May is the peak season for allergy sufferers and is the Allergy Awareness Month. About 2.5 million Canadians suffer from allergies, or about 7.5 per cent of the population or 1 in 13. So how do you prevent allergen buildup in their own homes. Many people think allergies are associated to the sensitivity to pollen and grass but there are a lot of other things indoors that trigger allergies as well. Household pests including mice, rats, bed bugs, cockroaches, mites and many more can aggravate allergy symptoms, particularly in children. Therefore controlling household pests is very important to stop possible reactions. One study found 95 percent of allergists thought a clean pest-free home was important in preventing allergy symptoms. To insure the air in your house is fresh and clean make sure your house is pest free.
The Gypsy moth caterpillar consume tremendous amounts of leaf material in the spring, as much as one square foot of leaves per day. A solution to the Gypsy moth problem emerged in Europe in 1938, where they began to use B.T.K. (Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki) on forests and agricultural lands as a biological insecticide to exterminate the gypsy moth . B.T.K. is a naturally occurring bacteria the soil. In North American, it wasn’t until the 1970s that B.T.K. was used to eradicate the caterpillar on millions of hectares of forest. Apparently it is very low risk to humans, animals, birds and fish. B.T.K. effects caterpillars yet doesn’t harm bees, lady beetles, ants or parasitic wasps. It is applied either by helicopters, small planes or by ground application, usually in April and May when the gypsy moth caterpillars hatch and begin to feed. When the caterpillars munch the vegetation, the B.T.K. consumed activates in their digestive system and is fatal within hours.
Different parasitoid wasp species are know to lay their eggs on a spider’s back and by inoculating the spider with the a molting hormone, the wasp induces the spider to make a distinct web for the wasp’s cocoon. The parasitic wasp forces the spider to texture a special web to dangle the wasp cocoon just before it kills the spider. The zombification includes changing web-spinning designs by taking over the spider hormone. The spider’s web construction changes from choosing a site to adjusting numerous designs that effect the shelter and home for its cocoon. The spider’s brain is altered with psychotropic chemicals that the spider’s circulatory system delivers. After eating the spider, this young wasp hangs from the spider’s molting web.
The sight of swarming bees can alarm just about anyone but it is a normal life cycle of honey bees. At the end of winter there are fewer bees in the colony than there were during the summer, you have the queen and a lot of workers, that huddled together in a winter cluster to keep warm. As spring begins, the colony expands as more workers are produced. There may be several thousand workers busily foraging, regulating the temperature in the hive, guarding the colony, tending to the brood, feeding each other, cleaning, creating wax combs and honey while all communicating with pheromones through food sharing called trophallaxis. But, when the colony becomes too big, the queens pheromones don’t reach all the workers. The workers that are not receiving the queens pheromones panic and they create a new queen – but there isn’t room for two queens. The old queen becomes aware of this mutiny so before the new queen emerges, she takes off with part of the colony to establish a new nest. Before leaving, the mutineers fill up with as much nectar as they can consume. When the old queen and her workers leave, they swarm in a large mass, but the queen is not a strong flyer and needs to rest at some point- be it on a branch, post or fence. The worker bees will swarm around the queen as she rests while scout bees are out looking for a new location for the colony to live. Depending on how quickly the scout bees find a suitable new home, the swarm will remain there for as long as a day or more.
Warmer winters allow rats to breed into the previously too-cold months. Climate change is what is making rats tougher, meatier, bigger and more present. Its a losing battle, experts now say climate change might be giving rats the competitive edge they need to thrive. Most rats breed all year, they usually slow down during around Christmas time, but climate change is turning winters warmer, stimulating rats to get frisky. Normally it doesn’t make any sense to keep turning out babies in the winter — food is infrequent, temperatures are colder, and that threatens babies -rats pretty much shut down production when winter is coming. But warmer winters allows rats another litter or two in the off-season. Temperature is just one factor in rat reproduction as there are no technical studies ultimately connecting upsurges in rat populations with climate change but with the last four warmest years on record this is our new normal.
The most familiar wasps we encounter live in large cooperative nests, like bald-faced hornets, yellowjackets and other wasps yet the majority of wasp species are solitary and focused only on their own offspring. But the majority of wasps we encounter, the spring process begins with a fertilized wasp queen arising from hibernation and begins a nest by producing worker wasps – of which are all females. The wasp workforce continue to grow the size of the nest by breaking down the walls and rebuilding larger new walls while the queen continues to lays more eggs. In late summer the queen will lay male and queen eggs. By the fall, thousands of wasps begin to die of except for the newly fertilised queens that find a place to shelter for hibernation until the following spring where the process begins again. Interestingly, bee venom is acidic and wasp venom is alkaline, so people will respond differently to their stings; people that have anaphylactic reactions to one and not to the other. Wasps and bees produce an attack pheromone that causes an attack frenzy, what ever the pheromone is on may get repeated stung. Solitary wasps only sting when manually provoked and their venom typically causes only short-lived pain.
