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New pesticide label to strengthen pollinators.

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Many types of plants, including fruit and vegetable crops, depend on animals for pollination. Although honey bees are often first thought of as pollinators, many other types of animals pollinate crops and wildflowers, including wild bees, ants, beetles, wasps, lizards, birds, and bats. The EPA is concerned about declines in pollinator health, and is working to protect bees and other pollinators from pesticide risks through regulatory actions, voluntary changes to pesticide use by registrants and research programs aimed at increasing the understanding of factors associated with declining pollinator health.

ProBest Pest Management and the National Pest Management Association are continuing to watch as this story developes.

What are some ways to discourage insects trying to enter your home?

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What are some ways to discourage insects trying to enter your home?

One of the things that Pest Management Professionals try to utilize are IPM or Integrated Pest Management techniques. These basic ideas include using non-chemical methods to reduce the bug population around your home.

This can be as simple as removing firewood from close to your home to maybe next to a block wall and making sure its not directly on the ground.
Trimming trees to prevent ants and other crawling pests from just walking right on it.
Using yellow lighting or sodium vapor lights on structures or businesses will help to reduce flying insects.
Keeping stone or dirt away from the stucco of your home so you can clearly see the foundation.
Sealing up any cracks and crevices where bugs love to hide, this may include those block wall bump-outs.
Keep trash cans away from doors where people come and go often.
Check your property often and stay ahead of the insects.

If you store lots of firewood a device like this can keep it off the ground and you can always cover it with a tarp.

Ho, Ho Ho – Pest Tips for the Christmas Season

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Ho, Ho Ho – Pest Tips for the Christmas Season

As the season approaches and you begin the work to set up all those decorations we thought we should share a few tips on decorating:

If you stored anything in your attic, check those boxes before you bring them into your home. I suggest opening them in your garage and unpacking before distributing them throughout your home. (Rodents, roaches, scorpions and all types of nasty critters could be making a home within those boxes).
Check that Christmas tree before bringing it into your home, bird and bugs could be living within those branches. Some bugs lay eggs or egg cases on trees and plant, so take care. Also check any wreaths or homemade type of decorations for insects or eggs.
If your putting up lights or decorations outside, check for signs of infestations such as birds nesting in eaves and honeybees going in and out from a hole or crack.
If you are putting decorations on you roof (be careful) but check for any signs of infestation. Rodents and wildlife may be scratching or clawing at wood or shingles trying to gain entry, this is a great time to check for any type of activity.
If your putting lights on shrubs or trees, check for signs of nesting such as pack rats and other types of birds.
If you bring in firewood, only take in what you re going to use right away. Some beetles lays eggs in wood and if it is warmer in the home they may decide it’s summer time and exit the wood.

Merry Christmas to all our friends may you enjoy a peaceful and enjoyable pest free holiday season and just remember we are but a phone call away.

ProBest Pest Management

425 W. Guadalupe Road #110

Gilbert, AZ 85233

602-249-7378 or 623-414-0176

Successful strategies to prepare your home for winter:

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Successful strategies to prepare your home for winter:

The key in my book is to keep an eye out throughout the year. If Africanized Honeybee’s have taken up residence and you didn’t notice it for a year you will have more problems because of the time involved to build more colony and honey storage. So here is my list:

Check your home outside for any holes that may have developed over the past year – seal them, I suggest copper wool (won’t rust) or steel wool. Check for signs of termites, such as termite tubes or tunnels or damage. This can also be damage from water as well.
Check inside your home, look for baseboard or paint that seems to be cracked or crinkled which might suggest termite activity.
Only bring in enough firewood that you will use immediately, firewood can bring in pests like spiders, beetles or termites.
Repair any screens that have been damaged.
The winter is also a great time to check your attic, it’s cooler. Check for animal signs like feces or nesting materials. Check the roof for signs of water staining or damage, if capable check the roof from the outside – check shingles or tiles for any damage.
If this is a cabin, drain the water lines and clean up. This will allow you to notice things on your return visit, remember HantaVirus and the clean up procedures.
Now is also a good time to call your local Pest Management Professional for an inspection, especially here in Arizona because of the monsoon and the rains which make termites more active.

