn't provide any help. It's not a full featured database.

When PCT online announced it's search tool I thought I had found the holy grail of label search engines for structural pest control. You have the option of searching by manufacturer, formulation, site, pest, state or product name. The problem is that it doesn't work very well. When I searched for cockroach baits, for example, it only retrieved two products--a JT Eaton boric acid insecticide dust (not a bait?) and a Nisus Triple Shot Bait Station. What happened to Avert and MaxForce and Advion and the dozens of other cockroach baits out there?

Univar's Pest Web also provides a product catalog and manufacturer links on their website. Both of these are useful, especially the product catalog which allows you to search for all products by a manufacturer, or all products in a certain category like "insect growth regulators". But that's about as far as it goes.

Agricultural pesticides have their good databases such as Greenbook, CDMS and CropLife Foundation; but no such (up-to-date) service seems to exist for structural pest control.

While searching for a specific label has gotten easier with the Internet age, looking for a list of available products to solve a problem has not. The search for a good search engine is a lot like a search for an honest man. We're all still looking.

No place to hide

2011-08-02T11:27:00.004-05:00

A few months ago I had the opportunity to visit with scientists at Research Associates Labs in Addison, Texas. They told me about a new application of DNA fingerprinting that, I believe, has some exciting uses in the pest control industry. Last week I had the chance to catch up again with one of Research Associates' scientists, Dr. Kate Johnson, who was explaining the service to PMPs attending the first ever Bed Bug Academy of the Southwest sponsored by the Texas Pest Control Association. More about that meeting in a later post, but to see what Dr. Kate had to say, and how the process works, check out the video below.

This meeting was Research Associates' Labs first introduction to the pest control industry. Until recently, their focus was on providing molecular diagnostics tests to vets and zoos. The techniques that Dr. Kate describes may seem like cutting edge stuff to us in pest control, but the technology is not especially new. Using a technique known as real-time PCR, DNA collected on a swab can be rapidly amplified so that it can be detected by laboratory equipment, much like a stereo receiver amplifies otherwise inaudible radio waves.

The key to pest detection is finding a piece of DNA that is unique to the target organism you wish to detect. Once this DNA fragment is identified, special primers can be selected that will amplify only the target DNA strands. If the unique DNA is not present, nothing get amplified and detected. Research Associates Labs has taken the time to customize the technique to look specifically for human bed bug DNA. Using sterile swabs, a PMP can walk into an account and quickly sample the likeliest locations in a room for bed bug DNA. Once received by the laboratory, its only a matter of a few hours to learn whether bed bugs have been present in a room.

There are a few limitations to the procedure and how to interpret the results. First, you have to take a good sample from the right spots in a room. Second, some chemicals, including pesticides, can interfere with the results. But perhaps most importantly, the test cannot easily tell whether bed bugs are still active in a room. Because bed bug DNA lasts a long time in an indoor environment, one cannot assume that a positive test didn't come from an infestation that was eliminated a year earlier, for example.

With time, I suspect we'll see the real value of DNA testing in detecting low level bed bug infestations in homes where visual inspections don't reveal bed bugs, but where a client insists that bites are occurring. Given the expensive nature of expanding bed bug treatment into rooms beyond a bedroom, the technique might also be useful when initially inspecting and bidding an account to determine whether additional rooms in a home might need treatment. At $15 a pop, hotels might find the service a little pricey for regular use; however the technique might be useful in confirming a positive detection of bed bugs by a canine bed bug team doing routine hotel inspections.

With additional tests, the DNA technique could be most helpful in confirming the presence or likely absence of biting mites, fleas and bed bugs from those mystery bug clients we encounter so often. While there's not yet a test for the several home-infesting species of biting mites, cat flea and scabies mite tests are currently available. Pretty soon I predict that bed bugs, and perhaps all pests, will have no place to go, no place to hide.

Eyes open for brown marmorated stink bug

2011-07-27T17:55:00.001-05:00

Closeup view of BMSB from the Penn State University.

By all accounts the brown marmorated stink bug smells bad. On top of that, it's stuck with a tough name. But this new stink bug pest deserves it.

The brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), Halyomorpha halys, is native to Asia and was first detected in the U.S. in Pennsylvania in 1998. This pest is now well-established in the northeast and has been detected in more than 25 states, including Oregon.

Although most University types are concerned with the BMSB because of its potential impact on agricultural crops like fruit trees, sweet corn, tomatoes, soybeans and ornamentals, this pest has the potential to become another significant structural pest.

But don't start counting your increased revenue stream just yet. The BMSB is not a satisfying, or easy, pest to control. It's the same kind of seasonal invader of homes as the boxelder bug, paper wasps or the Asian multicolored lady beetle. Like these pests, it's attracted to the outside of structures on warm fall days in search of protected overwintering sites. It readily enters buildings where it occasionally reappears in living areas during warmer, sunny periods throughout the winter. It again emerges in the spring. Like these pests, the solution may be more in the line of sealing and caulking the home and vacuuming up the bugs instead of being easily blocked by an insecticide application.

To date, BMSBs have been reported from approximately 33 states, but not from Texas. This will likely change soon, as they are easily transported in cars, campers and RVs.

Here's where you can help. If you think you run into an infestation of brown marmorated stink bugs, let me or one of our extension entomologists from around the state know. You can send specimens or good quality digital images. If you choose to send a specimen, please follow the directions on this page, and include a completed insect ID form with accurate information about date and location where the specimen was collected.

The brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys, right) can be distinguished from the brown (Euschistus servus, left) and bark (Brochymena quadripustulata, center) stink bugs by markings and the white bands at the joints of the antennae. (Note: These images not necessarily to scale. The two left photos were taken by Mike Quinn, TexasEnto.net; and the right image by Melinda Fawver. Thanks for permission to use.)

Identification
The BMSB has some similar relatives that are common in Texas. The best identification mark is the white band at the joint between the 3rd and 4th (last) antennal segments (see image). The BMSB also has four creamy spots on the pronotum (shield) just behind the head and on the top of the scutellum (triangular shaped plate between the bases of the wings).

Icky ticks

2011-07-18T15:14:00.000-05:00

Screen shot from the TickApp showing male and female lone star ticks.

Certainly one of the most disgusting pests PMPs are likely to encounter are ticks. Those of you who live in heavy tick zones know what I mean. But how many times have you found a tick, or been asked about ticks by a customer, and been at a loss for answers? Now there's a new web application called "TickApp" that provides quick information about everything you need to know about ticks.

Researchers and extension specialists at Texas A&M University developed TickApp as a smart-phone friendly website to provide information about ticks. Anyone with access to the Internet at home or on their smart phone can access it at http://tickapp.tamu.edu.

"Ticks are blood-feeding parasites capable of causing irritation, inflammation and infection in animals and humans, as well as transmitting the pathogens that cause tick-borne diseases," said Dr. Pete Teel, Texas AgriLife Research professor and associate entomology department head. "We are frequently contacted for assistance from lay and professional audiences to identify ticks and answer questions about their biology, distribution and control, as well as the potential for acquiring a tick-borne disease.”

TickApp provides in-depth content on tick identification, biology, ecology, prevention and management, and was designed for primary delivery on smart phones such as BlackBerry, Droid, and iPhone using Internet browsers, Teel said. It also can be accessed by desktop or laptop computer, as well as other personal portable electronic devices.

PMPs who have to work outdoors in tick infested environments should find the app useful, as well as pet owners; state and federal park managers and employees; animal shelter workers; animal control employees; outdoor educators; animal health inspectors; military personnel; veterinarians and vet clinic employees; public health and medical clinic employees; and recreational consumers, such as campers, hunters, birders, hikers and fishermen.;

Read the original article by Paul Schattenberg for more information.

No new taxes (but maybe new fees)

2011-07-14T18:09:00.001-05:00

If it didn't hurt so much, it might be funny. In case you haven't noticed, there's nary a politician in the country who wants to be caught voting for higher taxes these days. Yet in order to balance budgets without dismantling essential programs, fees are quietly being raised for many different state and federal programs. The latest proposed fee hikes for pest control licenses are just one example.

The Texas Department of Agriculture has published a proposal to raise licensing fees an average of 57% for business, applicators' and technicians' licenses and continuing education courses. The reason for the fee hike is that this year's Texas legislature declined to fund benefits for TDA employees, with instructions for the agency to make up the budget shortfall with fee increases. As predicted in an earlier post, the agency took a major (45%) cut in its overall budget, though the major impact of this on the structural pest control service was in employee benefits.

According to TDA Assistant Commissioner Jimmy Bush, "The initial review for the structural program indicated that an estimated 80% increase in fees would be required. In an effort to reduce the impact of the fee increase as well as comply with the intent of the legislation, TDA has further reviewed the mandated requirements and department activities to identify efficiencies. This review has resulted in the 57% fee increase as opposed to the initial estimate of 80%."

Some of the proposed fee changes are as follows:

Original business license fees will increase from $180 to $280
Renewal of business license fees will increase from $180 to $280
An original certified applicator's license will increase from $85 to $135
Renewal of a certified applicator's license will increase from $80 to $125
An original technician's license will increase from $65 to $100
Renewal of a technician's license will increase from $65 to $100
Fee for taking an exam in each category will increase from $50 to $75
The cost for registering a CEU course will go from $40 to $60
The option for paying fees in six month increments will no longer be available

If you have comments on the schedule of proposed fee increases, you may contact Jimmy Bush, Assistant Commissioner for Pesticides, Texas Department of Agriculture, P.O. Box 12847, Austin, TX 78711. You must have your comments in by August 7.

The name for this approach to keeping things running is "cost recovery". You will be seeing this occurring in many state agencies (including my agency) unless and until someone comes up with a more equitable way to keep state government running. Daniel DeFoe, Ben Franklin and Margaret Mitchell all had it right.

P.S. There will be no Structural Pest Control Advisory Committee this summer. Meetings will resume in October.

Grady Glenn

2011-06-24T17:10:00.001-05:00

The Texas pest control industry lost a favorite son this week. Dr. Grady Glenn passed away unexpectedly following what was supposed to be routine surgery on Monday, June 20th.

Grady was one of those people you meet and immediately like. I met Grady during one of the Texas A&M winter conferences shortly after I started working as an urban entomologist. At large meetings you meet dozens of people, but Grady stood out for his sense of humor, intelligence and soft-spoken charm. I've heard many describe him as a real gentleman, and after knowing Grady for almost 20 years I can say that this word describes him perfectly.

Grady was an inspiration in many ways. He decided about 10 years ago to step away from his long-time pest control business and work toward his Ph.D. in entomology. [His favorite tongue-in-cheek self-introduction at pest control meetings was, "Hi, I'm Grady and I'm a recovering PMP."] Even after successfully completing a Ph.D. at an age when many people are planning retirement, Grady was never shy to get down and dirty with pest control projects. He maintained a vigorous work schedule despite his physical handicap (an artificial leg) and lingering pain from a car accident several years ago.

Grady had a number of challenges in his life, but handled all of them with grace and a wonderful sense of humor. He will be achingly missed by his family and friends. Grady left behind his beloved wife, JudyAnn, two step-daughters and two sons.

The family has determined to hold a private memorial service tomorrow; however if you want to pay your respects there are a few options. Cards may be sent JudyAnn and family care of: Klein CyFair NorthWest Funeral Home, 9719 Wortham Blvd., Houston, TX 77065-3420. You can also share a tribute or remembrance for family and others on Grady's Facebook page or the temporary memorial page set up by the Houston Chronicle. Finally, according to his family, "In lieu of flowers, please plant a tree in your backyard--Grady would appreciate it!"

Living to see another day: School IPM in Texas

2011-06-03T14:24:00.000-05:00

The Texas regular Legislative Session ended peacefully May 31--at least for school integrated pest management (IPM) programs.

The past few months have been filled with more than a little uncertainty about school IPM in Texas. As I first reported in March, an initial bill was introduced by State Senator Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) that included a short provision to repeal all school IPM laws and associated rules in Texas. By late April, after appeals from environmental groups and some parents and school IPM coordinators, school IPM was shown to have its supporters. However, the situation was further complicated when two additional bills were introduced that mirrored school IPM repeal language from Senator Shapiro's bill.

Now that the dust has settled, it appears that all three bills that carried IPM repeals died quiet deaths. Senate Bills 3 and 468 (Shapiro) died in committee with school IPM repeal provisions, HB 3684 (Callegari) was dead in Calendars Committee after removing the school IPM repeal section, and SB. 1252 (Williams) was also left pending in committee with a school IPM repeal provision.

According to a long tradition, Texas legislative sessions don't always go away quickly or without an extended session. Governor Perry has called this week for a Special Session to deal with unfinished school finance and political redistricting issues. And as long as legislators are in Austin it's difficult to say with certainty what may or may not get included in the final legislative bill machine. Nevertheless, most observers seem to think that school IPM repeal is dead for this session.

What did this legislative session teach me about school IPM? For one thing it's taught me that no program is a sacred cow. All it takes is a determined person with an agenda to repeal or amend a law, regardless of its merits.

Another thing I observed this session is the importance of having knowledgeable professionals willing to speak up for a program that is making a difference. I'm grateful for everyone who cared enough about childrens health to speak up for a IPM requirements that have reduced unnecessary pesticide use, helped educate and train school professionals about safer pest control practices, and increased the overall effectiveness of pest control programs around the state. For all of the coordinators, parents, PMPs and environmentalists who spoke up for school IPM, thanks for being part of the process. You are the ones who make the system work.

The life span of bed bugs

2011-06-02T15:16:00.003-05:00

One of the most often cited "facts" about bed bugs is that they can live over a year without a blood meal. But is it true? That's what Andrea Polanco and colleagues at Virginia Tech set out to investigate in their recently published article in the open-access journal insects (open access means articles are free and open to the public). Their work, as well as a careful reading of the original source of the one-year-survival statistic, suggests that bed bugs (at least starved bed bugs) may not be as long-lived as the legend says.

One of the sources of the original research suggesting extremely long lives for starved bed bugs came from a paper by Japanese scientist named Omori in the early 1940s. This paper has been cited numerous times, principally because of republication of the data in Usinger's (1966) book on bed bugs, which has been a basic reference for researchers since the bed bug resurgence. If you check the original data from Omori carefully, you will see that adult bed bugs live longest (15 months) at low temperatures (50 degrees F). At more realistic indoor temperatures (65 to 80 degrees F--Omori didn't look at in-between temperatures) the average survivorship of unfed adults was about 160 to 40 days, respectively. Other, less carefully conducted research prior to 1950 suggests maximum bed bug lifespans of 5 to 19 months.

Polanco's work was conducted at a constant 78 degrees F and 69% RH. Their results for insecticide susceptible strains are not that far from Omori's estimates of 40 days at 81 degrees F. But the most interesting conclusion of Polanco's work is that insecticide resistant strains of bed bugs (which are increasingly common worldwide) live for a significantly shorter time when starved (39 to 76 days) than their insecticide-susceptible counterparts (73 to 106 days). The longest life span observed in Polanco's research was an insecticide-susceptible 5th instar nymph, which lived 143 days without a blood meal. Field strains of resistant bed bugs did not live longer than 80 days. These data are still a far cry from the 12 to 15 month longevity figure often cited to amaze people about bed bug resiliency.

One of the most interesting things about Polanco's team's work is the demonstration that insecticide-resistance can make an organism less fit in some ways. This has been seen in other insects (e.g., cotton bollworm in cotton) when insecticide pressure is removed and insect populations revert (through natural selection) back to susceptible forms--presumably because the susceptible forms are overall more fit for survival.

So when talking to your customers about bed bugs, it's time to drop the 12 month statistic. It's more realistic to say that today's bed bugs can live 3 to 5 months without a blood meal.

Don't get me wrong. Two to four months without food is still impressive. But bed bugs are not immortal, and like all pests they too have their limits of endurance.

