Search Results for: Great wasp - hornet

Red mite

…For the female needs to suck blood from a bird between each laying. For non-laying red mites, the need for blood meals is not nearly as great and they can easily survive for 4 to 5 months without blood. The process from egg to adult red mite is over quite quickly. And during the warm summer months, development can take place in as little as 8 to 10 days. The larva does not need blood meals for the first time, but in the following 2 nymph stages it…

Davies’s Colletes

…y to take countermeasures. Outside the period when the bees are flying (mid-June to mid-August) this can be done by simply scraping out the loose mortar together with the bee cells and larvae. If this is carefully replaced with a strong mortar containing cement it will not matter if some of the cells are still in place as any bees that emerge later will not be able to reach the surface. A Davies’s colletes returns home to its nest with pollen On t…

Sheep ked

…egion. The female sheep ked gives birth to one larva at a time and about 10-15 larvae in total. The larvae are glued to the sheep’s wool with a sticky secretion that the female releases. They are most often placed 1.5-2.5 centimeters from the tip of the wool hairs. And here, too, it is the sternum of the sheep, in the crotch and tail region, as well as the lower part of the flanks, that is used for the purpose. As soon as the eggs are placed, they…

Rape blossom beetle

…entimeters. While overwintering, they can withstand temperatures as low as -12 ° C. When spring announces its arrival, they begin to emerge from their hiding places. As the temperature approaches 12 ° C, they gradually begin to make flights over shorter distances, while – when the temperature has passed 15 ° C – they begin to fly longer distances. Measurements of the flights of the rape blossom beetle have shown that it can fly as far as 10 kilome…

Yellow shadow ant

…e, it can be difficult to launch a fight before the ants have already done great damage to the material of the home. However, it may be worth keeping an eye out for traces of the yellow shadow ant. And here, a dark staining of delimited floor sections can be a good gossip handle for whether there should be an ant colony under the floorboards. At the trail of flying ants in the house, one should also be on guard. Control of the yellow shadow ant is…

Hercules ant

…000 individuals. Sometimes several nests are built at the same time, the so-called “satellite nests”, which all start from the same core, namely the main nest, where the queen, the larvae and the eggs are located. The Hercules ants dig their nests in the softer spring wood. What is left is the harvest wood as a cross-section of regular rings in the tree. If you make a longitudinal cut of the wood, the excesses of the ants will be slats in the wood…

Follicle mites in humans

…as people get older, they become increasingly common, and all people of 60-70 years are infested with detectable levels of follicle mites. They are most commonly found on the nose, where an average of 50% of the follicles host a mite. Eyelash follicles are not as commonly occupied by the follicle mites – only a 10% of the follicles are infected. The other facial skin as well as the body skin can also be infected by the follicle mites, however, no…

House longhorn beetle

…aves a trail of its own excrement behind. These excrements are small roller-shaped particles which, together with the gnawed wood chips, are transformed into the so-called drilling dust. The drilling dust is pressed tightly together in the passages, so that it eventually forms a solid mass. Often, the presence of the drilling dust alone will be an indicator that a house longhorn beetle is at stake in the woodwork. But also, the house longhorn beet…

Spiders

…ing the populations of certain insects down to a reasonable level. An American spider expert has calculated that in many parts of the world man would have great difficulty in surviving if there were no spiders to keep the insects in check….

Mice and rats

Mice and rats sometimes cause a great deal of damage to paper and plastic. They can easily gnaw through packaging made of these materials and often use the fragments as nest material. The activities of these rodents can be recognised by the tooth marks (p. 84), which can always be identified, even in the thinnest sheet of newspaper. They might be confused with holes torn by a cat or a marten, but here one would normally see distinct claw marks. R…

Detection

…. The combs that are being used as “fine-tooth combs” today are not as fine-toothed as they should be. A fine-tooth comb can be used to detect lice and to eradicate lice. A real fine-tooth comb can catch lice, crush nits and pull out hair with nits. It is made of hard metal or plastic. The distance between the teeth is small and corresponds to the thickness of the scalp hair. A very fine-tooth comb includes a cleaning scraper. Combing the hair is…

Honeybees

…s firmly planted on her throne in her nest. A community of bees can form so-called “offshoots”, where the worker bees build some extra-large cells, in which new queens are raised. But the bees are only interested in having one queen. This means that the old queen is deposed from her throne and must find new pastures. Often, however, part of the colony’s bees will accompany her, and together they form a new nest and a new community elsewhere. The q…

Flour moth in the household

…e flour moth has an elongated shape with narrow wings. Its body is about 10-12mm long, and a wingspan of 20-22 mm. Compared to other species of moths, flour moth may look a little thin when resting. Their wings are narrow, and they lay them flat over their backs when they are not flying. The flour moth can be recognized by its colors on the wings. The forewings have a lead gray color with a pattern. The pattern is zigzag with transverse lines and…

Bark beetle

…r traces that make the bark beetle an annoying pest in the forest. The many-bark beetle can often ruin not only the value of the wood, but also its uses. Therefore, the infested wood cannot be used in places where water infiltration is a risk factor. The bark beetles are preferably a nuisance outdoors and fortunately cannot do great damage indoors. They can neither damage the woodwork in the house nor in any other way constitute a damage in our ho…

Fox

…animal. Some of them even gets close to humans without fright, which is a great pleasure for children and childish souls. However, a fox can cause problems for humans if you are not careful, since the fox easily get close to humans, they can quickly turn into a pest, especially when they go in bins for easy food. Appearance Most people can easily recognize a fox from for instance a dog or a cat. The fox belongs to the dog-family and may at first…

Birds

…on cliffs or in hollow trees, and each species chooses a position on the building which corresponds with its original nesting habits. In most cases birds are regarded as welcome guests, and many give great pleasure. It should, however, be remembered that birds’ nests may be the source of certain parasites and of some pests of textiles (see pp. 36, 41, 43, 45, 49 and 94)….

