Jan252009

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’?

Don't Let The Bed Bug 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.

Bed Bugs In LancashireAdult 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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Feb052009

The Joint Is Jumpin’ – The Story Of The Flea

The Joint Is Jumpin’ – The Story Of The Flea (Ken Chadwick)

The Joint Is Jumpin’ – The Story Of The Flea -Contrary to popular opinion cat & dog fleas do not live on their chosen animal, they merely jump onto their host at feeding time, and dinner for a flea of course is blood.

In nature the fleas live and breed in the nest of animal they feed on, in reality of course in a modern house the ‘nest’ becomes the carpets, rugs and soft furnishings.

This photo was taken by Andy Brookes BS (Biolo...
Image via Wikipedia

Flea (Ctenocephalides felis & canis) infestations are becoming much more prevalent in recent years, centrally heated homes provide an ideal environment for the life cycle of the insect, which can be completed in as little as 16 days.

The increased presence of urban foxes in many towns and cities may be responsible for the increased number of flea infestations as foxes always carry a generous population to share with the neighbourhood cats and dogs.

The well fed flea lays its eggs in the nesting material, carpets in a modern dwelling, which hatch out into larvae which crawl away from light and hence are to be found deep in the pile. In the egg and larval stage they are also pretty resistant to insecticide which is why it is rarely possible to cure a flea infestation with one treatment.

The larvae eat the blood rich droppings of the adult flea before pupating to emerge as a young, hungry flea

Human beings do not taste especially nice to fleas and our blood is not of sufficient quality for them to breed, but in the absence of a cat or a dog we will do!

In the absence of a host the immature flea can go into a dormant state without feeding for up to a year or more and then revive within seconds on feeling the vibration from the footfall of a potential meal. For this reason properties which have been empty for a while often provide a little surprise for the new owners.

Often the family holiday is the time when people notice they have a flea problem, having put the family pet in kennels for a couple of weeks the resident flea population is starving and eager to greet them on their return.

v2.329 and 23/366: January 23rd (Flea Bitten)
Image by Phoney Nickle via Flickr

There is however a dangerous side to fleas, we all know they were responsible for transmission of plague and thankfully we don’t have that to contend with anymore but they can set off serious skin irritations in susceptible people including dermatitis.

They also have a more sinister side. The flea is an intermediate host for tapeworm.

When the flea dines on an animal infected with tapeworm it can ingest the worm eggs which pass into its guts. These infected fleas can then be ingested by a cat or dog during self-grooming and the worms infect the new host.

Worse still it is easy for a human baby or toddler to accidentally ingest these fleas when crawling on flea infested carpets.

In order to clear a flea infestation it will be necessary to treat both the animal and the carpets and soft furnishings of the property and outdoor areas where the animal may frequently visit. A professional pest controller will often use both an insecticide and a growth retardant hormone to interfere with the flea life-cycle. The cat or dog will need to be treated at the same time by a veterinary surgeon.

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Feb112009

The Return Of The Rat – Our Most Reviled Pest Thrives

The Return Of The Rat – Our Most Reviled Pest Thrives

The Return Of The Rat – Our Most Reviled Pest Thrives – The rat population of Britain is currently at an all time high, fortnightly waste collections, lack of sewer baiting and the late night takeaway are all cited as culprits in this rodent explosion, but what do we really know about the humble creatures that thrive in our sewers and induce almost universal fear and loathing in all who encounter them.

Rats are not native to Europe or North America but originate in Asia and almost certainly arrived in Europe as stowaways on trading ships, indeed the common name for Rattus rattus is the ship or black rat.

Rattus norvegicus, the Brown Rat.

Brown Rat

In Asian folklore the rat is a prominent character, in Hindu mythology the elephant-headed god Ganesh is accompanied by a rat wherever he travels. An offering to Ganesh and his companion Vahana the rat is therefore an important part of Hindu worship.

To the Romans the sighting of a white rat was considered to be lucky but if you found that rats had chewed your belongings then you should postpone any business affairs that you were planning that day or they would surely fail.

Reviled in the west, the rat is revered in Chinese mythology, being part of the Chinese zodiac and respected for its quick wit and resourcefulness. The rat is considered good luck in China & Japan where it is credited with bringing the gift of rice to the world.