Orkin ranks cities for bed bugs

2011-06-01T13:46:00.000-05:00

Orkin Pest Control is one of the largest pest management companies in the U.S. That's why whenever I see Orkin, or other big players, come out with information about trends in pest control around the country, I perk up. Business data from the big pest control companies can tell a lot about what is happening industry-wide in the U.S.

In a recent release put out by PCT Media Group, Orkin ranked the top 50 cities in the U.S. for bed bug jobs. At the top of the list is Cincinnati, Ohio (population 296,000). It's hard not to feel a little sorry for the folks from Cincinnati, whose city ranks 5 places ahead of New York City, despite the Big Apple's reputation as a bed bug haven and its much larger population (8.2 million).

Dallas (1.2 million) still looks relatively good compared to Ohio and New York at 29th on the list. The fourth largest U.S. city, Houston, is ranked 18th on the bed bug list; and Austin, the only other Texas city, is listed as 44th. Other notable bed bug hot spots include Chicago (2nd place, 2.7 million), Denver (4th place, 600,158) and Detroit (5th place, 713,777).

What does this all mean? Without more specific business data from Orkin it's difficult to draw detailed conclusions. For example, we lack data on the actual number of calls by city. Also, it would be interesting to see a breakdown of bed bug infestations by sector (e.g., public housing, hotels, apartments, single family dwellings, etc.) to see what trends might be going on there. Nevertheless, the report clearly shows that bed bugs are not uniformly distributed throughout the U.S.

The top cities may have some unique geographic and socioeconomic conditions, but are likely not too different from most other large cities. The biggest message I take from this is that we should all be prepared. It could get a lot worse. We could be Cincinnati.

Role of DDT in WWII

2011-05-23T15:53:00.000-05:00

Little in life is black and white, and nowhere in pest control is this truer than for the insecticide DDT. Mention DDT in most circles today, and you'll hear "tsk, tsks", and see shaking of heads. "What were we thinking when we unleashed DDT on the world?"

Yet DDT had its moment in the sun, and doubtless scholars will continue to debate its benefits to humans vs. its environmental shortcomings for years to come. David Fincannon, a pest management professional and owner of A-All Pest Control in Plano, TX recently published a new video consisting of historical footage and interviews with some of the last surviving PMPs of the Second World War. In it, these men discuss their experiences with the new insecticide Gesurol, now known as dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, or DDT. Watching this video may not change your mind about the environmental wisdom of DDT use, but it will give you a better appreciation for what DDT contributed to our nation's history.

I'm so thankful for David's interest in documenting some of the early history of pest control. One of his key interviewees is Dr. John Osmun, Professor Emeritus of entomology at Purdue University. Dr. Osmun was one of my favorite professors when I was a graduate student at Purdue. And one of my favorite parts of his class was listening to his many first person accounts of the early history of insecticide development and commercialization.

Morgellon's syndrome and delusions of parasitosis

2011-05-20T18:01:00.003-05:00

Typical sample from client with non-existent bugs.

A few years ago they came in matchboxes. Today they're more likely to come in pill jars, Ziploc bags or on pieces of Scotch tape. I'm talking about samples of nearly invisible items that clients believe are biting or crawling over their skin. Though it's true that there are some tiny insects and mites that can bite or parasitize people, more frequently these samples turn out to consist only of lint or skin scrapings or insects that would never bite a human.

Most urban entomologists or pest management professionals who have been in the business long enough know what I'm talking about. There are a surprising number of people seeking help from PMPs or entomologists, convinced that they are being bitten by non-existent bugs. Some of these unfortunate clients suffer from an allergy, environmental sensitivity, medical condition or drug reaction that resembles a creeping or pricking sensation on the skin. These good folks have a real medical condition, but are falsely persuaded that insects or mites are involved.

Other clientele are likely suffering from what doctors call a dermatopsychiatric condition, or somatic delusion--technical jargon for a mental illness that causes someone to believe and feel infested by bugs or other animate or inanimate objects. The problem is common enough to have a name, "Eckbom's syndrome" or "delusions of parasitosis".

I don't know what percentage of the people I encounter each year are (in cases of physical conditions) illusional versus (cases of mental illness) delusional; but I have become convinced based on a variety of similarities and resistance to diagnosis that a high percentage fall into the latter group.

A diagnosis of delusional parasitosis is always resisted and often resented by sufferers. No one wants to hear that a very large problem in their life is psychosomatic. Indeed the psychological definition of a delusion is "an unshakable belief that cannot be corrected by reason or logic, and which is inconsistent with a patients' intelligence, education or cultural background." Even family members often find it hard to accept that their loved ones are suffering from a psychosomatic problem.

A paper published earlier this week by Sara Hylwa and colleagues at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN represents one of the first published efforts to take a serious and critical look at specimens and skin samples from people who had been diagnosed with delusions of parasitosis. A total of 108 patients previously diagnosed as delusional were included in the study. None of the 80 skin biopsies from these patients provided any evidence of skin infestations of any sort (including scabies). Ten actual insect specimens provided b patients were assessed and 9 out of the 10 were determined to pose no risk of skin infestation (one was a pubic louse). Most of the samples consisted of skin debris, environmental detritus, or plant material.

These findings are consistent with what I have observed for over 20 years as an extension entomologist. During this time I have looked at perhaps 2 to 3 samples a month that turn out to not be insects. Encountering a delusional client is frustrating because, as an entomologist I can often recognize the problem; but there is little I can do to treat or solve it, short of educating caregivers.

The Mayo study represents the first of two highly anticipated reports on this problem by medical researchers. A second study is due out in a few months. According to an article by Melissa Healy in the L.A. Times, this second study, being conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention working with Kaiser Permanente of Northern California, was launched in January 2008 after patients and a small group of medical professionals led by an organization called the Morgellons Research Foundation advocated for a full-scale government investigation of their symptoms.

The Morgellons Foundation was formed by an online community of people resistant to the suggestion that biting problems can be psychosomatic. They believe that there is a third possible explanation for cases where bugs can't be found--some mysterious underlying condition that causes the suffering of many or most people today being diagnosed as delusional.

I would, in some ways, be relieved to find out that there really is some organic cause for the suffering I see in many of the people who pass through our office doors each year. It would allow me to give such clients and their families hope that there's a non-psychological explanation for their torments.

I'm not overly optimistic, however. Mental illness is consistent with the irrational and compulsive behavior often exhibited by the bearers of empty matchboxes and Ziploc bags. Often these folks will provide contradictory and illogical descriptions of their problems. And the compulsive self-treatment, discarding of furniture, and extreme behavior to escape their insect pursuers is not normal or healthy.

As a PMP there are a few things you can do.

If the client cannot produce a likely specimen, use sticky cards around the home. Give the cards a week or so to trap anything suspicious.
Check the premises for signs of rodent or bird infestations. Mites associated with bird and rodent nests can bite people, though they will not hitchhike or live on humans.
Keep an open mind and take complaints seriously, but don't be pushed into making applications of pesticides that you cannot justify.
Encourage the cliente to seek a medical opinion, pointing out that sensations of biting or creeping can be caused by things other than arthropods. Be sure to include a family member or caregiver in the conversation if you can.
Don't diagnose someone as delusional. That's a judgment that can only be made by a health professional. You are, however, knowledgeable about insects--likely more than the average doctor. Stick to what you know.
Don't forget to make use of third-party information when communicating with the client or with family members. I have written a factsheet on Diagnosing Mysterious "Bug Bites" for this purpose. Beware of information gleaned from dubious sources on the Internet--there is a lot of false and misleading information on this subject online.

Do bed bugs carry disease?

2011-05-12T10:02:00.000-05:00

A study just published in the CDC journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases, looks at the question of whether bed bugs might be vectors (carriers) of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In scientific parlance this is a great example of a Q&D study (quick and dirty). The Vancouver, BC researchers had three hospitalized patients come in with bed bugs on their persons. They thought, "wouldn't it be interesting to test these bed bugs to see if they have any antibiotic-resistant pathogens?" So they took the bed bugs, crushed them up, and tried to isolate bacteria from them.

It turned out that two of the patients had one bed bug each that tested positive for vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE). The third patient had three bed bugs that tested positive for methocillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The authors speculated that the bed bugs may have picked up these bacteria from the low-income community where the patients were from (infections from the two bacteria are prevalent there). They also hypothesized that bed bugs in this community could be acting as a hidden environmental reservoir for MRSA, and could be contributing to the spread and amplification of MRSA infections in these impoverished and overcrowded communities.

Such speculations and hypotheses are useful for researchers who love to make guesses and then test their hypotheses through further observations and experiments. But it is important for those of us in the pest management field to not confuse speculation and hypothesis with facts. Vector biologists can cite many examples of pests that have been shown to harbor a pathogen, but are not considered to be infectious to humans. The standard of proof is pretty high for stating that a given insect or animal is capable of spreading infection. This test does not meet that burden of proof by a mile. And the authors would be the first to admit it.

So have bed bugs been shown to carry human disease? Not yet. In a clinical review published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, entomologist Jerome Goddard and medical doctor Richard deShazo combed the medical literature and could find no strong evidence showing bed bugs to be disease carriers. Based on collections from bed bugs, the hepatitis B virus (HBV) may be the best candidate for human disease transmission by bed bugs; however in an African study, a two-year eradication program that achieved 100% control of bed bugs had no effect on HBV infection rates. The authors concluded that "Although transmission of more than 40 human diseases has been attributed to bed bugs, there is little evidence that they are vectors of communicable disease."

This is not to say that bed bugs lack health implications for humans. Goddard and deShazo describe the most common reaction to bed bug bites as "2- to 5-mm pruritic maculopapular, erythematous lesions", medical terminology for "red itchy spots". These spots usually itch and, "if not abraded, resolve within a week." Some people, however, have more complex reactions to the bites including rashes and secondary infections. Also, some people develop severe allergic reactions after multiple exposures to the bites (interestingly, in a 1985 experimental study cited in this review, only 30% of a volunteer cohort showed any reaction to bed bug bites).

In a joint statement issued last year, the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pointed out the emerging health implications of our growing bed bug problem. In it they addressed the impact that bed bugs can have on mental health, saying, "Bed bugs may also affect the mental health of people living in infested homes. Reported effects include anxiety, insomnia and systemic reactions." This aspect of the bed bug problem needs more study, and seems to be poorly appreciated by many in the hospitality and pest control industries.

When addressing the medical importance of bed bugs to your customers, it's important to look at the whole picture. Bed bugs are a public health issue, even though they are not known at present to carry any disease pathogens. It would be unethical to imply that bed bugs are carriers of disease at this time; but at the same time bed bug elimination is important work. Effective control of bed bugs alleviates anxiety, insomnia and discomfort for your clientele, and maintains a sanitary environment in which to live. Isn't that what the pest control profession is all about?

Advisory Committee Gets Updates, Homework

2011-05-06T15:10:00.000-05:00

The Texas Department of Agriculture's Structural Pest Control Advisory Committee met in Austin last week. I have served on the committee for two plus years, and have written about the advisory committee in the past (search this site for the term "advisory committee"). The committee represents the public and the pest control industry, and meets quarterly to get updates, and offer suggestions and feedback to TDA, on rules and regulations pertaining to pest control in Texas.

Budget Update & Department news

This quarter's meeting included an update on TDA's budget status in the legislature. House Bill 1(HB 1) (in this session the House takes the lead in drafting the state budget, next session the Senate takes the lead) proposes a 45% cut in the TDA budget. This seemed incredibly high to me for an agency budget cut, but I wasn't detecting any feeling of panic among Assistant Commissioner Jimmy Bush or other TDA staffers at the meeting. According to Bush, while such cuts will likely mean a major restructuring of the Agency, TDA does not see any major impacts on the operation of the Structural Pest Control Service (the division of TDA that oversees and regulates the pest control industry in the state). Much of the cuts being proposed would come from programs at TDA that do not bring in revenue through licenses or fees, namely marketing and the rural economic development divisions of the agency.

The committee was introduced to two TDA attorneys that have recently been assigned to the Structural Pest Control Service. Mary Luedeker and Lisa Hoyt will take over all new structural pest control cases, working with the agency and with industry to interpret and enforce laws and rules relating to pest control in Texas.

Legislative Updates

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dr. Ambrose Charles reported that the Texas Council on Environmental Quality has drafted a discharge permit plan for pesticide applications near water which has been accepted by the U.S. EPA. He noted that the deadline for implementing this program was recently delayed until October 31, but that there is some question whether this new permitting program will ever go into effect. He reported that H.R. 872 was recently passed out of the U.S. House of Representatives by a wide margin. This bill would exempt pesticides labeled under FIFRA from being subject to the Clean Water Act permit system. A companion bill, S. 718, was also introduced into the Senate. If that passes and both houses agree on a joint version of the bill (there are differences), Congress could effectively bypass the recent court decision that would require permits for pesticide applications for aquatic weed control, forest pest control, mosquito control and other pest control around water. The paperwork and manpower requirements, supporters say, will be expensive to communities and agencies, and will not result in improved water quality. Environmental groups oppose HR 872, saying it would be a vote for dirty water. If you have question about how the Texas water permit system works, Dr. Charles is familiar with the provisions of the Texas permitting system.

Katherine Wright-Steele gave a legislative update on four bills relating to the pest control industry that are currently in the Texas state legislative process. Senate Bill 3, containing language that would repeal all school IPM regulations in the state, has been previously discussed here. HB 2741, HB 2742, and HB 2743 were introduced by Representative Tim Kleinschmidt, R-Lexington. All appear to have been introduced with the support of the Texas Pest Control Association. House bills 2741 and 2742 serve to give TDA more leverage in regulating advertising, restoring some of the authority lost in the last legislative session. The house bill 2743 seeks to restructure the Advisory committee, eliminating the university (yo!) and department of State Health Services representatives and making six of the nine positions filled by pest control professionals (three would be public members). Status of these bills is still uncertain and there are currently no companion Senate bills.

Wood Destroying Insect Reports

The committee received some homework from Jimmy Bush. Members were asked to review and provide input into the Wood Destroying Insect (WDI) Report (Form No. SPCS/T-4), WDI report inspection procedures (Rule 7.175), and the chapter on WDI inspections in the AgriLife Extension Study manual (B-5075). This follows discussion from other meetings on ways to reduce the numbers of complaints received each year from the public about WDI reports and inspections. In 2010 the TDA received 20 complaints related to WDI inspections, approximately 10% of all complaints received. While some felt that this number of complaints is very low compared to the number of inspections conducted each year, there does seem to be room for improvement. Improvements to the form itself, as well as the need for improved training and certification for WDI inspectors was discussed.

A group of industry members (Eric Melass, Mike Dickens and Debbie Aguirre) appointed by the committee late last year recommended that enforcement of existing rules rather than new regulations was what was most needed. They also suggested that all WDI inspectors be required to carry a certified applicator's license and that CA tests have a section devoted to WDI issues. If this change did not result in fewer problems, only then should TDA consider creating a special license subcategory for WDI inspectors.

CEU courses

The committee was also charged with reviewing staff recommendations on restructuring CEU course offerings. A group of SPCS staff reviewed the two existing rules (Section 7.134 and Section 7.135) and offered a draft version of the rules with suggestions for improvement. One of the most significant concessions in the new version is to allow the use of an online course to meet someone's entire annual recertification requirement. The only limitation under this proposal would be that online courses could not be used in any two consecutive years to meet CEU requirements. This is because there is concern that, despite recent improvements in technology, the department is still unconvinced that online courses can fully substitute for face to face training.

Other changes in Section 7.135 would include eliminating speaker qualification forms, and doing away with a requirement that online course takers pass an exam with at least a 70% to get their CEU credit and be proctored by a certified applicator. It's not clear under the draft rule how sponsors will guard against abuse of online courses without the proctor requirement. In public testimony time, Don Ward, Executive Director of the Texas Pest Control Association, expressed the association's general support of online courses if abuse issues can be addressed. He also expressed a preference for certifying speakers over courses, seemingly the opposite of the new rules.

If you have suggestions for improvements to the CEU or WDI report process, you should contact one of the Advisory Committee members before July 28, or plan to attend the next committee meeting on that date.