Something buzzing you at your local store?

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Something buzzing you at your local store?

So yesterday I was shopping here in Gilbert and noticed this lovely little set of bug traps. These traps catch a variety of pests but are designed to capture stored product pest such as Indianmeal Moths to beetles to flies. Depending on the type of store, food stores probably at greater risk for grain damage and other types of warehouses which may contain flowers, seeds or hides.

Stored product pest are commonly referred to as pantry pests, if located in a product purchased from a store recently you can contact the retailer who then contacts the manufacturer and the possibility of the lot being recalled or destroyed is good. I’m a big fan of freezing the items and then putting it into Tupperware or some type of sealed container. Stored Product pest damage approximately 10% of the world’s annual production of stored grains, In 1981 the loss was was estimated to over 1 Billion dollars in the U.S. Remember by the time you see the flying adults it’s probably to late, the larva are the ones to catch (they eat and damage) the adults only want to reproduce.

By the way there are plenty of different types of pests that eat this type of food, we are only scratching the surface with these two moths. Have you seen something like this, what would you do if you brought it home and it was infested? Do you have a scary of unique story about stored product pests? Comment below.

Watch where you step – glorious bugs abound!

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Watch where you step – glorious bugs abound!

The pinacate beetle, also known as the stink beetle, is a species of darkling beetle in the genus Eleodes endemic to the Sonoran Desert and adjacent regions of the U.S. Southwest and Mexico, usually the species Eleodes obscurus. The name is also loosely applied to a number of closely related species of Eleodes, of Western Mexico and the Western United States (including but not limited to the Great Basin), many of which are not easily distinguished from each other. The name pinacate is Mexican Spanish, derived from the Nahuatl (Aztec) name for the insect, pinacatl, which translates as “black beetle”.

The pinacate beetle is noted for its defensive tactic of standing on its head and squirting a noxious spray. This has earned it the additional names of clown bug and stink bug, names also applied to other unrelated insects.

How about the Olympians of the Bug World?

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How about the Olympians of the Bug World?

Olympic Games 27 July – 12 August Official London 2012 website http://www.london2012.com/

The Olympic Games are soon to begin in London and I thought this was the perfect time to discuss some of the bug world super stars.

Fleas are well known as the insect world best jumpers, they can jump up to 1200 to 2200 times their own body length, making the flea one of the best jumpers of all known animals (relative to body size), second only to the froghopper. According to an article in Science News, “researchers with the University of Cambridge in England have shown that fleas take off from their tibiae and tarsi—the insect equivalent of feet—and not their trochantera, or knees.
Dung Beetle -After months of grueling tests, a species of horned dung beetle takes the title for world’s strongest insect.The beetle, called Onthophagus taurus, was found to be able to pull a whopping 1,141 times its own body weight, which is the equivalent of a 150-pound (70 kilogram) person lifting six full double-decker buses. While the study researcher knows of a mite that can take on a hair more, that organism is an arachnid, not an insect. On the other hand, rhinoceros beetle can carry 850 times its own weight. To put that into perspective that would be like one of us lifting a 65 ton armored tank.
If you want to know the record holder for the fastest insect in the world, then you’re in the right place. The fastest insect in the world are divided into ground speed and flying speed. The fastest insect on the ground is the cockroach. In an experiment carried out at the University of California, Berkeley in 1991, an American cockroach registered a record speed of 5.4 kilometres per hour (3.4 mph), about 50 body lengths per second, which would be comparable to a human running at 330 kilometres per hour (210 mph).
The fastest flying insect is the dragon fly. It was claimed that the Southern Giant Darner flying at nearly 60 miles per hour (97 km/h) in a rough field measurement, but a more reliable record shows a 35 mph speed.

So stand back and watch the insects for their size they may be fast and furious…