To the Polynesians rats were an easily bred and transportable source of food

In 1347 the Mongols laying siege to the Crimean city of Caffa began to succumb to a mysterious illness that killed swiftly and mercilessly. In order to weaken the city the Mongols catapulted the bodies of their own dead over the city walls and within days the inhabitants of Caffa also fell prey to the disease.

However, a group of Italian merchants were allowed to leave the city and return to Italy, and probably unknowingly took with them the Black Death, Yersinia pestis.

Black or Ship Rat

Black or Ship Rat

The ensuing plague raged throughout the continent reaching Britain in 1348 with up to 90% mortality in some areas and it reappeared in Europe in every generation for over four hundred years.

We now know of course that the rat was a carrier, or to be more precise the fleas that the rats carried on their bodies were the agents of plague transmission.

Indeed whilst being in no way established in fact, it is possible that the children’s story of the Pied Piper of Hamlyn is an allegory of the plague, it certainly indicates that the rat population was booming at the time.

Every cloud however has a silver lining and the survivors of the 14th century plagues found that they could now demand higher wages and better conditions as the shortage of workers in the wake of plague deaths created a seller’s market for labour. The rise of the Yeoman Farmer and the British class system could be argued to be attributed to the humble rat.

Into modern times and the Black Rat is now almost extinct in the British Isles, having been replaced from the 18th century onwards by the Brown or Norway Rat (Rattus norvegicus) and it is this creature that now thrives in our sewers, on our streets and in our homes and it is when we encounter it there that it creates most revulsion.

A typical rat weighs around 200 – 300 grams or half to three quarters of a pound, and has a tail around the same length as its body, often making it appear bigger than it really is.

One of the primary functions of a rat’s tail is thermo-regulation; it uses its tail to dissipate body heat. When a rat’s temperature falls it restricts blood flow into its tail.

Rats are rodents, the word comes from the Latin ‘Rodere’ meaning ‘to gnaw or eat away’, aptly named as their teeth never stop growing and they gnaw on hard objects to keep them sharp, unfortunately this can often include electrical wiring and water pipes. A rat’s teeth can penetrate mild steel.

Often a rat will move into a loft or roof void looking for somewhere safe to give birth, being excellent climbers the interior of the cavity wall of the building is a common route, especially if there is an underground breach in the drainage system.

They are sexually mature at around 13 weeks and have a gestation period of about 20 –22 days giving birth typically to 7 – 10 young per litter.

They are naturally shy and nocturnal creatures said to suffer from ‘neophobia’ a fear of anything new in their environment.

Often the first signs that a house is infested will be the patter of tiny feet on the upstairs plasterboard ceilings, although with the modern trend for roof insulation an infestation can often go undetected for quite some time. In homes with floorboards gnawing will often be heard in the sub-floor area.

Their need to eat will often betray their presence, food stored in cupboards will be taken, cereal packets chewed, chocolate and crisps are favourites, although a rat often has a diet that we would find somewhat strange.

The rat has no ability to taste ‘bitter’ foods so it can quite happily munch away on a bar of soap for the fat content. Pest controllers use this as a safety feature and all rat poison is coated in a bitter substance that the rats can’t taste but which would make it totally unpalatable to a dog or a child.

Although the rat is no longer a plague carrier it does come with a number of unwelcome traits. It is a carrier of a number of diseases including Murine Typhus, Salmonella and Weil’s Disease, spread from rats’ urine, which unfortunately usually claims at least one life in Britain each year.

If you have a rat infestation then you have a legal duty to remedy it and in extreme circumstances forced entry to your property can be made against your will.

As a final sting in the tail, many household insurance policies specifically exclude damage by vermin so if a rat chews your wiring and the house burns down you may find yourself without insurance cover.

Hated, despised and unloved the humble rat continues to share and shape our environment in ways that we do not see or appreciate and despite our best effort the rat and man will always co-exist.

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Mar042009

Pest Control In Manchester & Other Large Cities

Pest Control In Manchester & Other Large Cities by Ken Chadwick

Big city pest control brings its own set of special circumstances which sometimes require a different approach to smaller and quieter towns.

Firstly the very logistics of working in a busy big city can be problematic, even the basics of parking your van near the customers’ premises can be difficult especially when equipment needs to be carried. This can leaPest Control Manchesterd to increased charges which have to be passed onto the customer and sometimes these can be substantial.

Premises are often open seven days a week and even twenty-four hours a day thus leaving little opportunity for the pest controller to go about his work.

