Cheshire Pest Control

Archive for June, 2010

Bed bugs had been the most notorious and annoying parasite or insect in the 19th to the early part of the 20th century. It is believed that during and after the World War II in the United States in the 1940s, the country had totally been declared bed-bug free.

But travelers from other countries and continents where bed bugs may have continued to thrive made their return to the US possible. Usually, baggage and travel possessions serve as traveling ground or traveling spots for bed bugs from one area to another, from one country to another.

You should know what bed bugs look like, to be able to identify them. Bed bugs of course, are insects. Size matters.

Bed bugs are so tiny, that sometimes, one can hardly see them with just the naked eye. But when bed bugs mature, they look like other insects. They can be as long as a fourth of an inch. Bed bugs look like other wingless insects. Hatchlings or newly hatched bed bugs are about as small as a poppy seed. Looking or viewing bed bugs, from top to bottom, they are usually flattened. Bed bugs may sometimes look like ants or termites, except that when looked at closely, they have their own physical attributes. What color are bed bugs? Bed bugs, like humans, have different colors. It can be funny, but bed bugs look like they also have races! Bed bugs’ colors usually are deep brown.

However, there are bed bugs that look like biting ants—burnt orange, while there are those that have light tan complexion to almost white.

When bed bugs are hungry, they exhibit a different color than that when they are fully fed. Bedbugs with blood in it look like balloons, but what is inside them is not air but blood. The host or victim’s precious blood may look like a black mass or dark red mass inside the bed bug’s tiny body. Bed bugs also do excrete. When they do, they produce small amounts of liquid that almost look like blood. Thus, beds or surfaces where bed bugs may have inhabited may be stained with tiny red spots. These spots most of the time have stinky smell, but sometimes, they are not sensed by our olfactory glands. How can bed bugs be found?

Because they are so, so tiny and are always crawling at very unnoticeable speed, bed bugs can not easily be detected or seen. During daytime, they stay within their protective habitats or hiding places. Bed bugs look like small creeping objects in crevices and small holes in the floor, the walls or even your bed. If you are observant enough, bed bugs may look or seem as if they are vampires. They may not have the physical characteristics that may scare you the way Dracula does, but they suck your blood. And they can never survive without it.

How to exterminate bedbugs? Bed bugs, like any other pests, are so persistent. You can hardly control bedbugs in your room without the professional help of pest control operators or providers. If you have been applying pesticides and harmful pest control substances in areas suspected of having these parasites, chances are greater that you will fail. It is because most of the pesticides in the market are repellant to insects. It means, when you have used one, bed bugs will not be killed. But they will be repelled or they will avoid getting at or near the surfaces or areas where the pesticide is applied. Through that, bed bugs start to wander. Thus, the spread of bed bugs is accelerated. They will start transferring from one spot to another. Or worse, from one household to another.

Thus, attempting to control bed bugs on your own may look like attempting to get rid of bed bugs in your home and ushering them into your nearest neighbor. If you have the conscience to allow that to happen, or if your neighbor will not bug or sue you, then go on. But exterminating bed bugs can entail great responsibility and consideration to others on your part. Professionals know better, so leave the job to them. Besides, you may not want to kill yourself through poisoning along with the bed bugs, right?

To learn about wood roach and flying cockroach, visit the About Animals website.

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News agencies started reporting on a disturbing phenomenon in the bee population, in the spring of 2007. It was reported beekeepers were visiting their hives to discover that their bees had disappeared. The queen and a few newly hatched bees were all that remained. The presence of predators feeding on the bees did not leave any evidence of having been there. There was no evidence of dead bees from bee diseases either. Based on the lack of evidence, it seemed unlikely that the bees had gotten sick and died. However, many beekeepers reported that moths, animals, and other bees steered clear of the newly emptied nests. This is a normal reaction when bees die from disease or chemical contamination.

The news reports were alarming. They described beekeepers losing more than half of their bees and explained the importance of honeybees in the pollination of food crops. Some of the articles implied with the disappearance of the bees widespread starvation would follow. The disappearing of bees or otherwise called “Colony Collapse Disorder: is a real phenomenon. It has the potential to impact food and honey production, but it is more complex than it has been reported. The colony collapse disorder has had an effect primarily on the domestic, commercial honeybees. These bees are raised exclusively for producing honey and pollinating crops. It also seems to effect bees from hives that are moved from place to place to pollinate crops. Of the overall bee population, the commercial honeybees make up only a small portion. Africanized honeybees, along with other types of bees, do not seem to be affected.

Also, this is not the first time the honeybee population has suddenly and unexpectedly declined. In the last 100 years beekeepers have reported sharp decreases in their hive populations several time. In 1915, beekeepers in several states reported substantial bee losses. The condition became known as the “Disappearing Disease”. It was not named for the bees disappearing, but because the condition was limited and did not happen again.

Researchers never determined the cause for Disappearing Disease or the declines in bee population, and the causes are still unclear today for the colony collapse disorder. Several possibilities have been ruled out because they are not present in all of the affected colonies. The bees in the affected colonies were all feed using different methods, mites and other pests were controlled in a different way. The bees did not even come from the same supplier. The work group investigating the phenomenon does not suspect genetically altered crops to be the problem.

There are some theories on the causes of colony collapse disorder.

The process of transporting bees over long distances in order to pollinate crops may cause stress, which has depressed the bees’ immune system, exposed them to additional diseases or affected their navigational abilities.

Mites generally feeding on the bees may be exposing the bees to an unknown virus. Mites have caused colony collapse in the past, but they have also left evidence, which is not the case in colony collapse disorders.

One common theory regarding cell phones as the culprit, but it has been discounted. This theory made the news in April, 2007, “The Independent” who featured the article about a study being done on the cell phones and linking them to the bee disappearance, they failed to dig deep enough for their story. The study was not related to cell phones, but was on the electromagnetic energy coming from the base units of cordless phones. A cordless phone uses a different wavelength than the cell phone.

It is unknown exactly where the honeybee species is headed or exactly how the drop in the population of the bee will affect the world’s food supply. The drop in population in all likelihood not lead to the sudden extinction of the human race, it is going to have an l effect on what we eat if it continues.

Visit the Bee Facts website to learn about mason bees and bees disappearing.

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