Flour moth in the industry

Beech marten

…art from this habit of wandering around at night martens normally cause no great trouble. Sometimes, however, their drop- pings and the remains of their prey are a nuisance, and they also damage insulating • materials when making their lair (see also under ‘thatch’, p. 161). If martens do become a nuisance they can be driven away by laying down strong- smelling substances in the loft, such as naphthalene or ammonia. They are also sensitive to nois…

Arthropod senses and behaviour

…which are situated on many parts of the body but particularly on the mouth- parts and antennae. The perception of heat and cold is not localized in special sense organs, but arthropods are probably made aware of the temperature in the first place by its effect on their internal body processes. The arthropods are therefore very well provided with senses, which are often extremely sensitive. Bluebottles, for example, can smell meat at a distance of…

Brown rat

…ntury, but when it did it spread very rapidly, for this large rodent has a great ability to adapt and it soon drove out the black rat. The brown rat thrives in all sorts of places, but it is primarily associated with buildings, warehouses and farm buildings, where it prefers the damp parts. In towns it often frequents drainpipes, feeding on the kitchen waste that passes by, and builds its nest of paper, wadding or similar materials wherever it can…

Bed bugs stick together

…hs, empty exoskeletons, eggs and empty egg shells and then the black, blood-containing excrement (fig 20). Their unity is partly because of their looking for body contact with each other, but especially because of a scent – again a pheromone – they release which is appealing to similar species. It is the same pheromone that leads them back to the hideout when they have been out on the hunt for blood. The smell is not pleasant in our nostrils. Joha…

Flour beetle

…our beetles, as the temperature cannot be controlled as in a warehouse. Here the focus should be pest control. Flour beetles are controlled by discarding the infested goods. One can heat or cold treat infected good, if the damage is not to great. You can heat the goods for 60 minutes at 55 degrees or more. Alternatively, you can freeze the goods down to -18 degrees for 24 hours. Both treatments will kill beetles, larvae, and eggs. In the case of a…

Pesticides and methods

…ides were introduced in the early 1940s – DDT was the first – optimism was great .A wide range of pests could now be effectively controlled, and it was relatively easy to control bed bugs. As is well known, the use of these repellents has been found a bit problematic. A resistance in insect populations quickly arose. For a long time, it was sort of possible to keep up; new types of repellents were constantly developed as resistance arose against t…

The common house fly

…warm climates, but is now widely spread everywhere. An adult house fly is 8-9 mm long, with a wingspan of 13 – 14 mm. Females seek fresh manure or rotting or fermenting plant material and lay eggs there. The eggs are laid in clumps with approximately 100 eggs and a female lays 10 clumps of eggs in a lifetime. The eggs hatch in 6-8 hours, and the pale limbless maggots seek out places where the temperature is 30 ° C. In pig or calf manure the larvae…

Woodboring beetle

…an adult beetle. However, the beetle will remain inside the tree until May-June, and then it will emerge from the tree, through a characteristic fly hole of a diameter of 2-3 mm. The dust from the fly hole will be dark yellow, as the wood the beetle feed on is rotten. The natural habitat for the beetle is rotten coniferous trunks or branches. But they can also be found in fence posts. The adult woodboring beetle overwinter inside the wood. Damage…

Insect development

…ds its skin. In young larvae, the juvenile hormone is present in large quantities, but hormone production decreases as the larvae grow older and when the hormone is below a certain value, the larvae begin to go into the pupal stage. Knowledge of these processes is of great practical value. Synthetic-made insect hormones may in some cases be used in pest control without being dangerous to humans. Sprayed on insect habitats or in tiny amounts mixed…

Banana flies

…go their development from larva to adult banana fly. A process that lasts 4-5 days, after which they pupate. Inside the pupa – which roughly resembles a small brown seed – the process continues and the transformation into an adult fly is completed. This takes another 3-4 days. The banana flies do not consider idleness as soon as they are fully grown. Already when they are 24 hours old, they start laying eggs themselves. If a banana fly has all the…

Booklice

…Liposcelis divinatorius, have no wings and cannot fly, while others, the so-called winged booklice, e.g. Atropus pulsatorius, have small but non-functional wings. Booklice run about actively when disturbed, with characteristic jerky movements, and they can also make small, rather clumsy, jumps. As the name implies, booklice are found between sheets of paper in libraries and archives, and also behind loose wallpaper and in herbaria. They do not eat…

Butterfly mosquitoes

…you should clean your bathroom drain on a regular basis. If they appear in great numbers, they can be controlled by removing the sludge, in which the larvae are living. It is necessary to remove the sludge manually. Either by rinsing or by using a brush. Then rinse with drain-cleaner or boiling water, which soda may be added to. Be aware that sludge can accumulate in the overflow of the sink. If it is not possible to clean toughly, the adult butte…

The brown rat

…ndering rats” ravaging the continent in the early 1700s. The brown rat has great adaptability and it quickly drove away the black rat, which until then was the most common species in houses. An adult brown rat is about 45 cm long. Of these, 20 cm is tail. The weight is usually 200 – 250 g. The colour varies somewhat, but the upper surface is usually dark brown or noble. The underside varies from whitish to grey. The brown rats thrive on the most d…