Brown widow spiders spreading in California

2011-05-02T12:08:00.000-05:00

Brown widow spider with her spiky egg cases.
Photo by Martyn Hafley.

The black widow spider is well known to most pest management professionals. Less familiar is the brown widow, Latrodectes geometricus. The brown widow is more common in areas where it occurs, though it is reported to be more shy and less prone to bite than its black cousin. Nevertheless, the venom of this species is thought to be at least as toxic as the black widow.

Rick Vetter at the University of California - Riverside reports that the brown widow is showing up at more locations in southern California, and is soliciting samples from that state to document the spread. In Texas, the brown widow is reported from the Gulf coastal areas from Houston to Corpus Christi.

One of the most distinctive features of the brown widow is its spiky egg case. The black widow spider makes a tough, spherical egg case without any ornamentation. The brown widow egg sac is covered with spiky projections. The spider itself is brown with a yellow or orange hourglass marking on the underside of the abdomen. The Latin name for the species, geometricus, comes from the geometrically shaped patterns on the sides of the abdomen, patterns that are mostly lacking on the black widow.

The current range of the brown widow is thought to extend in the southeast from Florida to Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. It has also been reported from southern California, Nevada and Colorado.

The brown widow is a spider to be respected, if not feared. Vetter calls them "not very dangerous". Dr. G.B. Edwards, an arachnologist with the Florida State Collection of Arthropods in Gainesville, says that the brown widow venom is twice as potent as black widow venom; however, he notes they do not inject as much venom as a black widow, are very timid, and do not defend their web. On the other hand, where they become established, they are likely to be more common than the black widow spider.

I am a hardy promoter of vacuums when it comes to spider control. Because of their large size and tendency to remain on their cobwebs, Latrodectus spiders may be difficult to control with residual insecticides. Residual and contact sprays may still be useful in control; but use of vacuums or "Webster" mops to physically remove the spiders and their egg cases is likely to be superior to insecticide use alone.

If you encounter brown widow spiders in Texas, I would be happy to receive specimens or images of your find. This will help us have a better understanding of the spread and frequency of occurrence in this state. Images can be emailed to m-merchant at tamu dot edu. Or specimens can be mailed in a small amount of alcohol to Extension Urban Entomologist, Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center, 17360 Coit Road, Dallas, TX 75252-6599.

The cuddly alfalfa weevil

2011-04-27T16:01:00.000-05:00

Note the proboscis and dark median stripes characteristic
of the alfalfa weevil.

Each year in pest control brings a few surprises. This year's early surprise is a small outdoor insect known as the alfalfa weevil, Hypera postica. The alfalfa weevil is a small, 3/16-inch (5 mm) long, brownish-grey weevil with a darker brown band down the back. It normally spends the winter as an adult at the base of clover or alfalfa plants, or under leaves or other debris outdoors.

Now weevils are pretty interesting insects, with some of the, if not beautiful, most bizarre-looking faces and life styles among the beetles. Only a few weevils ever become pests--at least indoors. The rice and granary weevils are probably two of the most common, and can be found associated with stored rice and whole grains.

In the twenty years that I've been answering phone calls from county extension agents and citizens I don't recall receiving any complaints about alfalfa weevils invading homes or structures. This year must be different. Over the past few weeks I've had several calls and emails about alfalfa weevils (1) being found indoors, (2) being found in large numbers on the outside of homes, and (3) being found in beds (three complaints!).

OK. There is no good reason why alfalfa weevils should be interested in a bed--unless they just like to cuddle. Alfalfa weevils do not bite and certainly are not blood suckers. I can only guess that these insects must be good at climbing up folds of fabric hanging down from a bed. Also, bedrooms and beds tend to be located at the exterior perimeter walls of home. And certainly one of the easiest places to spot these small gray weevils would be on white bed linens.

Although I can't confirm that alfalfa weevils fly, it's possible that these insects are being drawn to external lighting, and subsequently indoors. If you are servicing a home that is under siege from alfalfa weevils, standard recommendations for control of occasional invaders should apply: (1) reduce or eliminate outdoor lighting, especially lights that shine or doorways or shine directly on the sides of the home; (2) seal doors, windows, and cracks or gaps in walls, soffits or foundations; and (3) apply a residual insecticide to foundation perimeters and around potential entry points into the structure. Indoor pesticide applications, including aerosol bombs, are not recommended.

Texas school IPM's fate still up in the air

2011-04-26T17:46:00.001-05:00

I reported almost two months ago about a bill in the Texas Senate that would repeal our state's school IPM law and associated regulations. Since that time my colleague Janet Hurley and I have talked with many of you about the possible impacts of the repeal. We also had the chance to travel to Austin and share information about school IPM with the Senate Finance committee.

There have been several legislative developments in the past few weeks. First, the original Senate bill, SB 12 (changed from the original SB 468, then SB 3) has eliminated any reference to school IPM repeal. Concerns shared with the committee by a citizen and several environmental groups apparently persuaded the bill's sponsor to remove the school IPM repeal from the larger bill, which was written to reduce regulatory burdens on school districts.

Meanwhile, SB 1252 was introduced by Senator Tommy Williams (R-Woodlands). This bill also called for repeal of school IPM (Texas Occupations Code Section 1951.212). About the same time, an identical sister bill (HB 3684) was introduced into the Texas House by Representative Bill Callegari (R- Houston). Both House and Senate Bills were identical in language and called for repeal of Texas's school IPM law.

The Texas Pest Management Association and several environmental organizations (and a number of school IPM coordinators) have contacted the bill's authors to request removal of the school IPM repeal (allowing school IPM regulations to remain as they are now). They report that both Senator Williams and Representative Callegari have said that they intend to remove school IPM from their bills in response to public input. However, school IPM language has not disappeared from the online copies of either SB 1252 or HB 3684. According to David Oefinger, Executive Director of the Texas Pest Management Association, he believes that the repeal of school IPM in both bills will be dealt with as the bills' authors have promised. However, he notes that "most anything can happen in the waning days of a Texas legislative session."

Are your customers' kitchens...kosher?

2011-04-25T17:48:00.000-05:00

An article in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye last week. The story follows Rabbi Naftali Marrus, in his duties as a certifying rabbi for OK Kosher Certification, a Brooklyn agency that certifies restaurants, caterers, cafés, industrial kitchens and food manufacturers.OK Kosher Certification is one of a number of agencies that certify foods and food servers follow strict Jewish food laws.

One of Rabbi Marrus' tools is THE INFERNO, a three-and-a-half-foot-long propane torch that produces a flame at least half as long, according to the article photo above. Rabbi Marrus and his fellow rabbis use the Inferno to burn off the smallest impurities, yeast, leaven and other crumbs, to ensure a kosher Passover meal in certified restaurants.

To restaurant owner Doris Schecter, it's a renewal, "a chance to start over again." To me it looks like pretty decent pest control. Imagine using one of these babies to rid stainless steel kitchen furniture of cockroaches. Of course one wouldn't want to get too close to a grease-covered wall.

Wildlife conference in Austin next month

2011-04-07T17:10:00.000-05:00

Just passing on an announcement about a wildlife management conference being sponsored by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department May 22-25. Keynote speakers include Dr. Timothy Beatley (Biophilic Cities), Dr. Marina Alberti (Ecological Resilience in Urbanizing Landscapes), Kieran Lindsey (The Road Less Traveled: Subarus, Squirrels, and the Search for Stakeholders), and John Davis (Where Do We Go From Here? A Vision of the Future for Urban Wildlife).

Blog readers may remember one of the keynote speakers, Dr. Kieran Lindsey, from a recent post about Car Talk.

I am not a wildlifer, but this conference looks great. For more information, including a list of speakers and topics, check out the conference website at www.urbanwildlife2011.org An international conference of this caliber doesn't come to Texas every year, so take advantage of it if you can.

Texas included in EPA bed bug grant awards

2011-04-07T16:27:00.001-05:00

Yesterday the U.S. EPA announced the successful applicants for grants totaling $550,000 for bed bug education, outreach and environmental justice projects. I'm pleased to announce that our office is one of the five recipients that will receive these EPA bed bug funds this year.

Looking over the successful projects, a theme was research and extension efforts that benefit high-risk and under served communities disproportionately exposed to environmental risks:

The University of Missouri St. Louis will develop training materials for immediate use in working with building inspectors and social service agencies that serve low-income minority and immigrant neighborhoods in the metropolitan St. Louis area ($89K for one year).
Texas AgriLife Extension Service (that's us!) will develop a pilot IPM program and train workers at a minimum of three homeless shelters in Texas ($76K for two years).
The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will develop and provide training as well as technical and material support to residents, service providers and retail operators in the 12 poorest zip codes of Baltimore City and county health offices throughout Maryland ($142K for two years).
Rutgers University will implement a state-wide bed bug educational outreach program for low-income communities in New Jersey ($100K for 19 months).
Michigan Department of Community Health will promote the Michigan Bed Bug Working Group as a model for the creation of local bed bug task forces of governmental and community agencies ($142K for two years).

In its news release, the EPA correctly noted that because of increasingly scarce resources, it's more critical than ever that all facets of government, industry, and academia work together efficiently. This includes Extension and the pest control industry.

If you are a Texas PMP working with a shelter of any kind, and bed bugs are an issue, we would like to know. Over the next couple of months my teammates and I will be looking for sites to serve as test sites for the project. In addition, as part of this project, Dr. Grady Glenn will be developing what he's calling an "S of P 100" (Survey of Pests 100) list. This will be a list of 100 Texas pest control companies willing to periodically provide information about the number of calls and contracts that you have with bed bugs and other key pests. Participants will remain anonymous, but the data received will be used to track the incidence and severity of various pests throughout the state.

If you are interested in either aspect of this project, please contact me at "m-merchant at tamu.edu".

Research casts doubt on Hobo spider risks

2011-03-29T17:38:00.000-05:00

Approximately 20 years ago the first reports came out about a new spider associated with necrotic bites in humans (Akre and Myhre. 1991. Melanderia 47:1-30). This spider, known as the hobo spider, is a European species that is now established in the Pacific Northwestern states of the U.S. and in British Columbia. Since this time the hobo spider, Tegenaria agrestis, has entered the lexicon of pest control as the third most important venomous spider type in the U.S., behind the brown recluse, Loxosceles reclusa, and the black widows, Latrodectus spp.

New research published in the Journal of Medical Entomology provides evidence that the hobo spider may not be as dangerous as previously believed. The research by Melissa Gaver-Wainwright and colleagues at Washington State University and University of Pennsylvania at Edinboro, used a sophisticated hemolysis venom assay to determine the ability of the venom to cause tissue destruction like the brown recluse spider. The research team also looked at the ability of the spider to transfer MRSA, the dangerous bacterial strain for which symptoms have frequently been misdiagnosed as brown recluse spider bites.

Result of the study showed no evidence that the spider causes necrotic bites. In addition researchers were unable to culture MRSA from the bodies of spiders exposed to the pathogen, nor did they detect MRSA on surfaces that the exposed spiders walked on.

It has been suspected for over 10 years that the hobo spider threat has been exaggerated in the media and even in some industry and scientific publications. In 2001, for example, Binford (Toxicon 39: 955-968) noted the curious lack of necrotic reports from the native European home of the spider. They were unable to document any difference in venom between European and American spiders.

The hobo spider, with its sometime aggressive behavior, made for scary headlines, but in this case at least, truth is duller than fiction. A free pdf copy of the research is available online.

Bed bug or bedbug

2011-03-29T12:17:00.000-05:00

Last week, while reviewing an article in which I was quoted, I commented about the spelling of bed bug. The article writer was using the condensed (one word) form of the name and I argued that it should be two words. This is consistent, I said, with the way other insect compound names are handled. The editor thanked me for my input and said they would "look into it".

I suspect I know what that means. The lumpers seem to be winning these days over the splitters, as you will see if you read Jodi Dorsch's editorial in today's PCT magazine. Jodi tackles the "bedbug" vs. "bed bug" issue and comes out strongly in favor of "bed bug". She notes the arguments of at least one blogger, Michael Quinion, as the opposing point of view. I agree with Jodi's stance and applaud her efforts.

The traditional rule that I (and I believe most entomologists) learned for spelling insect names goes like this. Bed bugs are true “bugs” in the insect order Hemiptera. Typically when an insect name accurately identifies the order to which it belongs, it is spelled as two words (e.g., house fly). But when the insect common name includes an inaccurate descriptor of the insect order, it is spelled as a single word (e.g., dragonfly, which is not a true fly, but it’s own order). Check it out and you'll see this rule is pretty consistent for insect common names (e.g., whitefly, inchworm, cutworm, billbug--none of which are true flies, worms or bugs).

I take some offense to Quinion's statement that "the [one word] spelling has long since become standard for everybody except professional entomologists." Hey, wait a minute. Who, besides entomologists wrote about, or even cared about, bed bugs until bed bugs became hip a year or three ago? And with any kind of professional word, since when does one not look to professionals for guidance with spelling? If I want to know the proper spelling or pronunciation of a Macpherson strut, I ask a car mechanic. If I'm writing about a cerebrovascular accident (aka stroke) I check my spelling with a medical dictionary. So it would follow that if someone is writing about insects, you would consult with an entomologist. Quinion dismisses any rules (substantiated by the official common names of insects guidelines published by the Entomological Society of America) as a quaint form of "folk entomology". Excuse me? I think I'll go have a cerebrovascular accident.

NPDES permit requirements on hold for now

2011-03-29T11:00:00.001-05:00

Last August I wrote about the recent court mandate that would require a Clean Water Act permit for activities like community mosquito control and aquatic weed control. The April 9, 2011 deadline for implementing this new permitting system was rapidly approaching until yesterday, when the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals granted the U.S. EPA a stay (delay) of the requirements until October 31, 2011.

According to the EPA website, the extension was requested by the agency to allow sufficient time for EPA to engage in Endangered Species Act consultation and complete the development of an electronic database to streamline requests for coverage under the Agency’s general permit. It also allows time for authorized states to finish developing their state permits and for permitting authorities to provide additional outreach to stakeholders on pesticide permit requirements.

Texas has already developed its own state permit, which lays out what Texas communities and businesses have to do to legally apply mosquito adulticides, aquatic herbicides, forestry insecticides and other pesticides to state waters and lands. This stay will mean that cities, school districts, landowners and businesses in Texas and other states that apply pesticides to more than the minimum area specified in the rules, have more time to develop and submit their permits.

The stay is not related to political opposition to the Clean Water Act's extension into the pesticide world. Environmental groups have pushed for the CWA to cover pesticide applications for years; however numerous groups (e.g., American Mosquito Control Association, National Cotton Council, Golf Course Superintendent's Association, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, etc.) have fought hard against the expansion. Until a court decision in 2009, pesticides were exempt from CWA requirements as long as pesticide labels were followed. Permits must comply with the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) of permits. At least one bill, HR 872 the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act, would amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to exempt pesticides from permit requirements. That bill was recently voted on favorably (46-8) by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Would eliminating Texas' public school IPM requirements affect student health?

2011-03-11T16:10:00.000-06:00

New Texas school IPM coordinators get a
lesson in conducting IPM inspections at
East-Central ISD, in San Antonio this week.

On Tuesday the Texas Senate Education Committee held hearings on a bill that relates to school IPM. Senate Bill 3 (formerly SB 468) is titled "flexibility of the board of trustees of a school district in the management and operation of public schools in the district" deals with several issues relating to efforts to make Texas legislation less costly to school districts. At the end of the day long hearing (which included testimony from five witnesses who opposed the repeal of school IPM rules and no one specifically in favor), Senator Van de Putte (D- San Antonio) asked Janet Hurley, school IPM program specialist, and I whether in our opinion, repeal of the school IPM legislation would be harmful to childrens' health.

While this is a complex answer to address completely, we both had little choice but to answer yes. Let me explain why.