This may not cause too much difficulty in routine preventative inspection visits but can cause extreme problems when infestation is detected in that often pesticides require premises to be vacated for a period of time.

Big towns & cities usually have a large number of takeaways providing food to eat on the go and often will be littered overnight with uneaten food scraps providing food for rats, pigeons and seagulls which have now moved inland.

Often daily waste collections mean that bagged food waste is put outside overnight thus encouraging rodents.

Pigeons & Seagulls are obviously a nuisance with their noise and fouling but often will take food stuffs up onto roofs and ledges causing a build up of rotten materials which produce flies and maggots.

Pigeons will often roost and nest in roof spaces for many years leading to a large build up of pigeon guano and often their droppings can make the walkways below slippery and dangerous.

Most big cities have a varied ethnic mix with a variety of shops and restaurants supplying foods from all over the world. Often these foods are imported in bulk from countries where pests such as cockroaches are endemic and these pests are then brought into the U.K. hidden away in the goods and packaging.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of big city pest control is the resurgence of the bed bug which in recent years has seen numbers rise exponentially.

A high transient population of visitors often staying in inexpensive, high turnover accommodation means that the bugs can spread quickly throughout a city and even expensive upmarket establishments are not exempt.

The very nature of a bed bug infestation means that it is difficult and expensive to cure and news of infestation is often of interest to local press who will often carry a story about a guest being bitten, thus ruining the reputation of the establishment.

Bed bug infestations require that the infested bedroom and those adjacent be treated thus losing revenue for the establishment.

Mar282009

How To Get Rid Of Ants In Your Home 3 Year Guarantee

How To Get Rid Of Ants In Your House Permanently – Spring Special Offer

Get Rid Of Ants In Your House Permanently – spring is here and with it comes the annual scourge of ants which for many people can be nothing short of a nightmare.ant killer

In North West England the summers of 2007 & 2008 were very poor and the ants did not thrive, a respite for those who suffer ants in the house on an annual basis but already 2009 looks like it will be the summer of the ant as calls are being received already.

Those that suffer know that flying ants in the house can be a nightmare, almost impossible to cure as the nests are hidden in cavity walls and beneath floors, and the only way to destroy the nest is to kill the queen. This is all but impossible using powders and potions from hardware stores.

There are a variety of new techniques available to pest controllers now which are highly effective in dealing with ant infestations.

These range from using micro-encapsulated insecticides which stick to the worker ants’ bodies and are taken back into the nest and a special technique which effectively puts an impenetrable barrier around the house which the ants cannot cross.

This involved drilling tiny holes into the cavity walls from the outside of the property and blowing in an insecticidal powder under pressure which forms a barrier that the ants cannot cross.

This will effectively prevent the ants inside from foraging outside and dooms the colony.

We are able to give a three year guarantee which is then extendable indefinitely in periods of three years by topping up the powder.

There is no smell or odour and it is perfectly safe for children and pets and can be done whilst the property is occupied.

For a short period we are offering a 30% discount on our normal prices so for a limited period the costs would be as follows

Semi-detached house £175.00

*Detached house £225

*Terraced House £125

Prices apply throughout South Lancashire, Greater Manchester and North Cheshire, further afield work will require a supplement.

All with three year guarantee including unlimited *free call outs

On terraced & semi-detached we can only guarantee the treated walls, so if they are coming in through the untreated party wall there is little we can do unless your neighbours agree to treatment.

To have a chat with us or arrange a free site survey to establish if your premises are suitable call us now on Free phone 0800 019 8382 or 01257 230637

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May052009

How To Get Rid Of A Wasps’ Nest

How To Get Rid Of A Wasps’ Nest by Ken Chadwick

how to get rid of a wasps nest

Stockport Wasps' Nest 2007

How To Get Rid Of A Wasps’ Nest – The 2009 wasp season is almost with us once more, what would summer be without our old friends the wasps to annoy us as we enjoy our summer evening barbeques?

The biology of the wasp means they are rarely seen much sooner than July as until then only the wasp queen is in the nest.

In late March or early April the over-wintered queens leave their hibernating sites to seek nesting places which could be in a hole in the ground, a bush or artificial structures such as chimneys eaves, lofts and attics, garden sheds etc.

The queen starts to construct 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 continue the enlargement of the nest and caring for the immature Wasps to follow.

