Bed Bugs Are Back In Lancashire
Bed Bugs Are Back In Lancashire
Bed Bugs Are Back in Lancashire – One of the most feared and misunderstood pests known to man is the bed bug (Cimex lectularius). How many of us dropped off to sleep at night as young ones with the words of our parents in our ears ‘sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite’?
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Bed bugs probably started to feed on man at about the time we moved into caves, the ‘bat bugs’ Cimex pilosellus and Cimex pipistrella primarily feed on bats and it is probable that bat feeding species of bug evolved to dine on human blood when our ancesters started living in bat infested caves.
Until the invention of DDT in the early 20th century bed bugs were common non-paying guests in most low quality dwellings.
The later part of the 20th century saw pest control companies dealing with very few bed bug problems indeed, their presence being largely confined to inexpenisve vacation camps and student accomodation etc.
Many people mistake dust mites, which are not visible to the naked eye, with bed bugs which very definitely are.
Adult bedbugs are reddish-brown, about a quarter of an inch in size and decidely swollen after a feed of our blood.
They have an incomplete metamorphosis which means that the nymphs are just smaller copies of the adult, they don’t have a pupal stage like fleas or flies.
Bed bugs typically feed on human blood every 7 – 10 days, coming out in the hours before dawn and locating their prey by sensing the exhaled CO2 from our breath and when nearing in on their target, body heat.
In the absence of a convenient human to feed on they can stay dormant for periods of up to 18 months.
Signs of a bed bug infestation are spots of blood on bedding and on the underside of mattresses and many people can react badly to their bites.
The early 21st century has seen bed bug numbers increase across the world, the easy availability of international travel and economic migration have both been blamed for the come back.
What is certain is that thet are now making a real return not only in low quality housing but high class hotels, schools and often hospitals.
One London borough reports a doubling of bed bug call-outs each year from 1995 – 2001.
Just one night away in an infested hotel is all it takes, they catch a ride in your suitcases or bags. Pest control firms are also now reporting cases of transport related bed bug infestations on tubes, trains and buses so a single journey to work on an infested bus or train can be sufficient to spread the infestation to your own home.
They are an expensive pest to eradictate as contrary to popular mythology they do not just live in beds. They hide any nook and cranny conveniently close to a sleeping human, beds, electrical sockets, televisions, bed-side telephones etc and treatment is both difficult and time consuming. They have even been found living beneath the toe-nails of infirm persons and in the folds of flesh on heavily over-weight people.
They are not a pest that can be tackled by an amateur and a professional will almost certainly be |required.
Ken Chadwick B.A. (Hons) is a Pest Controller and author on pest control issues. For further information please visit http://www.waspgo.co.uk
That concludes this article entitled – Bed Bugs Are Back In Lancashire
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How To Destroy Wasp Nests
How To Destroy Wasp Nests (Ken Chadwick)
How To Destroy Wasp Nests – Although 11 species of true wasp are found in Europe, only two, the Common Wasp (Vespula vulgaris) and the German Wasp (Vespula germanica) are important as pest species in the U.K. although in recent years the European Wasp (Dolichovespula media) has made inroads into Britain after arriving on the South Coast in the early 1980s.
All three species over-winter as queens. The Common Wasp usually hibernates in buildings and the German Wasp typically over-wintering under the bark of trees.
In spring the queens leave their hibernating quarters to seek nesting sites which could be in a hole in the ground, a hollow tree or artificial structures such as eaves, lofts and attics, garden sheds etc.
The queen starts to build her nest with a papery material that she makes by chewing small pieces of wood mixed with saliva; this is known as ‘wasp paper’.
She will raise the first few workers by her own efforts and those workers will then commence the enlargement of the nest and caring for the immature wasps to follow.
Nest construction starts in earnest in June and will reach its maximum in size in September when 5 – 30,000 workers may be present. These workers will forage for food up to 400 metres from the nest.
The size of wasp colonies will vary from year to year, the severity of the previous winter is probably the key factor in determining wasp numbers.
In summer as nest building continues apace the wasp is a gardener’s friend as it enjoys a high protein diet of aphids, grubs and larvae but as summer turns to autumn the wasp turns to feeding on fermenting fruits, in short – alcohol!
It is now as the days shorten that the wasp becomes troublesome and pest controllers across the country are deluged with call-outs.
In the late autumn the nest starts to produce the new queens to continue the cycle into the following year and when the time is ripe the young queens leave the nest and mate before hibernating. The rest of the colony dies and the nest is never used again.
Individuals react differently to being stung by wasps; some are hardly affected, others suffer considerable pain and swelling and a few become seriously allergic which in a very cases each year results in sudden death due to anaphylactic shock.
It is always advisable to let a professional deal with a wasps’ nest. An insecticide will be used to cover the entrance to the nest. Returning wasps will carry the insecticide into the heart of the nest and within a few hours all wasps will be dead.
It is inadvisable to allow a wasps’ nest to remain untreated as the resultant queens produced by the nest will invariably nest nearby in the following spring resulting in many more nests the following year. For this reason several nests are often clustered together in a locality.
Ken Chadwick B.A. (Hons) is a Pest Controller and author on pest control issues. For further information please visit http://www.waspgo.co.uk
That concludes this article entitled – How To Kill Wasp Nests
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