Texas' requirement for schools to follow IPM principles and to encourage the use of less toxic pesticides has changed the way pest control is done. We know, for example, that indoor school environments receive fewer pesticide spray applications today, 16 years after implementation of the IPM law. Pesticide sprays inevitably deposit residues in places where they can be in contact with children. One could argue that there is little evidence that proper spray applications pose any significant threat to children's health; but the facts remain that children are more likely to be exposed to potentially harmful spray deposits when they are used more frequently. Most of us would agree that keeping pesticides away from kids is a good thing. This is one of the reasons that the U.S. EPA has pushed schools to consider using IPM for almost 20 years.

A second reason for linking IPM to student health is that repeated research shows that IPM is the most effective way to manage pests. This has been shown for cockroach control in schools, bed bug control in public housing, and numerous other sites.

Why is pest control so important? Consider rodents. Mice and rats spread human pathogens via feces and urine, invisible deposits of which can be found on food preparation surfaces, floors and desks of infested schools. This is the situation we saw recently in a south Texas school district that obviously did not have a strong IPM program. I can tell you from personal observation that cockroaches are present in many Texas schools (even with IPM, we're not perfect). Cockroaches are implicated not only in transmission of disease organisms like Salmonella, but also in allergen production. In some areas, cockroach allergies are just as frequent in human populations at house dust mite, cat, and pollen allergies. These allergens are frequently encountered in school dust samples (Eggleston PA, Arruda LK. 2001. Ecology and elimination of cockroaches and allergens in the home. J Allergy Clin Immunol 107:S422-S429). Similarly, house flies, fire ants, bats and other pests are among pests targeted effectively by IPM. Failure to control pests in schools is a failure to provide a safe learning environment for our children.

If you are willing to accept these claims on the part of IPM, the key remaining question is whether IPM practice is likely to decline in the absence of a state requirement. If the past history of pest control in Texas is any guide, the answer is not highly encouraging. Prior to 1995, when school IPM legislation went into effect, there were a few schools with good IPM programs, but most districts relied on scheduled spray visits. One study showed that average satisfaction with pest control programs at that time was low (Damon Shodrock MS thesis, 1994). According to our research, Texas school districts today are 75% more likely to be satisfied with their pest control program compared to 1993, before the law went into effect. We also found that 75% of school IPM coordinators believe that the Texas IPM requirements have resulted in more effective pest management in their districts.

I don't believe the change we've seen in Texas is completely the result of the pest control industry getting better over time. Although there are few statewide surveys, and evidence is anecdotal at best, I think it's safe to say that non-regulated states have not made as much progress in the past 20 years as Texas. Colleagues from other states jealously note that it is difficult to raise interest in IPM among school administrators who are not required by some mandate to follow IPM standards. And if you ask any maintenance professionals familiar with school IPM programs, having the support of school administration is key to IPM success in schools.

We were very appreciative of the opportunity to share these statistics with the Education Committee this week and hope that the Education committee and our legislature will make the decision best for the school children of Texas. Also, if you haven't seen it, a Texas Tribune article reported this week on the issue with voices both for and against the legislation.

The end of School IPM in Texas?

2011-03-02T17:35:00.000-06:00

In case you haven't heard, a bill submitted to the Texas Senate earlier this month includes a provision that would eliminate all requirements for schools to follow IPM in our state. Section 13 paragraph (2) of Senate Bill 468, introduced by Senator Florence Shapiro (R) of Plano, Texas, would repeal Section 1951.212 of the Occupations Code, the section of state law entitled "Integrated Pest Management Programs for School Districts". The presumed intent of the bill is to reduce costs to Texas school districts in this time of very tight budgets.

In response to a number of inquiries we have had from schools and pest management professionals, I and colleagues have put together some facts concerning school IPM in Texas. We are not advocating for or against the provision of this bill that affects school IPM programs, though most readers of this blog will recognize my belief that the school IPM requirements have played an important role in moving our state's public schools toward a better form of pest control.

When discussing the bill with others, you may find the following information helpful in formulating talking points. If you need more information, go to the school IPM website, http://schoolipm.tamu.edu. Detailed information about the Texas School IPM model can be found by clicking on the “More Information” button on the right hand side of the page. For specific information about successful IPM programs click on the “Awards and Recognition” button, also on the right hand side of the home page.

Economic Impacts of School IPM Laws

There is no evidence that the school IPM law and its associated regulations cost school districts significantly more that what they would normally spend on adequate pest control. In a 2005 Texas AgriLife Extension survey of over 500 IPM Coordinators, 53% felt that the IPM requirements had actually reduced long-term costs of pest management. Fifteen percent believed there was no change in cost to the district. Only 18% of districts said that they felt the school IPM regulations had increased the long-term costs of pest control to their district.
Increased costs in labor and training for IPM programs appear to be more than offset by long-term reductions in pest complaints, reduced costs of chemicals, and reduced costs for transportation (responding to pest complaints), etc.
Additional school district savings, associated with other IPM programs and likely to be true for Texas schools as well, include reduced liability for pest and pesticide complaints, and healthier work environments resulting in reduced student absences and teacher sick days.
There is evidence that many schools are finding substantial cost savings with the switch to IPM. Keller ISD, for example, reduced its costs for contractual pest control from $94,000 to $18,000 between 2008 and 2010, due to better management and bringing some services in-house.
A 2005 study conducted in nine North Carolina elementary schools compared conventional pest control to IPM for German cockroach control. Conventional pest control cost $16.92 per service at the beginning of the study and decreased to a stable $7.50 in the final months; compared to IPM service which intially cost $12.63 per service and declined to $6.20 per service (Williams, Linker, Waldvogel, Leidy, & Schal 2005).

Health and Safety Impacts Associated with IPM

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, asthma is a leading cause of school absence in the U.S. – more than 12 million asthma-related absences per year. Not only is IPM implementation more effective at controlling pests that conventional pest management practices but it can also lead to long-term health benefits, such as reduced exposure to rodent and cockroach allergens, important asthma triggers. For this reason, the U.S. EPA considers IPM to be an important component of its Tools for Schools program advocating for better indoor air quality for schools.
The IPM law has resulted in a shift from more- to less-toxic pesticide use in Texas schools. A 1994 Texas A&M University study showed that the two most consistently used insecticides for indoor and outdoor pests in schools at the time were diazinon and Dursban, two broad-spectrum, residual insecticides that were associated with numerous public complaints. In the 2005 Texas AgriLife Extension Service statewide survey conducted ten years after enactment of the school IPM law, insect baits, followed by insect growth regulators and low-toxicity inorganic insecticides such as boric acid (all preferred products under state regulations) were the most commonly used products. This significant shift away from conventional insecticides has not been seen in school districts from other states.
The school IPM law requires good record-keeping from all school districts. This has resulted in better accountability and provides a way to track improvements in pesticide stewardship not commonly seen in schools in other states.
In a Maryland study, the Montgomery County Public School System reduced pesticide applications from 5,000 to 600 per year within three years of implementing IPM. Similar reductions have been reported in Texas since implementation of school IPM regulations.

Quality of Pest Control

Texas schools have indicated greater satisfaction with their pest control programs, both in-house and contracted, since implementation of the school IPM law. According to the 2005 Texas AgriLife Extension Service study, schools were 75% more likely to be satisfied with their pest control program compared to 1993, before the law went into effect. In addition, the study found that 75% of school IPM coordinators believe that the state IPM requirements have resulted in more effective pest management in their districts.
Similar conclusions were found in a 2001 survey of 292 school districts by the then Structural Pest Control Board. In this survey, a substantial majority of schools felt that IPM had resulted in pest control equal to or better than pest control services before the IPM requirements went into effect.
Research consistently shows that whenever IPM is implemented in the urban environment it tends to result in better pest control, generally with the use of less hazardous pesticides and less contaminating application methods. There is now nearly universal agreement among regulatory officials, academics, facilities managers, architects and pest management professionals that IPM represents the best available management approach for dealing with pests.

Other considerations

Texas’ law and regulations strike a balance between encouraging use of less hazardous products and methods, and allowing schools the freedom to do what they need to manage pests. Under current rules, Texas schools can use any pesticide they deem necessary.
Many school IPM coordinators report receiving greater support for their programs from district administrators because of this law.
Some school district superintendents may be under the mistaken impression that repeal of the school IPM law will save the district money for the training and licensing of school district employees to apply pesticides. However, eliminating Section 1951.212 will not eliminate the need for use of licensed applicators to apply pesticides in schools. For safety purposes all pesticide applications made to restaurants or other food processing establishments, apartments, day-care centers, hospitals, hotels, warehouses, government buildings and schools must be made by licensed individuals (Occupations Code Section 1951.051).
Requiring school IPM coordinators to be trained has resulted in schools being better-educated consumers of pest control services. Many districts demand better service, switching to higher quality service providers or bring pest control services in-house at reduced expense. Nationally the trend is for states to require more, not less, training for school pest management personnel.

To learn more about what you can do about this bill, contact your local professional association. The Texas Pest Control Association, Texas Association of School Boards, or the Texas IPM Affiliates for Public Schools are each developing position statements on SB 468. This is a vitally important issue that needs the attention of anyone involved in school health and IPM-related professions today.

Car Talk radio show tackles wildlife topic

2011-03-01T15:05:00.000-06:00

Kieran Lindsey, former Texas A&M University wildlife major,
and now Virginia Tech professor, tackles the subject of
wildlife and automobile maintenance.

Any of you who find yourself out driving around on a Saturday morning, and have happened to tune into an National Public Radio station, have probably heard the show Car Talk. Who would have guessed that two goofy brothers answering car maintenance questions on the radio would have been successful? I wouldn't. Yet they've become an enormous hit with a syndicated newspaper column and with NPR listeners with cars over a certain age.

The Car Talk brothers usually make me laugh. So I was pleasantly surprised a few months ago when I got a call from someone purportedly working for the show, and who needed some advice about pest problems in cars. It turns out that my caller was Dr. Kieran Lindsey, a Texas A&M grad who now works at Virginia Tech and who is moonlighting her wildlife biology skills and knowledge as the "wildlife expert" for Car Talk. An article about Kieran and her new gig just appeared in AgriLife Today.

I'm proud to report that a couple of the issues we discussed are now part of Kieran's Car Talk webpage called Wildlife and Your Car. So for all the times you wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, worrying about spiders or bed bugs in your car, you now have a place to go online. I know I'll sleep easier knowing that Car Talk has all the answers about what to do should be car is invaded by snakes, rats, goats and cats. Oh, and don't forget the perennial worry about what will happen to your dog in the front seat should your airbag deploy.

Given the current state of the Texas budget and the economy, Dr. Lindsey gives me great hope. If a wildlife biologist can get a gig advising people how to keep wildlife out of their cars, perhaps there's a place for an unemployed Ph.D. entomologist in the new economy.

New EPA pesticide sales report available

2011-02-21T09:57:00.000-06:00

It's been several years since EPA issued one of its reports on annual pesticide sales and use. I find these statistics interesting, if for nothing more than quoting in general talks on pesticides or for literature reviews preliminary to asking someone for money. So I am glad to see that budget cutbacks haven't completely eliminated this service, and we have some more recent figures to study (2006-2007).

If you had to guess what pesticide was used more than any other by the Government/Industry/Commercial sector, what would you guess? The answer, according to this report is the herbicide 2,4-D, followed by the popular glyphosate, or Roundup®. Insecticides barely make the top ten list, with malathion and sulfuryl flouride (Vikane®) coming in at positions 9 and 10, respectively.

The report illustrates the dramatic decline in organophosphate use, as well as the overall decline in pounds of insecticide used by the commercial/governmental sector. Interestingly, the overall amount of pesticides used in the home and garden sector has been pretty steady over the past 20 years.

The value of the pesticide market in the U.S. for 2007 was $12.5 billion. Within the commercial/governmental/industry sector (which you belong to) the pesticide market was worth $1.9 billion, and the insecticide market by itself, $709 million.

To read the entire report, click here http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/pestsales/

PBO in the news

2011-02-15T15:58:00.000-06:00

A recent study in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics [vol. 127(3): e693-e700] reports on a correlation between pre-natal exposure to the common synergist piperonyl butoxide (PBO) and delayed mental development among 3 year-old children. In a review of the article, e! Science News reported the author as saying that the drop in IQ points [among children whose mothers had higher PBO exposure] is similar to that observed in response to lead exposure. Megan Horton, of the Mailman School of Public Health and lead researcher, said the drop, while not severe enough to affect a child's overall function "...is educationally meaningful..." Going a little further out on a limb, she added that it "...could shift the distribution of children in the society who would be in need of early intervention services".

The results of this study should be considered preliminary, and certainly indicate the need for more research. Similar to the study on ADHD that I reported on last year, the data shows a correlation, but does not indicate a cause and effect relationship. Further studies may or may not substantiate the correlation. Furthermore, the authors note that this is the first study to ever look at the health effects of PBO on humans (previous studies, presumably having been done only on laboratory animals).

The paper brings up an interesting issue with regard to the pest control industry. What criteria should we use to make decisions about the kinds of pesticides we use in our business? Should a new study impact the way we use chemicals? Or should we always just follow the lead of the EPA when it permits or restricts use of a pesticide?

Ultimately, and from a legal point of view, the EPA is our guide. The EPA has hundreds of toxicologists trained to look at studies such as these and determine whether there is enough data to justify a change in label requirements. However, the process of revoking a use, or a pesticide, can take years.

The biggest question I had about this study concerned the mothers' exposure to PBO. Piperonyl butoxide in itself is not toxic to insects. Rather, it is added to a few insecticides--most notably pyrethrins--to prevent insects from detoxifying the actual insecticide. It turns out that pyrethrins, by themselves, are great at quickly knocking down, but not killing, most insects. Adding PBO to pyrethrins merely keeps insects down for the count.

Most pyrethrins formulations, including a number of over the counter (OTC) consumer products, contain PBO in low concentrations--usually less than 5%. In recent years, however, some professional products have included higher percentages of PBO (e.g., 60%). I've never fully understood the reason for the popularity of this mixture, given that PBO is non-insecticidal and that only small amounts of it are needed to synergize pyrethrins. From what I can gather informally, PBO mixtures are being used increasingly by frustrated PMPs for bed bugs. But I've always been under the impression that only a small percentage of residential pesticide applications by professionals used PBO. It was surprising to me therefore to read that PBO was detected in 75% of personal air samples collected in the study.

The study assumes PBO was used as a synergist with permethrin; however, permethrin is not normally sold with PBO. Unless a lot of New York PMPs are using this combination (perhaps in bed bug applications?) I am skeptical that this use pattern is common throughout the country. It's also possible that the PBO is coming from use of OTC products by the householders themselves. Or there might be some non-pest control source of PBO. In any case, it seems like one of the first regulatory steps would be to find out where PBO exposure is coming from. [Any insights in this regard from readers would be welcome!]

In the meantime, in my opinion it would be prudent to consider limiting use of products with high percentages of PBO in accounts with pregnant women or infants. I'm not convinced yet that PBO is posing a health risk to the unborn or very young; but in most cases there are good alternatives. Our industry should be placing highest value on customer safety, so why don't we take a proactive lead on this one?

Entomological Society posts bed bug info

2011-02-15T10:41:00.000-06:00

While most of us were waking up to snow and ice earlier this month, a number of researchers and government officials trekked to Washington, DC for the second National Bed Bug Summit. Unfortunately, this was a meeting I had to miss; but the good news is that the presentations have been made available through the Entomological Society of America's (ESA's) new urban entomology network site.

If you are interested in reviewing some of the PowerPoint presentations from the Summit, click on the following link: http://esanetworks.org/group/urbanandstructuralentomologists/forum/topic/show?id=6295836%3ATopic%3A2808&xg_source=msg

The links provided are merely Acrobat (pdf) copies of presentations made at the meeting, but you can get an idea of the flavor of the event by scanning the slides. There is no narration, so you don't get the full content of the presentations, but there is still considerable information in the slides. Also, you might want to contact the speaker directly if you have a specific question about a presentation. This method is sure a lot easier than negotiating long lines at airports during blizzard season.