Nest construction gets into full swing in June and will reach its maximum in size in September, when 5 – 30,000 workers may be in the nest. These workers will forage for food up to 400 metres from the nest. The size of wasps’ nests will vary from year to year, the severity of the previous winter is probably the key factor.

In the Autumn the young queens mate and leave the nest to hibernate, the rest of the nest dies out and the nest is never reused.

Many People react differently to being stung by wasps; some are hardly affected, while others suffer considerable pain and swelling and a few become seriously allergic to being stung, which in rare cases results in sudden death due to anaphylactic shock.
Control
It is advisable to let a professional Pest Control Officer deal with a Wasps’ nest for the reasons mentioned above. An insecticide will be injected into the entrance to the nest. Returning wasps will carry the insecticide into the centre of the nest and within a short time all wasps should be dead.

It is not a good idea to allow a wasps’ nest to remain untreated as the new 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 found close together in a neighbourhood a locality.

That concludes this article entitled – How To Get Rid Of A Wasps’ Nest

Sep182011

Life of a Carniolan Queen Bee

Do not imagine a Carniolan queen bee as a beautiful, charming and diligent lady. This queen we are going to talk about has really the opposite of the above traits. A queen bee has nothing to do with beauty and charm. She is a big lady who dares to kill and spends her entire life to do nothing else than mating and laying eggs while well served and fed by the worker bees.

The metamorphosis of queen bees

Before a female bee becomes a queen she will go through a metamorphosis from an egg to a stage of a mature queen which will occur in about 23 days. The phases include: egg – larva – capping of the queen cell – pupa – emerging pupa, virgin queen bee – nuptial flight – a mature queen bee ready to lay eggs.

In fact, those are the worker bees that make queens. After a queen bee has laid eggs in queen cups, the worker bees start to select which among all those larvae should be developed to be queens. They will then provide more quality food, which is the royal jelly, to those selected larvae. Although all larvae are fed with royal jelly at the beginning for several days, but only queen larvae will be fed continuously and exclusively. The rest of the larvae will become worker bees.

Queen bees are raised in very special constructed cells. Initially the eggs were placed in queen cups, as the larva emerge the worker bees then build it further to become a queen cell to exclusively feed the larva. The worker bees then will cap the queen cell with beeswax. In these cells larvae will develop into pupae. In about 7 – 10 days the pupa becomes a virgin queen bee and tries to emerge from the queen cell.

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Upon maturity the virgin queen bee in her peanut-like cell will try to go out by chewing a circular opening on the cap cell made by the worker bees. After most of the cap has been cut, the cap will eventually swing open resembling a hinged closure. With the presence of the virgin queen, the old mother queen will give way to the young virgin and voluntarily leave the hive with the primary swarm.

A virgin queen is a bit larger than most of the worker bees, but smaller than the mated laying queen. In fact, a virgin queen is not easily distinguished when put together with the worker bees in a frame. She moves actively and can run across the honeycomb, scrambles over the workers and may even fly if she feels annoyed by the workers. You can frequently find a virgin queen hanging on the hive wall or corner.

The deadly queen competition

As soon as a virgin queen bee emerges from her cell, she will look for other emerging queen bees with only one straight purpose, to kill them! As there are many virgin bees in a colony, with all of them having the same purpose, it is most likely that a war of virgin bees is about to happen.

Virgin bees do not just killed their direct rival virgin bees, but also the un-emerged virgin bee still occupying its cell. You can often see an opened side of a queen cell with a dead pupa inside, indicating an assassination by another virgin queen.

When the swarm mode of a colony continues and the primary swarm has left the hive, the worker bees can temporarily hold the virgins fighting each other. Some virgins may leave and follow an after-swarm, while other virgins will stay and look for an opportunity to continue the deadly competition

At the end only one virgin remains who will become the new queen bee. If a primary swarm has both a new young queen and an old queen in the same time, the new queen will let the old queen to live and continue to lie down. After a few weeks the old queen will eventually die naturally and time has come for the young virgin to take over.

The nuptial flight

This is an important phase of the queen bee where she mates with bee males and then land to start the new generation of a colony in a hive. The mating is typically carried out during a flight of the queen and male bees, hence called nuptial flight.

The mating should happen in a clear weather with the absence of rain which could be a trouble for flying insects. The queen starts to release pheromones to attract the males. However, after releasing the pheromone it often happens that the queen tries to escape the males letting only the fastest and fittest male bees to mate her. The mating will occur during the flight.

