When you first find out the pests are invading your home, it can be stressful. There are a lot of places you can have pests entering your abode. No matter how clean your home is, pests can still get inside. This article will go over some of the ways you can use pest control to get rid of pests.
If you are concerned that you have bed bugs, do not try to remove your mattress from your home. Dragging it through the house is likely to spread the infestation. Instead, keep everything stored in that one location. You can add a "bed bug cover" to the mattress to try and contain the problem, although you will need to be seen by a pest control specialist.
Know what pest you are dealing with. You can't combat what you don't understand. Not every pest control method works for every type of bug. You need to choose the right weapon to face your foe. So do your research. Search the internet for bugs that look like your pest, and see what types of methods work best.
You should always fix any leaks in the plumbing of your house. You will also want to look for any other sources of water lying around. A place people often look is under their houseplants. Bugs tend to go places in which they can find water so they can drink and breed.
Did you know that bugs and pests can get into your home through cracks or holes in your walls? Inspect the outside of your home for any cracks or holes. Depending on the type of material your home is made of, fill them with caulk to keep out the bugs and pests.
Get rid of the standing water around your home. Stagnant pools of water will attract pests. Search for leaky pipes and make sure your plants' trays are clean. They have to have water; if they don't have any, they can't live.
Your pets are a big source of bug infestations in your home. Not only can your pets bring in fleas and ticks from outdoors, but their food is a food source for bugs as well. When the animals are done eating, pick up their food. Keep the area where the animals eat clean as well.
If you hear bees in the walls of your home, never try to plug their access hole. This will trap them inside, and they will attempt to break free. Unfortunately, this means that they could come through the wall, into your home. You will have no choice at that point but to exit the premises and call a pest control specialist.
Make sure that all of your windows are closed when you go to sleep at night or go on vacation. The last thing that you will want to do is to give the bugs outside a free entryway into your house. Seal all windows when you are sleeping or not home to reduce pests.
If you have many mosquitoes in your yard, and possibly even infiltrating your home, try to eliminate any standing water. If there is a high population of mosquitoes on your property, they are breeding somewhere, and they can only breed in standing water. Dump anything that collects rainwater, dump kid pools and do whatever you can to eliminate breeding grounds.
When you want to have a pest-free lifestyle, these tips and tricks should get you on your way. It's important to use them as instructed to ensure the best results. Once you've started using your new-found knowledge, you should find the pests disappearing right before your eyes, so to speak.
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In a Cannibalistic Society, It’s Not About Survival—It’s All About Recycling
In this spooky time of year, there are many examples we could draw from insects to give the heebie-jeebies to non-entomophiles. We could talk about mosquitoes, the most dangerous animals on the planet, or ticks, which vector a variety of diseases, but these are not so much spooky as they are dangerous, seeing their dramatic impact on human health worldwide. Let’s keep this post on the light-hearted side, please.
Zombie Insects
So, spooky bugs. Let’s start with zombie ants. It’s a classic dive into zombie culture while exploring the amazing biology of a host-manipulating fungal parasite. Next in line would be parasitoid wasps, as their gruesome life cycle rips through the host’s organs from the inside while keeping it alive the entire time. Another favorite: the Nicrophorus burying beetles lay their eggs on a decomposing carcass and display extensive parental behavior to their growing larvae as they chew through the putrid flesh of the roadkill. Gruesome, yet full of love. It’s the pinnacle of cute. Halloween could definitely use insects as core material for “horrific†displays in our front yards (with all the classic anatomic fails of course, but this is another horror story). By the way, I was very disappointed when nothing came up from a “parasitoid wasp Halloween display†Google search (someone should do something about this, please).
Termite Cannibals
Another spooky example, often forgotten, is cannibalistic insect societies. I bring your attention to termites. Termites have evolved away from their Cryptocercus-like wood roach ancestor and reached the highest level of social organization while exploiting woody material. The evolution of their biology was therefore constrained by a significant dietary restriction: wood is carbon-rich but notably nitrogen-poor. Termites have therefore perfected a recycling strategy toward nitrogen conservation over evolutionary time: cannibalism.
It also has been suggested that cannibalism could have an essential role in helping a group of termites survive a period of starvation. Workers would cannibalize their nutritionally-dependent nestmates to alleviate their trophic burden. This strategy would therefore reduce the metabolic footprint of a starving group of termites to increase their chance of survival, Ã la Soylent Green.
However, all previous studies on this topic subjected small groups of termites to starvation. In a recent study, I revisited this concept, but instead subjected full termite colonies to starvation. To make a long story short: termites are terrible in their survival strategy during starvation events because, in fact, they don’t really have a strategy.
Unlike honeybees that store months-worth of honey, termites have a carpe-diem approach to food safety, as they have no internal reserves. Instead, subterranean termites such as Coptotermes gestroi will relentlessly forage for new food sites to prevent food shortage in the first place. But if starvation of the termite colony actually occurs, give it about 30 days.
As the metabolism of the colony progressively ran out of fuel, nutritionally-stressed individuals started accumulating in the colony. Unfortunately for termite larvae and workers, who are hemimetabolous insects stuck in a permanent juvenile molting cycle, the time to molt eventually comes, and the younger the instar, the faster the molting cycle. Have you ever tried molting while completely starving? I would not advise it. These termites failed in their attempt to molt, leading to their death and subsequent cannibalism from nestmates.
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