An open letter to PETA

2011-02-11T17:56:00.002-06:00

One of our Texas school districts recently received the following letter:

Dear Superintendent ___:

I am a director with PETA’s Cruelty Investigations Department. I hope this email finds you well. Thank you for speaking with my cruelty caseworker... regarding the use of glue traps by the ___ Independent School District. As he mentioned, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) warn against glue trap usage due to the disease risks they pose. Glue traps are also exceptionally cruel. If lethal methods are insisted upon, the D-Con Ultra Set Covered Mouse/Rat Traps http://www.d-conproducts.com/traps/ultra-set.html and Victor Electronic traps http://www.victorpest.com/store/rodent-control/electronic-mouse-trap are cost-effective, easily obtained, sanitary, and far less cruel.

May we hear from you that the ___ Independent School District has joined the countless businesses, corporations, and school districts that have sworn off using cruel glue traps?

Now glue boards, by themselves, are not my favorite way to control rodents. As commonly deployed, they do not typically kill the animal quickly, they need checking regularly and they may not leave a good impression on a customer who discovers a captured rodent on a glue board still alive.

I have less sympathy, however, with the argument that killing rats and mice is unethical. When house mice, roof and Norway rats invade a home, school or business, there's no question in my mind who has to go. It is more unethical, in my opinion, to release these pests (that prefer and are drawn to human habitations) back into the environment where they are likely to become another person's problem.

For these reasons, I have drafted a response to the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) letter and offer it here for your consideration and use, if you think it might be helpful for your district or business.

Dear PETA:

Thank you for your concern about the ethical treatment of animals. Most of the people I know share many of your concerns and have no desire to cause unnecessary pain or suffering of any animal, including those that we consider pests. Nevertheless, we may have a fundamental difference of opinion about the necessity to kill and eliminate rodents from human living environments.

Live rodents have serious aesthetic, economic, and health impacts on schools. Any rodent activity in our facilities is considered highly unacceptable by our staff and our community. Rodents damage school property via their chewing activity--which also puts schools at increased risk of fire (due to shorts caused by damage to electrical wiring). Perhaps most importantly, rodents contaminate classrooms, offices, food and food preparation surfaces with their feces and urine. Rodents are implicated in the transmission of over 55 human disease pathogens. A single house mouse produces 50 to 75 droppings and over 3,000 micro-droplets of urine daily. These potentially bacteria- and virus-contaminated feces and urine droplets are dispersed wherever the mouse travels in a classroom, office or kitchen area.

Regarding tactics, our district's main emphasis in on preventing rodent infestations. The highest priority of our rodent control program consists of sealing potential rodent entry points into buildings, and eliminating conditions that are attractive to rodents (clutter, poor sanitation around dumpsters, food spillage, etc.).

Unfortunately, experience has shown that despite our best efforts, some buildings and grounds will become rodent infested. When this occurs we look for the most effective, economical and humane methods for control. Some of these tactics include snap and multiple catch traps, solid and liquid baits, tracking powders, glue boards and glue trays. It's important to note that none of these tactics by themselves provide complete control of rodents. For this reason we use an integrated approach.

Our district's pest management program is based on a strategy known as integrated pest management (IPM). The IPM concept recognizes the limitations of single tactic approaches to pest control, and tries to make use of simultaneous, multiple control tactics. Glue boards and glue trays are not the principal method used by our district to control rodents. Glue traps tend to be less effective for house mice than snap traps, and rats are more difficult to catch and contain on these devices. Nevertheless, glue traps have useful applications. For example, glue boards may be the most effective choice in tight quarters where snap traps cannot fit. They are also useful in combination with multiple catch traps, where they facilitate cleaning and rodent removal. In addition, glue boards help contain biohazards such as the carcasses themselves, feces and ectoparasites (e.g., fleas and mites) carried by many rodents.

When glue boards are used, our staff makes every effort to check them frequently. Any live animals found trapped in glue are killed quickly and humanely. Glue boards are only deployed and monitored by licensed professionals on our staff or by licensed contractors. We presume that the CDC recommendations you refer to are the ones directed to homeowners who do not have the same level of training and professionalism as our staff. Our staff are trained to place and service traps in a manner that minimizes the risk of disease transmission (use of gloves, putting glue boards inside bait stations and inside multiple-catch traps, etc.).

Thank you for your suggestion concerning electronic traps. These traps have great potential for rodent control programs--especially for mice. They can certainly supplement, but not replace all other lethal methods in an IPM program. It is also important to understand that electrocuting traps do not guarantee immediate kill for rats. In addition such traps are up to 60 times (rats) and 150 times (mice) more expensive than snap or suffocation traps, according to one evaluation. Nevertheless, some of our colleagues find that electrocuting traps with wireless alert capabilities can be worth the higher cost by eliminating the need of labor expenses for repeated visits to check empty traps. We will continue to evaluate the use of these traps, as we do for all control options.

We believe that our efforts in preventing rodent problems first, and correcting infestations quickly, is the most humane approach to rodent control. We will continue to search for and evaluate better methods to do this, and welcome any additional ideas or suggestions you might be able to provide.

If your district or pest control business is not currently using the IPM approach to managing rodent control, if it is not emphasizing prevention, and if it is not checking glue boards and multiple catch traps frequently, perhaps it's time to make some changes. But don't doubt for a moment that when you trap and eliminate rodents you are providing a useful service to your community. To do anything less would be cruel indeed.

New NPMA document on bed bugs worth a read

2011-01-31T16:37:00.000-06:00

Last week the National Pest Management Association released a document outlining what their panel of experts have determined to be "best management practices" (BMPs) for bed bug control. If you're interested in bed bugs and think this might make for some interesting reading, guess again.

Sadly, the NPMA Bed Bugs best management booklet will not be making Oprah's Book of the Month list anytime soon. The information is in outline form, similar to (yaaawn) bullets in a PowerPoint presentation. Nevertheless, this is an important read for all technical directors and anyone overseeing a professional bed bug control operation. Given the leadership role played by NPMA in this industry, the book will be as close to an authoritative guide to bed bug management as you will find. It will also likely be looked to as a standard by lawyers and others pursuing PMPs for failure to control bed bugs.

Don't expect any juicy pest control gossip, like what are the best insecticides for killing bed bugs. Instead, you'll find general principles such as "always read and follow all label instructions when applying insecticides..." and "Choose products labeled for the target site." There is a checklist of sorts for the places that should be treated, which might be useful in developing your own in-house treatment protocols. In fact, the document could be used as a guideline to help develop a training program for your technicians.

The two appendices are also worth checking out. If you have ever considered adding a canine bed bug detector to your company, Appendix A lists minimum standards for certifying a canine detection team (dog + handler). I believe standards of this nature will become critical for consumers, and any pest management company considering investing in a dog team would be risking a lot by not following an accepted standard for training. Appendix B provides a listing of research-based exposure times for bed bug heat treatment, important for anyone using heat in bed bug control programs.

Who said learning had to be fun anyway?

Ohio's request for potent bed bug insecticide denied, again

2011-01-21T18:40:00.000-06:00

For some reason, Ohio has been one of the hardest hit states with bed bugs. Even the governor has gotten involved, petitioning the EPA last year for a special exemption to allow the use of an older carbamate insecticide, propoxur, for bed bug control. This exemption, also called a Section 18 Emergency Exemption after the FIFRA section that authorizes it, is something that EPA does not give out easily.

Propoxur, as it turns out, is still pretty effective against bed bugs. In Australia, for example, PMPs regard one of the propoxur-containing products as most effective. In another study using presumably resistant bed bugs from Sri Lanka, propoxur provided the best control compared to DDT and malathion.

Much to the dismay of Ohioans, their Section 18 request was turned down last summer. The EPA was asked to reconsider, and in a letter dated January 11 Lisa Jackson, the EPA Administrator, responded. In her letter Jackson denied the use of existing stocks for bed bug control, and steadfastly maintains that her agency believes the product poses an unacceptable risk for children.

In an interesting concession, Jackson told the governor that EPA would consider allowing the use of propoxur in senior residences, where the risk of exposure to children would be minimal:

As I explained in my June 2010 letter to you, EPA cannot grant Ohio's broad request because the Agency's risk assessment indicates an unacceptable risk to children . Nonetheless, I committed the Agency to work with Ohio and others to identify comprehensive alternative approaches to address bed bug infestations . As we also discussed in September 2010, EPA is willing to allow the emergency use of propoxur in senior residences in ways that would ensure children are not exposed. EPA staff has discussed this proposal with Ohio officials and have asked them to submit a revised request reflecting this proposal, but Ohio has not yet done so. We continue to hope the state will submit a revised Section 18 request to help provide relief to a highly impacted population.

She also noted that EPA is reviewing new data that might affect the way EPA determines how much exposure to propoxur or other insecticides that children might receive as a result of crack and crevice applications. So the door is still open for EPA to backtrack should political pressure trump science, as it sometimes does.

Maybe the saddest part of this story is that, according to governmental authority, children don't visit grandma anymore.

New Pest ID guide

2011-01-05T12:13:00.000-06:00

New pest control service technicians, school employees and even commercial customers are all people who could benefit from a new color publication just published by the Louisiana State University AgCenter. Called the Pest Identification Guide for Pests in and Around Buildings, this 3.5 by 5 inch flip guide is small enough to fit in a glove compartment or jacket pocket.

The guide is highly graphical and does as good a job as any pocket guide I've seen for the most common pests likely to be found around commercial buildings, homes and schools. The authors are a team of entomologists and IPM specialists (including myself and colleague Janet Hurley) from universities throughout the South. Special credit goes to Dr. Dennis Ring, LSU AgCenter, for his work editing and working with the design team to produce a quality product.

Funding for the project was provided through the Southern IPM Center and was intended to provide a resource for school IPM coordinators and others. Each page includes one or more color pictures, a scale and icon to show actual size, and description information, life cycle information, and where to look for the pest.

In my programs I am fond of preaching education as an essential part of the IPM toolbox. This handy guide provides an additional educational resource for your customers. The guide can help kitchen managers, warehouse managers, school principals and others know what to look for when reporting pests, and provides a useful tool for communicating with any pest control client.

Pest groups covered include ants, cockroaches, flies, pantry pests, paper pests, public health pests, termites, spiders, wasps and bees, and rodents. Cost is $12, and copies can be ordered online.

Why knowing your clothes moths is important

2011-01-03T14:16:00.003-06:00

Case-making clothes moth larva on wool. Courtesy Clemson University.
USDA Cooperative Extension Slide Series, Bugwood.org

The clothes moth is a common pest of woolens, furs and feathers worldwide. In the U.S. there are two main pest species: the webbing clothes moth (Tineola bisselliella) and the case-making clothes moth (Tinea pellionella). These two moths illustrate the importance to an IPM program of accurately identifying pests.

Clothes moths can be an especially important problem in museums and other accounts with a low tolerance for pests. Fortunately, pheromone traps are now available for use as effective monitoring tools for detecting clothes moths at low population densities. According to Pat Kelley with Insects Limited, Inc., two different pheromone blends are used to attract the two species. While the case-making clothes moth can be attracted to webbing clothes moth pheromone lures due to a shared chemical component of their pheromone, at close range the webbing clothes moth pheromone is partly repellent to the case-making clothes moth.

Case-making clothes moth pupae dangling from
pupation site. Photo by Pat Kelley.

To use clothes moth pheromone traps effectively, therefore, it's critical to understand the existence of the two types and to learn how to identify them. Fortunately, distinguishing the two species is not too difficult with either adults or larvae. On damaged articles, the larvae and pupae are relatively easy to distinguish because the case-making clothes moth carries a silken, tube-like case throughout its development. The webbing clothes moth larva does not carry a case and you will not see a case-making clothes moth feeding "naked"--without its case. According to Kelley, damaged spots on clothes attacked by the webbing clothes moth are characterized by copious amounts of silk webbing or tubes, usually with large amounts of frass (droppings). The webbing clothes moth is sometimes misidentified as case-making clothes moth because it also spins a silken cocoon once it reaches its pupal life stage. The webbing clothes moth pupal case, however, is usually attached to the damaged fabric. The case-making clothes moth tends to dangle its pupal case from a horizontal surface, like a shelf or ceiling, above its food source (see image).

Clothes moth on a glue trap. Note the tuft of hair and straight,
downward-pointing palps (mouthparts) with lateral bristles.
These are two key characters of both species of clothes moth.

Clothes moth adults are small, 5 to 7 mm-long, with brown or copper-colored wings. Under magnification they are identified by a bristly, rock star-like mop of hair between the eyes and antennae, and by their straight, bristled palps (which are strongly curved in many grain-infesting moths). Unlike many stored grain moths, clothes moths are shy and not commonly seen flying during the day. Adult webbing clothes moth are more golden in color, with the tuft of scales between the eyes coppery-colored, and with no markings on the wings. Adult case-making clothes moth are duller in color (brown to gray) and may have a central, dark spot on each forewing. The tuft of hair is also duller (gray to brownish) in color.

Another significant difference between the two species involves how they move and enter traps. Because the case-making clothes moth flies more frequently, Insects Limited recommends a wing (hanging) trap for this species. The webbing clothes moth prefers running over flight, so traps should be placed on the floor or other flat surface.

All this is important on a practical level because of cost. Pheromone traps aren't cheap. The Insect Limited folks currently are the only ones to sell case-making clothes moth traps, which cost approximately $90 for a set of 10. Trece, sells webbing clothes moth traps with 5-6 lures (depending on whether you choose wing or stick-on traps) for a little over $20 (minimum order of $250). When conducting surveillance for both species, you'll ideally need both pheromone lures and two trap designs--though Kelley says that webbing clothes moth will fly to enter the wing trap and vice versa. If you can only deploy one type of trap, buy the one for webbing clothes moth (webbing clothes moth is not attracted to case-making clothes moth pheromone).

The subtle differences between these two species illustrates beautifully both the complexity of biology and the importance of being knowledgeable about your adversaries in an IPM program.

What's the connection between IPM and mental health?

2010-12-20T12:09:00.001-06:00

I returned last week from the annual conference of the Entomological Society of America--or, as I heard it referred to by a (non-entomologist) hotel visitor, "that Bug's Life group". With over 3100 attendees this year the ESA meeting is probably the largest gathering of professional entomologists in the world, with papers ranging from highly technical reports on new molecular biology techniques to an artist's perspective on the aesthetic beauty of insects. Regardless of your interest or background, there's always something of interest at ESA.

While a number of sessions and talks were devoted to bed bugs this year, one of the most interesting perspectives I heard was from Dr. Christiana Bratiotis of the Boston University School of Social Work. She addressed a symposium on how to engage people from diverse backgrounds in urban IPM. Bratiotis's expertise is on hoarding behavior, but she addressed the wider question of how to recognize and deal with people who, for a variety of physical or mental reasons, pose a special challenge to the PMP.

Making IPM work, Bratiotis said, is especially difficult when pest control customers suffer from a variety of mental and emotional disorders, cognitive limitations, and limitations due to age. Some of the primary mental illnesses likely to be encountered by anyone in the service industry include depression, anxiety, hoarding (of both belongings and animals), schizophrenia and psychoses. Personality disorders include obsessive-compulsive disorder, histrionics, borderline personalities, and narcissistic personality disorder. In addition, cognitive limitations in the mentally challenged and older adults, as well as visual and hearing deficits in many people can lead to difficulties with communication and getting clients to recognize and report pest control problems.

Mental health disorders, especially, can lead to unexpected encounters with a pest control technician, such as the violently angry customer, or the customer hallucinating about unseen pests in walls or crawling on skin at night (delusory parasitosis). Add to this that the PMP may be one of the few visitors that a depressed or reclusive person may have in his or her home for months (even years), and the stage is set for some interesting interactions.