It is common that a queen will mate with a number of males and stores the sperm in a special organ in her abdomen which can last for her whole life. This sperm storage is good for about 20 years which can produce ten of millions fertilized eggs. The queen is now ready to lay eggs continuously and she totally becomes an egg laying machine to breed the younger bee generation. Oh, what a life of a queen bee.

Uno Birawan is a writer and wrote a lot about beekeeping. You can find the information on Carniolan Bees here or by visiting his site www.thehoneybeekeeper.com
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Sep142011

How Do Bees Build Honey?

Honey bees are among nature’s most exceptional creatures. These social insects live in bee colonies numbering forty,000-fifty,000 bees; the social structure of a bee colony is precisely defined, with each bee acting solely in the interest of the colony. Bees are vital within the pollination of plants; as a result of they pollinate food crops, bees are instrumental in the assembly of as abundant as 30 % of the food provide within the United States.

And bees produce honey, that is consumed by humans and other animals around the world. Bees are raised commercially for numerous reasons, however primarily for the honey that they produce. Honey is not a vital food for humans, but as a sweetener it’s healthier than sugar, and as a food additive it adds flavor to everything from pumpkin soup to barbecue sauce. We even use honey for medicinal purposes.

How do bees manufacture this food? Bees themselves eat honey, thus they must have a continuing stored-up offer, significantly within the winter when flora is dormant. Bees build honey from nectar, which worker bees collect from varied plants as they create their daily rounds. Typically, it is older employee bees that do that foraging; they can fly from flower to flower, using their proboscis as a type of straw to drink up liquid nectar and store it in a sac in their bodies, the “honey stomach.”

Nectar is concerning 80 % water, with most of the remainder sucrose (a disaccharide, or advanced sugar). In an exceedingly process called inversion, the employee bees break down these advanced sugars into glucose and fructose — monosaccharides, or straightforward sugars. This method occurs whereas the nectar is still inside the honey stomach, and while the bee continues to be flying from flower to flower, drinking more nectar. The method is executed by an enzyme, invertase, that converts most of the sucrose into glucose and fructose. A second enzyme, glucose oxidase, breaks the glucose further down into gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide. Gluconic acid ensures a low pH, rendering honey an inhospitable atmosphere for bacteria, mildew, and fungi; the hydrogen peroxide provides short-term protection against microbes. These properties make the converted nectar — and the eventual honey — a safe food for bee larvae, and conjointly enhance honey’s medicinal uses for humans.

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Once the honey abdomen is full, the employee bee returns to the hive and regurgitates the nectar, already converted by enzymes. But, the substance remains concerning 80 p.c water, most of which must now be evaporated. The nectar is injected into honeycomb cells, and employee bees who reside within the hive beat their wings furiously to evaporate the water content. The nectar gradually thickens into honey, that is solely fourteen-eighteen percent water. Once the thickening is complete, the honeycomb cells are capped with beeswax, to be consumed later by bees or fed to bee larvae, or to be harvested by a beekeeper.

Individual bees are in a position to provide solely tiny amounts of honey during their lifetimes — a fraction of a teaspoon. However, a hive with 50,000 bees will turn out as abundant as 200 pounds of honey in a year.

Because bees themselves use honey as a primary source of food for themselves and their young, are not beekeepers then “stealing” food from bees when they harvest this product? In point of fact, bees are capable of making abundant a lot of honey than they need. If a honeycomb that’s overflowing with honey is removed and emptied by a beekeeper and then replaced in the hive, the bees can see that it’s empty, and will immediately move out, collect a lot of nectar, and build a lot of honey. Beekeepers usually install prefabricated wax honeycombs, sparing the bees the trouble to make their own honeycombs. The bees then have that much more time to form honey. Beekeepers do want to make sure not to overharvest, and to make sure that their bees have enough honey to urge through the winter months, when nectar collecting isn’t possible. However, if the hive is properly managed, a bee colony can give enough honey for its own functions as well as for a beekeeper’s profit.