House flies are major carriers of disease transferring ailments, including food poisoning, typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera and dysentery that can be harmful to both humans and pets. They breed and feed in filth, including garbage, feces, human food, animal food and carcasses, garbage, excrement and rotting food. House flies pick up bacteria, fungi, and viruses and then spread these pathogens by contaminating food and water. The average life span for a house fly is less than one month. House fly eggs are laid in warm, moist material that will supply suitable food for the larvae. The female lays six batches 100 eggs. In warm weather, eggs hatch in about one day.
The colonial aphid fixes its house in a stunningly fatal fashion – they will fix a hole in its nest by exploding and the result is coating its bodily fluids over the openings. These aphids live in hollow spheres called galls in Japanese trees. They divide their labor into adult reproducers, workers and soldiers. If a moth caterpillars attacks their home the soldiers will defend by stabbing the intruders to death, using the piercing mouthparts, but after the attack there maybe several gaping holes that need to be repaired. Hundreds of soldiers will gather around the a holes and violently eruption and within a hour will harden and seal the gaps. It has been discovered that as their bodily fluids rupture, hemocytes or fats quickly form a plug or clotting the house. This kind of suicidal unselfishness is called autothysis.
Factors include everything from open compost piles and bird feeders to displacement by development Sandor Gyarmati / Delta Optimist APRIL 12, 2019 08:05 AM rats Residents can undertake a number of measures to prevent rats from seeking shelter inside their homes.
The sight or sound of them scurrying about, especially inside homes, is enough to send a shiver down most people’s spines.
Wherever you have people, there are always going to be rats, sometimes lots of them, and here in Delta there seems to be more lately.
That’s what South Delta-based Go Green Pest Control owner Randy Bilesky has observed over the past few years, saying factors such as climate change and rodents being displaced due to development are resulting in a sharp increase in his call volumes.
“From my perspective, it’s getting worse every year. Hotter, drier summers are good for the rodents, for the rats, and the biggest thing I’ve found is a lot of land has been cleared and all the raptors have taken off. You see a lot of them at the dump area now, while rats are heading into Ladner and Tsawwassen, into the city,” said Bilesky.
He said he did about 250 rat jobs in the area last year.
“Rats are nocturnal, so they are typically going into the house or underneath at nighttime and that’s when people hear that scurrying, that scratching noise. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Norway rat or roof rat, they all like being in the roof because it’s got insulation, it’s warm and it’s secure.”
“If your car sits in the same place for days, it’s a perfect place for them to go and be undisturbed,” he said. “A truck that we had in recently even had a live rat in it.”
The problem has reportedly been so pronounced in the City of Vancouver that the Vancouver Rat Project was initiated.
Bilesky has a lengthy checklist of what homeowners can do to discourage rats, which can not only climb but have an uncanny ability of squeezing into small spaces, from making their way inside. He suggests pruning trees or shrubs near the side of homes as branches can act as an escalator for rats that love attics and crawlspaces.
bilesky
Go Green Pest Control owner Randy Bilesky said he did about 250 rat jobs in the area last year. – photo by Sandor Gyarmati
Also, the disease-carrying rodents can scale brick chimneys, while gaps between soffits and rooflines can be an open invitation as well.
On the ground level, galvanized mesh, as long as it’s the proper size, can be effective around the foundation. Leaving piles of wood, especially right next to a house, and having bird feeders can also attract the unwanted pests.
A few of the other recommendations when it comes to rats include storing compost kitchen waste only in sturdy, closed bins and not putting meat scraps or bones in the bins, storing outdoor garbage in tightly-closed containers, making sure that bird feeders are away from buildings and seeds don’t spill on the ground, and repairing any leaky plumbing.
The rats that reside in Delta for the most part are Norway rats, thanks Norway. These rats hitched a ride to the Americas on ships in the 18th century. So why do me loathe them, well it all goes back to the great plague, that killed some 25 million people in the 14th century. But, even before that when we were living in caves with the Flintstones, these beasts would scurvy into our caves with their tails dragging behind them (probably had spikes on their tails back then) and bite us to see if we were alive or dead pickings -we learned very early on to be fearful. These rodents still carry dreaded diseases like Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome, Lassa Fever, Leptospirosis, Lymphocytic Chorio-meningitis (LCM), Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever, Rat-Bite Fever, Salmonellosis and finally Tularemia . So is there anything about a rat to like? Domestic pet rats are smart as they learn and remember quickly and we do use these animals to test our pharmaceuticals. So do we try to get rid of rats completely, well no, with our luck something even worst will replace the rats – like raccoons.