Mental health problems are far more common that most of us realize. According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, approximately 6% of the U.S. adult population suffers from severe mental illness. Over 26% of American adults experience some form of mental disorder in any given 12 month period. The chance of any of us experiencing a mental disorder of some form over our lifetime is approximately 46%. Clearly, this is not a minor issue.

The relevance of Bratiotis's paper to pest management is obvious, yet I'd wager that most of us in the pest control industry rarely give much thought to how many of our clientele are struggling with mental and emotional health issues. I know I tend to approach most people with the attitude that they will be just like me--that they will have the same needs and desires, that they will approach problems rationally, and they will be looking for solutions in their own and others' best interests. Sadly, this is not a valid assumption for many people.

If your company's PMPs interact with dozens to hundreds of people daily, having tools and skills to recognize and deal with mental health issues is essential. If you're an employer with one or more employees, you need skills to recognize and deal with mental illness within your staff as well. This point came home tragically to the Dallas pest control community last August, when an employee of one of our local companies shot and killed a co-worker in an incident almost certainly due to mental illness.

According to Bratiotis, learning a few simple phrases or techniques can, in many cases, help a PMP better deal with customers who are not acting or thinking rationally. For the person with obsessive-compulsive disorder, who is fearful that they must perform in a specific manner to get rid of pests, affirmation is important. Assure them that things don't have to be done perfectly to make a big improvement. For the emotionally unstable or angry customer the best response may be, "I can see you're not doing well today. I'll come back when you're feeling better." A self-centered (narcissistic) person should be affirmed and empowered to be part of the pest control solution.

Recognize that some problem clients may simply be visually- or auditory-impaired. Such limitations do not necessarily imply cognitive (thinking) disorder or mental illness, but they can present similar challenges for the PMP. Visually-impaired clients may not be able to read notices or see the bed bugs or cockroaches in their home. Auditory-impaired clients may not hear instructions or reports, even though they nod or imply that they do. Technicians should be aware and on the lookout that some clients will fall in these categories, and will need extra help.

In many cases outside help may be called for. Letting the apartment manager know what's going on with a problem tenant is important for multi-family housing accounts. Elderly or mentally challenged customers may need a personal care attendant or access to support services that can help with residence clean-up. Extreme cases of hoarding will likely also require the help of a professional.

Additional suggestions include:

Help identify resource people or agencies that can help a physically or mentally challenged person (this means educating yourself about the social and mental health resources in your community).
Schedule ongoing follow-up and monitoring. Knowing that someone cares and plans to return can make a significant difference in rate of compliance with challenged customers.
When making sanitation recommendations to challenged customers, break suggestions down into manageable tasks. Breaking a recommendation into small steps can make all the difference between progress and paralysis.
Realize that many of your customers may be struggling with mental and physical challenges that may not be immediately apparent. Liberal praise and encouragement is especially important for these customers when they make an effort to participate in the IPM effort.

Finally, get to know some of the mental health professionals in your community. These folks may be willing to conduct awareness training and provide resources for your staff. Conversely, your knowledge and expertise may be of value to the health care community. It was obvious to me after last week's paper that we in the IPM business need to communicate more with social workers and mental health physicians.

U.S. EPA celebrates the 40 year mark

2010-12-10T13:51:00.000-06:00

Like Hurricane Katrina and climate change, and the honey bee decline today, the Cuyahoga River fire in 1969 caught people's attention about the state of our environment like headlines never did.

I was in high school when the Environmental Protection Agency opened its doors 40 years ago today. That might not seem like something a high school student would be interested in, but as a budding environmentalist, passionate outdoor enthusiast and Earth Day organizer, I was very interested.

At the time of the late 60's protection of the environment was not a high priority for our government. Concerns about waste disposal, clean air and water, pesticides and wildlife were growing and regularly reported in newspapers and magazines. Thanks in large part to the EPA, there is much to celebrate about the state of our U.S. environment. Streams run cleaner, food is (arguably) safer, the air is much clearer in most parts of the country, and standards for pesticide safety have never been higher. The bald eagle is back, as are peregrine falcons and ospreys and brown pelicans.

We're certainly not without challenges and controversies today. Rapid climate change has even our best scientists perplexed about causes and solutions. Fisheries continue to decline. Pockets of unhealthy air persist. Toxic chemical waste proliferates, even with (or because of) our technological advances to computers. Trash in our streams seems worse than ever thanks to our ubiquitous plastic. Oil hasn't run out, though we see the limits to fossil fuel based energy more clearly than ever. Worldwide, more species have vanished, or are threatened, than we might have guessed 40 years ago.

With all the popular hue and cry about shrinking big government, I for one am thankful that our country had the foresight forty years ago to set up an independent agency to guard our natural heritage.

I know that government itself needs its watchdogs, and EPA is no exception. Nevertheless, I fear that in our scramble to cut budgets, we may forget the progress of the past 40 years, and lose sight of the need for an independent arm of government with an interest in the future of our world at its heart. A strong environmental ethic is exactly the export we need in this era of global exploitation of the environment. Just look at the Aral Sea (formerly USSR, today Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) and the Yangtze River valley (China) and many of the other environmental disaster areas if you need a reminder of what unrestrained environmental exploitation looks like.

Here's a toast to all the dedicated workers at the EPA who have worked so hard to please Congress and Presidents past, while keeping their eyes on the prize of a cleaner world.

Rodenticide changes explained

2010-12-04T16:14:00.000-06:00

Bell Laboratories has done a nice job laying out the 2011 EPA changes to rodenticide rules in a new website http://riskmitigationinfo.com These changes will affect what formulations you use and will result in significant label changes. So don't be caught flat-footed come June. The changes will impact all manufacturers, retailers, distributors, professional, agricultural and home users of rodenticides.

Speaking of home users, it might be a good idea to let your customers know the whats and whys of these changes. Retail consumers will only be able to purchase first generation rodenticides and they will only be available in bait station formulations. This should improve child safety and could have the effect of making professional rodent control help more attractive to the average consumer. For EPA's take on the changes, click here.

TIPMAPS 2.0

2010-12-02T19:33:00.001-06:00

Keynote speaker, TDA Assistant Commissioner Jimmy Bush, connected
with the crowd on Day One.

In case you're new to this blog, you may not have heard me talk about our state association for school IPM coordinators, TIPMAPS. Short for Texas IPM Affiliates for Public Schools, the group is an affiliate of the Texas Association of School Business Officials (TASBO), a well-respected professional organization for school professional in our state.

The TIPMAPS group recently held its second annual meeting. According to TASBO, the conference was attended by over 220 attendees and vendors, representing 108 school districts. The business meeting on the second day of the conference held over 90 participants, significantly more than 2009. This is wonderful growth for this new group, and seems to indicate that school IPM coordinators are beginning to take ownership of their relatively new profession.

For me the highlights of the meeting were hearing coordinators and school administrators present their own take on how IPM works in Texas schools. Jim Olenski, Greenville ISD, gave an excellent presentation on how to get staff on your side in a school IPM program. "Don't be a battleship [trying to bend people to will]," Jim said. Instead, "be a cheerleader." Encourage folks in the positive things they do, and respect the contributions everyone makes to the district.

Martha Buckner, Humble ISD, shared her insights as to how to work with school boards. Knowing your board members as individuals, knowing what makes them tick, their special interests and their connections in the district is key to developing a working relationship there.

Charles Adams, Sherman ISD, shared his extensive experience with trapping wildlife with two classes. The highlight of his talk was watching him do an outdoor inspection of the hotel and find rat activity (one jumped out of a burrow in front of the class) and raccoon scat a few feet from the elegant outdoor dining area. Everyone in the training was also treated to a whiff of several baits guaranteed to drive critters wild.

This year's keynote speaker was Mr. Jimmy Bush, Assistant Commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture, over all pesticide programs including school IPM. Many people cited Bush as one of the highlights of the conference, as he gave an understandable overview of how pesticides are regulated in the state. In addition to Bush, Randy Rivera gave an informative session on IPM and ag science programs; and inspector Perry Cervantes explained the licensing process and how to get the necessary training for unlicensed employees.

Comments from participants included:

Appreciated the fact that unlike some CEU programs, speakers were not spokesmen for particular products
Enjoyed the opportunity to network and see what other schools are doing
It was nice to meet and greet the vendors
Hearing from people from different fields [of expertise] helps
Well prepared and knowlegable speakers. I appreciate the in-depth information
Wish I had come last year!
Can't wait till next year...

To see more photos from this year's conference, click here. And if you couldn't make this year's event, don't miss it in 2011. The hotel is reserved and ready for next time.

Bed bugs go to school

2010-12-01T17:49:00.000-06:00

Treating school classrooms for bed bugs should be
a last resort, and only if the pests are known to be present.

A recent incident in a New Jersey public school made headlines, and got me thinking about right and wrong ways to deal with bed bugs in schools. In the story, two bedbugs were found on the book bag of a student on a school bus, resulting in an immediate inspection of the school and "fumigation" of the bus.

Without actually detecting bed bugs in the classroom, the story says that a "specialized exterminator" (I wish we could lose that name) was called in to treat the surfaces where bed bugs could take refuge in the affected class. Later, a bed bug sniffing dog was called in to clear the classroom. Similar incidents with similar aggressive responses are being reported throughout the country.

If you read the story you can see the incident from the perspective of a school superintendent. The superintendent wants to be able to get up in front of the media and confidently say, “We’ve taken care of the problem.” To this superintendent, this meant that they had involved the highest authority to affirm that the school viewed the problem seriously (State Board of Health—who likely didn't really want to get involved) and gotten professionals to identify the pest and deal with it quickly (by “fumigation”).

This may be good PR, but it's not the ideal IPM response. Eventually schools, I think, will find this sort of approach unsustainable. This will occur when bed bugs start showing up more routinely in schools. State Boards of Health will no longer accept calls about bed bugs, the maintenance department’s pest control budget will become strained from all the extra, premium-priced service calls, teachers will get tired of having their classrooms “sealed off” unnecessarily, and those dogs will get doggone'd expensive. And inevitably, parents will soon begin to worry about their kids' exposure to pesticides.

The main problem with the approach reported in story is that some schools are over-reacting to what will certainly become a relatively routine pest problem. Schools want a guarantee that they are bed bug-free, something that is very difficult in real life. Professionals know that if they really treated every surface where bed bugs could hide, it would require a major investment of labor and time (one I hope you would be charging for). Such efforts would certainly not be warranted without first determining that there was an actual infestation.

By the way, this brings up our use of the terms infested and infestation. I think it’s better, when it comes to bed bugs, if we reserve use of these terms to situations where bed bugs have settled in and are reproducing as a result of a consistent and available nighttime food supply—something that will probably not be very common in the average public school. I recommend that we start referring to isolated bed bug sightings as detections, not infestations.

We aren’t told what “fumigation” referred to in this story, though it was certainly not a real fumigation job involving fumigant gases. At its most harmless level, the treatment was likely an application of a non-residual, contact insecticides to cracks and crevices around the backpack areas and the student's desk. It might have been an aerosol ULV application to the bus (not very effective against bed bugs in good harborage). At it's worst, the treatment may have been haphazard spot treatments with residual pyrethroids, which could easily result in contamination of surfaces where kids might have contact. None of these treatments, as they are commonly applied, provide an absolute guarantee of no more bed bugs.

A school district in Texas recently went through a similar incident in several of its classrooms. The response of this district, well trained in IPM, was to do a visual inspection of the room, alert the parents of the child, and have their pest management contractor put out two carbon dioxide bed bug monitors over the weekend to confirm that bed bugs were not present. Monitoring, not pesticide application, is probably the best first response to reports of “hitchhiking” bed bugs on a school backpack.

This same school district has determined that in cases where the children are likely to continue to come to school with bed bugs, their backpacks will be zip-loc™ bagged during the day as a precaution. This district recently held a district-wide training for its school nurses about bed bugs, and also sends informational letters out to parents in classrooms where bed bugs have been detected.

We're still learning about the best ways to deal with bed bugs in schools, and doubtless we will come up with better protocols. In the meantime, we should avoid over-reacting to what will become an increasingly routine problem. And this means educating superintendents and school principals about the facts of life when it comes to bed bugs.

The bizarre life of a parasite

2010-11-22T15:01:00.004-06:00

I received an unusual sample last week that nicely illustrated the lengths some organisms go to survive. A woman was puzzled by a number of hard flaky objects that mysteriously appeared in her bed sheets. The accompanying image shows the sample under 6X magnification. The objects were hard, but crushable and 2-3 mm in length.

It's not uncommon for people to find objects presumed to be droppings or some other evidence of insect presence in a home. Rodent droppings, American cockroach, silverfish and other insect droppings are not unusual to find indoors. In addition, carpenter ants have the interesting habit of tossing insulation and other debris, along with dead insects and insect fragments, out of their nests. Most often carpenter ant "frass" is found in windows and doorways, where carpenter ant "kick-holes" (garbage shoots) are commonly located.

My sample was none of these, however. My first task was to determine whether the client had a dog or cat. A quick phone call confirmed that the family had no cats, but did have a dog which frequently slept on the bed.

This answer clinched the diagnosis of "tapeworm proglottids". The dog tapeworm, Dipylidium caninum, lives and feeds as a parasite in the intestinal tract of dogs, cats and (rarely) humans. These worms are long and flat and may reach lengths of up to 12 inches. The body of the tapeworm consists of segments called proglottids. As a tapeworm matures, the oldest proglottid segments detach from the main body of the tapeworm and wriggle from the anus of the infected animal. These fresh tapeworm segments move with a stretching and shrinking motion. They are opaque or pinkish white, flat and rectangular, and initially can move short distances. Eventually they dry into 1/16 inch-long, rice-shaped sacs as seen in the image. These sacs contain viable tapeworm eggs, and are often seen attached to the hairs around the pets's anus, in feces, or in areas where the pet sleeps (in this case a human bed).

Here's where things get really bizarre. Fleas are essential to the life cycle of the dog tapeworm. Tapeworms use fleas to disperse from one host to another.

Flea larvae are the least frequently seen life stage of the flea, but are always present in the soil (outdoors), flooring, carpet or pet bedding of an infested home. Normally flea larvae scavenge unnoticed around pet loafing areas for the dried blood that always flakes off the fur and skin of a flea-infested host. Since flea proglottids are likely to drop into these same locations, it's not uncommon for flea larvae to encounter and feed on them. Once a proglottid is nibbled on by a flea larva, the ingested tapeworm eggs hatch inside the flea's body. In this way the flea larva (and eventually the adult flea) becomes infested with a life stage of the tapeworm that is capable of infecting warm-blooded hosts.

A cat or dog subsequently becomes infected with tapeworms when they ingest these infested fleas during grooming. Once released into the pet's digestive tract, the tapeworms begin to grow into mature adults that help themselves to a share of the unwitting pet's diet.

Finding tapeworm proglottids in a home does not indicate a threat to people (though small children have been known to become infested when they pick up and eat fleas!), but they are an indication of a tapeworm-infested pet. If you find tapeworm eggs in a home, recommend to the homeowner to take their pest to the vet for treatment with anti-parasite drugs.

The dog tapeworm has got to be one of the most unusual pest life cycles encountered in the indoor environment. For more information about fleas and tapeworms see our online publication, Controlling Fleas.

Texas A&M Workshop to offer ACE prep class this year

2010-11-19T15:02:00.001-06:00

The Texas Pest Control Association, Texas AgriLife Extension, and the Texas A&M University Department of Entomology will be hosting the 65th annual pest control workshop in Bryan, TX on January 12-14, 2011. If you've never been before, this conference is designed for both the newly certified applicator and those who have been in the business for years. The focus is on providing you with the latest research-based information about the science of pest control.

The workshop includes two full days of continuing education credits (Wednesday and Thursday) and three short courses on Friday. Topics of the three short courses include pest control in commercial food establishments, termite biology and control, and fumigation. Participants can choose one course and receive up to three additional CEUs. Be sure to sign up early as space is limited to the first 100 people. School IPM even gets its own track at the A&M workshop. On Thursday, one concurrent session track is designed for IPM Coordinators and individuals interested in school IPM topics.