Even in the wild, bees tend to overproduce honey; this can be what they’re programmed to do. Such chronic overproduction could seem somehow inefficient or wasteful, contrary to the otherwise strictly efficient laws of nature. However, united former UK beekeeper points out in an exceedingly blog, it may be just as pertinent to ask why some humans whose bank accounts are already full to bursting continue to work long hours at their jobs, making additional and a lot of cash that they’re going to never be able to spend. The question  could be value some reflection.
Robert Mccormack has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Bee-Pollen-Health, How Do Bees Make Honey?. You can also check out his latest website about: Bee-Pollen-Health How Do Beekeepers Collect Bee Pollen?
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Sep112011

The Facts About Killer Bees

The Africanised honey bee, or ‘Killer bee’ is widely feared by the public, a reaction that has been encouraged by sensationalist movies and exaggerated media reports. Although this bee is much more aggressive than a European honey bee, stings from Africanised bees kill only 1-2 people per year in the United States which is a similar figure to that of wasps and European honey bees.

Killer bees are a hybrid of African and European honey bee species and were accidentally introduced into the ecosystem from a laboratory in Brazil in 1956, where scientists were attempting to create a strain of bee with improved honey production.

The Africanised queens and consequently the colonies escaped, swarmed and began to quickly establish themselves throughout South and Central America. The first sign of Africanised bees in the United States was in October 1990, in Southern Texas. The bee then spread steadily across the southern part of the United States where the winters are mild and the summers are very warm. However scientists and entomologists believe that the Africanised bees are now adapting to colder climates and roaming further north at an average rate of 2 miles per day. If this projection is true, it could become a major problem to the European honey bee within the United States and possibly eventually even Europe.

How to identify a killer bee.

People are often surprised to learn that killer bees are in fact slightly smaller in size than European bees. They are however virtually indistinguishable from each other when viewed with the naked eye and precise identification can only be done microscopically.

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The Africanised bee will become agitated as a result of a perceived threat ten times quicker than a European bee. The latter will stay closer to their hive to defend it if they feel threatened and most of the colony will stay inside and start working to remove their honey stores, leaving just a few guard bees to see off the threat. However Africanised bees will leave their hive en masse’ to defend it, surrounding the perpetrator and inflicting as many stings as possible and are also likely to give chase for up to a quarter of a mile. It is this behaviour pattern that has led to them being called ‘Killer bees’. One of the main reasons why they behave in such an aggressive collective manner is that unlike the European honey bee their main focus is not on their honey stores, but on multiplying their numbers. This is because they are originally adapted to live in warm climates where winter hibernation is not necessary and therefore the need for large honey stores does not arise. For this reason they collect much more pollen (necessary for growth in young) and as a result are in fact better pollinators.

Nesting

European honey bees rarely build nests on the ground or in exposed locations, whereas Africanised bees will build a nest anywhere they can find a hole large enough to fit through and their nests are much smaller. If they cannot find a suitable concealed location they will nest in the ground or in tree branches. The Africanised bees will often invade a European bee colony replacing its queen with one of their own.

Swarming

European honey bees swarm once or twice a year, whereas the Africanised honey bees swarms ten times or more a year allowing them to colonize much larger areas. Furthermore, the Africanised bees will completely abandon or ‘abscond!’ from their nests whenever environmental factors become unfavourable, whereas European honey bees rarely ever abandon a nest completely.

The Future

Africanised bees are effectively a work in progress as they continue to breed with European bees. Scientists and beekeepers however are now using selective breeding programmes to try to control and manage the problem. In particular it is recognised that the African bee has a lot of positive traits, for example it is more disease and pest resistant than the European bee and is a more active forager. Therefore by selecting these traits in addition to trying to breed out its aggressive ones, the end result may be more favourable than was once feared.

Maggie Roberts is a professional writer and beekeeper, with a particular passion for sharing her knowledge of bees and their role in the natural world. If you would like more information, help to start beekeeping or just to learn more about bees, then see http://www.beekeepingbeesandhoney.com
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Sep082011

What’s The Difference Between Bee Pollen And Royal Jelly? How Can It Help You Increase Energy

Difference Between Bee Pollen and Royal Jelly

Whether you’re entirely new to bee pollen or a skilled herbal and holistic therapist, you will find something of use when reading about the differences between bee pollen and royal jelly in this article.

The biggest difference, which I will touch on towards the end of the article, is that bee pollen, and specificallyNew Zealandbee pollen is a better product both nutritionally and health wise than royal jelly.

Both bee pollen and royal jelly belong to a branch of alternative therapy known as Apitherapy.

Apitherapy is the treatment and prevention of bodily ailments through the use of honey bee products. This includes bee pollen, royal jelly, beeswax, propolis, honey and bee venom.