In addition to the regular program, the ACE (Associate Certified Entomologist) exam prep course will be offered for the first time at the A&M workshop. The prep class is a popular way to get motivated to finally take that ACE exam you've been promising yourself to take. If you are experienced, and think you know your stuff when it comes to entomology, check us out. The ACE certification program does not require a degree in entomology, but seven verifiable years in pest control and willingness to subscribe to the ACE code of ethics. Sponsored by the Entomological Society of America, ACE certification is another assurance for your customers that you know your profession well.

Dr. Bob Davis, BASF Corporation, and I will present the prep class on Wednesday, from 10:15 am to 5 pm. In addition, if you want to take the ACE exam, it will be offered the following day, Thursday, January 13, from 8 am to 12 pm. Anyone wanting to test must apply at least 30 days in advance by completing an online application at the Entomological Society of America (ESA). You do not have to pre-qualify to take the course without the exam. The course is also good for one General-Other, one General-IPM, one Pest, and one Termite CEU, as well as 4 technician credit hours. There is an additional charge through ESA to apply and take the exam; and anyone wanting to sit in on the class or take the exam must be registered for the workshop. For more information about the ACE program and how to apply, go to the ESA ACE website.

If you're interested in registering for the workshop, call (979) 845-5855 or check out the website at http://pcoconference.tamu.edu

Bed bug sniffing dogs not perfect

2010-11-15T17:51:00.000-06:00

From New York Times story. 11/11/2010

One of the most popular tactics in the world of bed bug IPM has got to be bed bug sniffing dogs. Let's face it, a PMP with a worried face and a flashlight can't hold a candle to a cute pup with mysterious powers to sniff out bed bugs where they hide. The problem, we are learning, is that bed bug sniffing dogs are fallible.

A New York Times article published last week details a number of cases where dogs gave "false positives"--that is they detected bed bugs when they didn't appear to be there. According to the story, one couple paid $3,500 in extermination fees after a dog indicated there were bedbugs throughout their home. After throwing out a bed and 40 garbage bags full of clothes and baby toys, the customer continued to get bites. Another pest control company couldn't detect any bed bugs, and eventually the problem was traced to a rodent mite infestation.

While not a scientific evaluation of doggie abilities to sniff out pests, the story points out some nagging concerns about dogs and pest control.

Assuming dogs can be trained to accurately and consistently sniff out bed bugs, many factors can influence the effectiveness of a dog team. I say team, because a detector dog service is a team of animal and handler. If the dog is poorly trained, or training is not reinforced on a daily basis, or a handler is not used to a dog (or vice versa), nearly everyone admits that reliability will suffer.

Dogs were popular in some markets 10-15 years ago as termite detectors, but few companies seem to employ them today. I suspect that the high cost of maintaining dogs and retaining handlers were the principal factors leading to the demise of termite beagles (though the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service still employs contraband-sniffing dogs at international airports--and sniffing dogs are used in many other venues). Perhaps the termite market wasn't robust enough to sustain termite-sniffing dogs. It's yet to be seen whether bed bug sniffing dogs will have greater success.

If these dogs are going to make it, a credible certification program is sorely needed, as pointed out in the Times Article. The stakes are very high, because a handler who suggests a room is infested when it's not stands to cost the customer a bunch of money. And let's not forget the potential for fraud with unscrupulous handlers trying to drum up money to treat apartments or hotel rooms that don't need treatment. It seems to me that this is one very good reason for pest control companies to keep their financial distance from canine detection services.

The key to developing effective IPM programs for bed bugs, I believe, is good monitoring and detection techniques. Pitfall traps, pheromone and carbon dioxide traps, skilled inspectors, and sticky cards will undoubtedly be around for awhile. But only time will tell whether bed bug dogs will find an honored place among the bloodhound, drug and bomb sniffing honor roll of service dogs.

Loss for Texas pest control

2010-11-11T18:47:00.001-06:00

Any of you who knew Jeff Seabrook will be sorry to hear that he lost his battle with cancer yesterday. According to a TPCA email today, there will be a memorial service for Jeff at Dalton Funeral Home in Lewisville, TX (972-436-6511) this Saturday, November 13, from 2-5 PM.

Jeff was one of the great personalities produced by the pest control industry in Texas. I first met Jeff when he worked for ICI Americas, but he had worked as many capacities in the industry that one can. He always had a story, or a gadget, for every occasion. I will be forever grateful for his invite to go on a fishing trip many years ago in Costa Rica... a trip I'll never forget.

In recent years Jeff and his wife Diane moved to the Davis Mountains area where he reveled in the scenery and wildlife. If you are a Facebook follower, consider taking a minute to write a note on his Wall.

Wind turbine woes

2010-11-11T15:35:00.000-06:00

Wind turbine near Abilene, TX. NY Times photo.

When does urban entomology have nothing to do with houses or cities? Perhaps no better example can be found than the recent email received by my colleague Dr. Chris Sansone. He was contacted concerning a wasp problem by the supervisor for a company that provides maintenance services for wind turbines.

If you haven't traveled recently to west Texas, or the corn fields of Iowa or Minnesota you may have missed the sprouting of thousands of towering wind turbines on the vast, windy plains of America. The size and scope of these wind farms is truly amazing, providing a reported 4.5% of Texas' energy.

Apparently 2010 has been a banner year in many areas for paper wasps. Paper wasps, genus Polistes, are the most common of the social wasps around the state, with nests easily found around most homes and buildings. Polistes wasps are predators on caterpillars and other insects, and build umbrella-shaped paper nests under tree branches, under eaves of buildings and in windows.

Paper wasps around the entrance to a wind turbine.
Photo courtesy Aaron Foster.

Most Texans learn sooner or later to respect paper wasps for their powerful sting and their willingness to defend their nests with joint attacks on intruders. No wonder then that maintenance crews of wind turbines get a little skittish when wasps gather at turbine doors at the ground, inside the tower and, even worse, at 300 feet around the generator housing (nacelle). Imagine being at the top of one of those towers and getting a face full of wasps!

This phenomenon should not surprise pest management professionals who have observed paper wasp behavior over the years. Each fall, we see paper wasps abandon their barren nests to seek shelter for the winter. These overwintering wasps are queens, and they are especially drawn toward structures, especially tall structures in their search for overwintering quarters. Tall buildings, chimneys and towers are common points of congregation for paper wasps during the months of October and November in Texas.

This behavior explains the high frequency of complaints by office workers (and homeowners) of wasps in buildings during late fall, winter and the early spring months. Once inside the attic, or false ceilings, of buildings, paper wasps will move around, especially during periods of warmer weather. These same wasps frequently find their way into living and working quarters, to the dismay of people. The good news, however, is that without a nest to defend, these wasps have little fight in them. Therefore, there is little risk of being stung by wasps at this time.

Wind turbine crews aren't the only high fliers worrying about wasps. Communications tower workers, construction workers and even NASA launch pad workers have discovered the fondness of paper wasps for high places. When encountering wasps in such locations I have no doubt that the best course of action is to keep calm, wear clothing that can be buttoned tight and try your best to ignore the critters. Of course you're not getting me up there to test the theory.

A closer look at bed bug resistance

2010-10-11T10:50:00.000-05:00

An interesting story came out last month from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center at U.C. Berkeley. The story does a nice job of explaining the connection between DDT and pyrethroid resistance, and why pyrethroid resistance has appeared to develop so quickly in the short time that bed bugs have re-emerged as an important North American pest (The one bone I have to pick with the story is its confusion of the relationship and terminology between pyrethrins and pyrethroids--there is no such term as "pyrethrums").

The answer is that when bed bugs reemerged this decade as a major pest they had already been "pre-selected" for resistance to pyrethroids by their previous exposure to DDT. Because DDT acts at a similar site in the nervous system as pyrethroids, researchers theorize that the same mutations that conferred resistance to DDT bestowed protection upon the bearers of those mutations from pyrethroids.

I remember John Osmun, one of my professors at Purdue University, recounting with excitement one of his early army adventures with bed bugs. As an entomologist with the military in the early 1940s he had been assigned to use a secret insecticide to treat bed bug infested army barracks. Almost miraculously, the long-persisting infestation was eradicated. The insecticide was, of course, DDT. Since WWII, DDT went on to become a widely used tool to manage many insect populations, including bed bugs. Unfortunately bed bugs have used their long experience with this insecticide to fight back against more advanced pesticides.

A recent study by Zhu et al (2010) looked at bed bugs collected from 97 locations in 17 states and found resistance to deltamethrin in 88% of the sites. Because of the scattered geographical sampling conducted in this study, the status of bed bug resistance in Texas is still tentative. The only sample from Texas collected and analyzed in this study was from Beaumont, and showed resistance based on one genetic mutation. Many of the samples revealed populations with another genetic mutation, or even two mutations. Relatively few populations sampled were classified as fully susceptible to deltamethrin.

This does not mean that resistant bed bugs cannot be killed with deltamethrin or similar products; but it does mean that the dose needed to kill will be greatly increased.

The research, especially the resistance maps of the U.S., should be considered tentative; but does give us a better idea why bed bugs are so difficult to control with standard pyrethroid insecticides. Even though the study focused on deltamethrin only, the results should be mostly applicable to all pyrethroids. Chlorfenapyr is the only other liquid residual insecticide that is widely used at the present time that is not a pyrethroid insecticide and to which bed bugs have no known resistance.

Fall Pest Management Seminar 2010

2010-10-08T15:21:00.000-05:00

The annual Fall Pest Management Seminar will be held next month on November 9th at the Texas AgriLife Research & Extension Center at Dallas. Speakers this year include Janet Hurley (IPM Business Practices), Jim McAfee (Weed Control), Mark Evans (Laws and Regulations Update), Kevin Ong (Tree Disease Control) and myself (Stinging and biting pests). Cost of the program is $60 for registrations made before November 3, and $75 at the door. Registrations should be made online Texas AgriLife's Conference Services (use the registration keyword IPM). This is a great program for anyone in the Dallas/Fort Worth area who needs TDA or structural pesticide applicator certification CEUs.

Hoarding and pest control

2010-10-08T11:04:00.001-05:00

Part of a clutter rating chart in the
Compulsive Hoarding and Acquiring
Workbook.

Most of us know that one of the biggest obstacles to IPM is a cluttered account. Clutter interferes with inspecting for pests. It interferes with access to places needing treatment. And it provides pests with abundant harborage. When it comes to IPM and pest control, clutter is everyone's problem. But what happens when clutter takes over in a home or apartment? You could be dealing with hoarding.

Allison Taisey is a project coordinator with the Northeast IPM Center in New York. She recently wrote about the hoarding problem on her new blog, IPM in Multifamily Housing. Allison has been working with multifamily housing for several years and assisted with a multifamily housing training that I wrote about last year. In her work she has encountered hoarding multiple times and has explored the connection between hoarding and IPM more than anyone I know.

Hoarding, she writes, is a complex disorder that involves problems with disorganization, collecting too many items, and developing an emotional attachment with those items that is hard to break. Hoarders cannot just "clean things up", at least not without help. Many people have been made aware of the hoarding issue through the A&E television program "Hoarders".

I encourage you to learn more about this difficult issue by visiting both Allison's and the A&E site. It's possible you may gain some insight into how to deal with the chronically cluttered apartments and homes you service. Any of you involved in servicing multifamily housing would likely benefit from subscribing to Allison's blog. And Allison, welcome to the world of pest control blogging!

Snopes lists new bed bug email misinformation

2010-10-07T17:45:00.000-05:00

I had an email today from a colleague asking me if I had heard about bed bugs being a problem in new, store-bought clothing. He had just received the following email:

“We have friends here in our community and one of their sons is an entomologist (insect expert), and has been telling them that there is an epidemic of bed bugs now occurring in America. Recently I have heard on the news that several stores in NYC have had to close due to bed bug problems, as well as a complete mall in New Jersey.

“He says that since much of our clothing, sheets, towels, etc. now comes from companies outside of America, (sad but true), even the most expensive stores sell foreign clothing from China, Indonesia, etc. The bed bugs are coming in on the clothing as these countries do not consider them a problem. He recommends that if you buy any new clothing, even underwear and socks, sheets, towels, etc. that you bring them into the house and put them in your clothes dryer for at least 20 minutes. The heat will kill them and their eggs. DO NOT PURCHASE CLOTHES AND HANG THEM IN THE CLOSET FIRST. It does not matter what the price range is of the clothing, or if the outfit comes from the most expensive store known in the U.S. They still get shipments from these countries and the bugs can come in a box of scarves or anything else for that matter. That is the reason why so many stores, many of them clothing stores have had to shut down in NYC and other places. All you need is to bring one item into the house that has bugs or eggs and you will go to hell and back trying to get rid of them. He travels all over the country as an advisor to many of these stores, as prevention and after they have the problem.

“Send this information on to those on your e-mail list so that this good prevention information gets around quickly.”

Any of you in the bed bug business will know that some of this information is correct. There is a bed bug epidemic growing in the country, with stores and businesses are being affected, as well as hotels, homes and apartments. In addition, they are difficult to control. What's fishy about this email is the alarmist tone about finding bed bugs in new clothing from retail clothing stores.

I was curious whether this was an isolated email, and whether it had spread widely, so I checked with Snopes.com, the urban myth-debunking site. I did a quick search on bed bugs and the exact email appeared. Posted on Snopes less than a week ago, this one appears to be just beginning to spread through cyberspace.

Snopes rates emails as True, False, or a mixture of truth and falsehood. This one they rate as a "mixture". I agree with their analysis that the chance of getting bed bugs from packages of new clothing is extremely remote. I’ve never heard of this happening, and would be surprised to hear about a confirmed case of bed bugs traveling in this way.

This email follows the pattern of a classic hoax that seems designed to scare people into worrying about things they needn't worry about, or encouraging them to take an unnecessary action (Remember the hoax about the deadly "blush" spider that lives under toilet seats? It urged everyone to always check under public toilet seats before sitting down?) I'm not sure what prompts people to concoct these wild tales, unless it just gives someone the jollies to think about the thousands of frightened people checking their toilets. All of us are prone to fall prey to a practical joke from time to time, but as professionals we can at least be ready to correct nonsense about pest control when it occurs. So the message here I guess is: "Don’t stop shopping for new clothes; the economy is bad enough as it is."

The Snopes site, by the way, is chock-full of insect lore, strange fact, and legend. Try a search on "insect", "rat", "spider" and "ant" and see what you find.

Termidor label expanded for crazy ants

2010-10-04T15:47:00.003-05:00

The Termidor label is expanding under the Texas' Section 18 emergency exemptions program to accommodate the expanding range of the Rasberry crazy ant in south Texas.Termidor has been a useful insecticide to help prevent crazy ant invasion of homes. Unfortunately, because of the very high numbers of these ants in infested yards, the traditional "one foot up, one foot out" broadcast treatment allowed on standard labels has been inadequate. The new label allows application "3 feet up and 10 feet out" up to twice a year. Hildalgo County has been added to the list of counties where the expanded label may be used, and a provision on the label also allows use in unlisted counties if those counties have been listed as infested by Texas A&M University entomologists.

If you are not sure if your county has been included in the new label, Ed Gage of the Texas Department of Agriculture suggests that you visit their page listing the current known counties of infestation. Another site to check is the Texas A&M University crazy ant website. According to Gage, as with any Section 18 label, if the label you have in your hand does not include your county, but the county has been declared infested, simply make a copy of the new label, print it off and carry it to your application site. For a copy of the latest label, as of October 1, 2010, ask your local pesticide distributor, or click here. More up-to-date labels may be available on the TDA website.

The term Section 18 label refers to a section of the federal pesticide law referred to as FIFRA (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act). Under Section 18, states may grant exemptions to label provisions if an emergency is determined to exist. In the case of the new crazy ant, the first exemptions were granted approximately one year ago on October 21, 2009. The exemption will be allowed until October 21, 2012.

What do socks and bulletproof vests have in common?

2010-10-04T14:25:00.000-05:00

Last week Notre Dame and University of Wyoming scientists announced a breakthrough in the commercial mass production of spider silk.

For years I have heard speakers talk glowingly of spider silk--about its tensile strength that is greater than steel, its amazing ability to stretch, and its ability to retain its strength at temperatures as low as -40 degrees C. It also is thought to possess antimicrobial properties that might make it useful in medicine. Possible uses of spider silk include making superior surgical suture thread, bullet-proof vests, automobile air bags and other strong, lightweight fabrics that could be used for clothing like running socks and athletic shirts.

Unfortunately, spider silk is amazingly difficult to obtain. Spiders have been milked, or more properly, "silked"; but this impractical for obtaining all but the smallest quantities of silk. This is what makes the Notre Dame story interesting. Molecular biologists have attempted in recent years to product silk through the process of genetic engineering. One apparently failed biotech venture involved insertion of spider silk genes into goats, that produced silk in their milk. The idea was that the silk could be extracted from the milk. Lately researchers have focused on inserting spider silk genes into the all-time best producers of silk, the silkworm caterpillar. The result is a caterpillar that spins a combination of silkworm and spider silk, with improved toughness and elasticity.

All this reminds me of the many times people have asked me, "What good is that bug?" Spider silk research is just one example of the many amazing products that are possible if we protect, and take the time to learn about our biological heritage. Who would have guessed that tiny spiders might hold the secret of antibacterial socks, or a better air bag in your car? And what other useful insects or arthropods are out there, if we just take the time to preserve and study them? All this becomes especially significant when you consider that hundreds of thousands of insects will likely go extinct over the next 50 years if habitat destruction is not controlled. The loss to humankind of failing to protect these resources is literally incalculable.

Rasberry crazy ant adds a new home

2010-09-16T18:10:00.000-05:00

According to today's news release from AgNMore, the Rasberry ant, Nylanderia sp. near pubens, has now been found near Weslaco, TX in the lower Rio Grande valley. This marks another geographical jump probably aided by humans. The first area of infestation just south of Houston, has spread to approximately 12 adjacent counties. Last summer the ants were reported from San Antonio area, as well as Jim Hogg county. The Weslaco sighting, in south Hidalgo county, confirms that the ants have made it successfully to far south Texas.

For more information about the Rasberry crazy ant, see the page at the Center for Urban and Structural Entomology's website.

The great beetle invasion

2010-09-14T16:24:00.001-05:00

It's fall, and for most Texans this means principally and foremost, the beginning of football season. But while high school males are rejoicing at the end of two-a-days and the beginning of cheerleaders, another species is rejoicing in the change of weather.

The sugarcane beetle, Euetheola humilis, is found throughout the South. First reported as a pest of sugarcane in Louisiana in 1880, it is considered an occasional pest of field corn, rice and sweet potato. In recent years it appears to be becoming an increasingly important pest in Louisiana and Mississippi. In Texas I have received increasing reports of this beetle from unusual urban situations. Schools have reported damage occurring to running tracks. Businesses have reported damage to caulking in sidewalks and around doors of buildings and, last year, a car dealership reported beetles digging their way into rubber seals on recreational vehicles in a sales lot.

Black piles of sugarcane beetles at high school running track, Paris, TX. September 13, 2010.
Photo by Sam Adams, Pogue Construction

This week I received pictures showing the most impressive infestation I have seen or heard of so far. The new high school running track in Paris, Texas has been inundated with these beetles attracted, apparently to stadium lights.

Such infestations seem to be sporadic, as these beetles are not abundant in all years; but when they are, they are showing themselves to be a formidable pest. Like crickets and many other occasional pests, sugarcane beetles are attracted to lights at night. When sun comes up, the beetles' natural instinct is to get out of the light. What makes this species different is its persistence, ability and strength to dig through rubbers and caulks and other usually tough building materials.

Sugarcane beetles lift a rubberized running track off its cement base
via their digging activities.

As with fall cricket invasions, the best and fastest solution is to turn off the lights. In the Paris, TX high school last night, lights were turned off with a dramatic decrease in numbers. But turning off lights is not always practical or possible. In such cases, reducing the time that lights are left on, switching to less attractive sodium vapor light fixtures, or some combination of the two strategies should be pursued. Pesticides are not likely to provide much relief, though frequent treatment with a residual insecticide may be somewhat useful in emergency situations like the high school where the track is being destroyed. Early morning sweeping or vacuuming, before the beetles can cause damage, may also be helpful in some cases.

The only good news about this situation is that such flights are temporary and will probably decline within a week or two. Football and track coaches, however, may still not be pleased.

The Pros debate green golf courses

2010-09-14T10:54:00.000-05:00

A mini-debate has been running recently among the small community of entomologists who work with insect pests of turf and ornamental landscapes. It has to do with the growing emergence of green golf courses and a recent story/video at time.com on the Chambers Bay links golf course on Puget Sound in Washington. The discussion was interesting and reveals some of the subtleties of varying opinions on the green movement.

Chamber's Bay is a sustainable, all-fescue, Scottish-links-style course that was built on a reclaimed gravel pit. The course uses almost no irrigation, chemical fertilizers, or pesticides. It is a showcase for cultural control and how “brown can become the new green.” This course does not look like most of the lush, immaculate courses you see around Houston, Dallas or San Antonio, or for that matter any of the PGA tournament courses you see on television.

Not every one is ready to stand up and cheer for these new courses, however. Not that I know anyone who doesn't support a golf course that uses less water, fertilizer and pesticides; but it's the fear that Chamber's Bay and other courses like it, are being set up as examples for the golfing community, with the implication, "See they can do it. Why can't all courses be like that?"

According to entomologist Dave Shetlar, Ohio State University, "Climate makes all the difference when it comes to having diseases, weeds and insects." Just because a course can be successful using a low-input approach along Puget Sound, it doesn't mean that acceptable course conditions can be maintained in Houston, Texas or Augusta, Georgia, where disease, weed and insect pressure is many times higher.

Shetlar worries that folks who are eager to jump on the “green wagon” will cause trouble for other courses trying to maintain tournament-grade turf. He points to the eastern Canadian provinces, whose governments have recently banned “cosmetic” pesticide and fertilizer use in urban landscapes. The one exception so far has been golf courses. "Now that a couple of courses have claimed that they don’t need fertilizer and pesticides, the government regulators are looking again at the exemption that they gave golf courses [and consider eliminating the exemption]." If this happens, he said, there will be a lot of unhappy golf players and grief among golf course managers. He cites pressure from the PGA, which has stated that they won’t allow play on “sub-standard” courses.

Dr. Dan Potter, Professor of Entomology from the University of Kentucky, has a different perspective. While acknowledging that golf course settings vary widely in climate, soils, water requirements, golfer expectations and pest pressure, the idea that golf courses need not approach visual perfection is the significant issue with Chamber's Bay. Quoting professional golfer Bo van Pelt at the British Open, he said: “St. Andrews [arguably, the premier golf links course in the world] shows that every course doesn’t have to be immaculate, green, watered, manicured. There are different ways to play golf. And this way is great.”

According to Potter, "American golfers have traditionally preferred to play on velvet-green, immaculately-groomed courses. Watching the Masters at Augusta National on a high-definition color TV sure sets the bar high. But socio-cultural perceptions can change... Marketing and consumer education can speed that change."

Potter also notes that today's turf insecticides are much less toxic than many of the older ones, and that insecticides are necessary to prevent turf destruction in some settings.

"[Research has shown that] “organic golf” does not work in many, perhaps most settings. Clearly insecticides are needed in many circumstances. But all over the world there is recognition that water use and other golf course inputs can be reduced without compromising quality of play. The USGA has invested $30 million in environmental research. About 2700 US courses have earned Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary status. GCSAA’s Environmental Institute for Golf and USGA/PGA/Audubon International’s 'Golf and the Environment' promote sustainable resource management. ...I’m encouraged that USGA has selected a less-than-aesthetically perfect course committed to sustainable management for its signature tournament."

Potter's point is that if people's perception of what is meant by an attractive golf course can change, then golf course superintendents will feel the freedom to cut back on some of the intensive management practices in use at many courses today. We should cheer, not fear, courses like Chamber's Bay, for leading the PR charge towards a different ideal on the links.

So why blog here to PMPs about golf courses? It has to do with consumer demand. The golf course experience, whether we realize it or not, affects the way professionals are called to manage urban landscapes. Until there were immaculate greens and emerald fairways in north Texas, many Texans were happy with a basic grass/weeds mix, or even (before that) the traditional raked dirt front lawn. I don't think we'll ever go back to black dirt lawns in my community, but I know from seeing them that urban landscapes designed with native trees and prairie plants can be just as, if not more, attractive than the bermudagrass/crape myrtle/holly formal landscapes so common in north Texas cities. On the other hand legislators should be aware that management practices that work in Canada or Washington state or Maine, may not work or be acceptable in the sun belt, home of the thousand plagues.

PMPs will do well to follow this green debate, as this is affecting anyone whose business includes landscape maintenance. Besides, it seems like a good excuse to get out on the golf course more. Chalk it up to market research.

Beautiful ant pics

2010-08-23T10:31:00.000-05:00

Brachymyrmex ants from Alex Wild, North American ants.

If you've got a good microscope and occasionally get unusual ants to identify, you might benefit from this site from Alex Wild, a photographer and biologist from Illinois. If you've ever tried to photograph ants you should have special appreciation for the beauty and clarity of these images.

The pictures do not take the place of a good key and identification guide, but never underestimate the power of good pictures in helping identify insects. If you are from Texas, another excellent ant ID reference is Ant Genera of Texas, available through the Texas AgriLife Bookstore.

NPDES legislative update

2010-08-20T16:30:00.000-05:00

Earlier this month I sent a long post trying to summarize the latest legal developments concerning the Clean Water Act, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) and commercial pesticide applications. I'm not going to be long-winded today, other than to say that there has been a lot of opposition to the court's decision to consider label-approved pesticide applications to, or over, water as a discharge of pollutants. As a result, legislation was introduced on August 5th to explicitly exempt pesticides from other permitting requirements when pesticides are applied according to an approved label. If passed, the bill would essentially side-step the legal ruling that declared certain pesticides as pollutants and requiring them to obtain an NDPES permit. According to Senator Lincoln (D-AR), the bill's sponsor,

“Our legislation is very simple: as long as a producer is complying with FIFRA, then no Clean Water Act permit will be required. During the more than 35 years since the enactment of the Clean Water Act, the EPA has never required a permit for the application of FIFRA-registered crop protection products. Our bill would extend this common-sense approach and avoid duplicative, unnecessary burdens on our farmers, foresters, and ranchers.”

I've not had time to study response to this legislation, but I thought I would let you know about it before it's old news. Here's a link to the bill at govtrack. It's interesting that the drafters decided to amend FIFRA rather than the Clean Water Act. This strategy is likely due to the hope that the bill will receive a more sympathetic hearing in the Agriculture Committee, and is therefore more likely to be passed out of committee. Stay tuned for more developments in this lively bit of pesticide history.

Save that skin! Snake sheds can be useful for ID

2010-08-20T10:04:00.001-05:00

The southern copperhead snake, Agkistrodon controtrix, with its
banded pattern blends in well with the forest floor. Note the
triangular-shaped head.

A client came into our office last week with what was for me an unusual sample. Snake skins (or sheds, as they are called) are not commonly brought to entomologists, though I suspect that most pest control businesses see snake samples regularly enough. The shed in this case was discovered under a sofa in a home, and the alarmed homeowner wanted to know (reasonably enough) if it was from a poisonous snake.

Now it might not immediately occur to most people to worry about worry about what species of snake they have in their home. A snake skin mysteriously appearing in the living room would be cause enough for total panic for most people, regardless of species. But wanting to know whether a shed is from a venomous snake or not is a sensible request. Shed skins can provide excellent clues to the identity of a snake and, if nothing else, can comfort a customer by relieving them of the worry that a fanged, potentially-lethal reptile might be lurking in the laundry basket.

To recognize venomous snakes, it's first important to know which snakes are venomous. There are dozens of species of venomous snakes in the U.S., but it's relatively easy to recognize the three major genera and four major kinds of venomous snakes. If you can recognize these snakes, you can recognize any of the bad players you're likely to encounter in this country.

Coral snakes. The only North American members of the infamous snake family Elapidae, which includes the cobras, mambas, kraits and tiger snakes (found only in the Old World). Coral snakes are relatively secretive and less likely to be encountered around residential areas. They are strongly ringed with red, yellow and black; although there are several more common snake species that share this color characteristic. What distinguishes coral snakes is that the two warning colors, red and yellow, touch each other. Other, non-venomous mimics (like milk snakes and king snakes), always have a black band separating the yellow and red bands. Hence the old Boy Scout rhyme really works: "Red on yellow, kill a fellow; red on black, friend of Jack".
Copperheads. Copperheads, water mocassins and rattlesnakes all belong to the family Viperidae, subfamily Crotalinae. All pit vipers have triangular-shaped heads that are wider than the neck, and specialized facial pits between the nostril and eye that are used for sensing the body heat of prey. Copperheads are brownish in color with bell-shaped markings on the sides (see image) and are difficult to see amidst dead leaves on a forest floor. Copperheads are one of the more commonly encountered snakes around homes near wooded areas in the eastern half of the U.S.
Cottonmouths (water moccasins). Cottonmouth snakes belong to the same genus as copperhead snakes (Agkistrodon), but are associated with aquatic habitats. One of the most feared venomous snakes, they are often confused with harmless water snakes. Their pit viper characteristics, often aggressive behavior and white mouths help distinguish them from water and other dark-colored snakes. These snakes are less likely to be encountered by PMPs, unless the account is close to water and in the southeastern quarter of the U.S.
Rattlesnakes. Two genera of snakes are classified as rattlesnakes, so-named because of a series of loose, horny segments born at the tip of the tail that make a rattling sound when vibrated. Various species of these snakes are found throughout the contiguous U.S. These may be common around homes, schools and businesses in certain areas, especially in the more arid parts of the western U.S.

One way to distinguish most venomous from non-venomous snake sheds is to examine the scale pattern on the underside of the tail section. Most snakes with double rows of scales from the anus to the tip of the tail can be assumed to be non-venomous (except for coral snakes). Such scales should be visible on a complete shed snake skin. Illustration taken from Roger Conant, A Field Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern/Central North America.

All snakes, both venomous and non-venomous, shed their skins several times a year. Snake sheds may remain complete and intact, or may frequently come off in sections. Sheds may show up in a yard, under a home, or even occasionally indoors. If a customer calls to report finding a snake skin, ask them to keep it until you can visit. Nathan Haislip of the Fort Worth Zoo's Department of Ectotherms (a fancy term for insects, reptiles, and amphibians) was kind enough to share his advice on how to recognize whether a shed is from a venomous or non-venomous snake. He suggests:

If the head section is present and intact, look to see if it's arrow-shaped (triangular) or if you can detect a pit located just below an imaginary line between the eye and nostril. These two characteristics identify a snake as a pit viper, the most common family of venomous snakes in the U.S. The coral snake is the only other venomous snake in North America without these characteristics.
If the head is missing or damaged, another character to look for is the pattern of scales on the bottom of the tail, behind the anus or ventor. If the scales form more than one row, the skin is not from a rattlesnake, copperhead, or cottonmouth.
If there is a tip to the tail of your snake skin, then you definitely know you aren't dealing with a rattlesnake because the tip is the rattle and the shed doesn't continue past the rattle.
Looking for color patterns left behind on the skin can also be helpful. Copperhead sheds, for example, may show the characteristic banding patterns of that species. Diamondback rattlesnakes should have the distinctive diamond pattern visible, depending on the quality of the shed.
If you have access to a local herpetologist or zoo with a reptile collection, you may be able to get more precise on the identification from a skin alone. Put the shed into a protective box and save it for an expert to evaluate.

All this illustrates why pest control is such an interesting profession. You never know what kind of questions, or samples, you will encounter on a given day.