We are going to cover two of the most popular products in this article and consider what the difference between bee pollen and royal jelly is.

What Is Royal Jelly?

Royal jelly is a secretion made from the worker bees of a honey bee colony. It is produced solely for the nutrition and development of all bee larvae up to 3 days old and for the continual development of all chosen Queen Bee larvae.

It is the constant ‘soaking’ in royal jelly that the chosen larvae do, that allows them to become Queen Bees instead of worker bees.  Hence the name royal jelly!

Royal jelly offers a range of health benefits and is considered a highly potent anti-aging product.

It is that renowned as an anti-aging product, that is commonly used in many cosmetics and toiletries that offer anti-aging effects.

This bee product is also perfectly suited for the balancing of hormonal problems such as PMT, and for increasing both libido and fertility in men and women. Because of these traits royal jelly has been considered an aphrodisiac since the ancient civilizations.

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How Does Bee Pollen Differ To Royal Jelly?

Bee pollen differs in many respects to royal jelly.

The key difference between bee pollen and royal jelly in the honey bee hive is that it is fed only to the worker bee and drone larvae over 3 days old. Thus in some aspects it is the ‘commoners’ food.

When it comes to its health benefits you will find a substantial difference to royal jelly. Bee pollen is known for its breathtaking and utterly impressive benefits to human life.

It is adept at helping with the treatment and prevention of prostate related issues in men, and many scientific research papers have agreed with this.

Bee pollen is also an excellent general prophylactic, strengthening the immune system. It allows our bodies to remain strong and provide adequate defense against common colds and flus.

The best and the biggest difference between bee pollen and royal jelly are the levels of nutrition. Bee pollen is that dense in nutrition that it contains all of the vitamins and minerals for optimal body functioning.

Due to this major abundance of vitamins, and in particular B vitamins, bee pollen is known for its energy boosting qualities. This allows you to get more done in your day, it has allowed athletes to perform better, and academics to think clearer and see problems in a whole new light.

For Bee Pollen To Be Better Than Royal Jelly, You Need The Highest Quality!

The biggest downside of Apitherapy is that its products are highly sensitive to pollution and as such need to be harvested from perfect environments for its products to be as beneficial as they can be.

There is one such place, and furthermore, one such company that can offer the highest quality bee pollens available.

The place isNew Zealand, a country famed for its low level of pollution, expansive and wondrous landscapes, wide diversity of plant life and superlative levels of air quality. Together this makes for the perfect environment to harvest bee pollen from.

The company which offers you this incredible product fromNew Zealandis Xtend Life. Only at Xtend Life will you find a product of such quality to better your life and provide you all of the remarkable benefits bee pollen has to offer.

So remember, the major difference between bee pollen and royal jelly, is that bee pollen is miraculously packed full of healthy, energy boosting, body strengthening and mind sharpening vitamins and minerals, and royal jelly isn’t.

It is this array of nutrition from quality producers such as Xtend Life, which can better your live and allow you to do, what you want to do!

Visit my page on Facts About Bee Pollen, to learn more about this amazing supplement company can help you with your energy.

Lang runs several health related websites and is advocate of healthy nutritional supplements.Discover the wonderful and natural world of Bee Pollen Supplements
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Sep052011

Bees and Wasps: Danger Can Be Lurking Underground

A woman mowing her grass was killed when she mowed over an underground wasp nest. A gardener lost consciousness from multiple stings when weed pulling disturbed an underground bee nest. Another person suffered permanent scars from vicious hornet stings while cleaning up discarded lumber that hid a nest. Because they are most often seen flying through the air, most people don’t look down when they hear buzzing insects; but a large number of bee and wasp species build their nests underground or under debris lying on the ground.

Like the three real-life examples above taken from GardenWeb.com, Internet gardening forums are peppered with reports of bees, wasps and hornets attacking viciously from underground nests. Quite a few bee and wasp species build their nests underground and several species, taking advantage of the shelter provided by ground surface debris, build their nests under stray boards, loose slabs of rock or in wood piles. Underground bees have even been known to build nests in undisturbed compost piles.

There are several solitary species of bees and wasps, those that live singly, that nest underfoot. Mud daubers and potter wasps build their single-celled, ground-level nests in wet areas near ponds, poorly drained yards or near dripping outdoor faucets. Digger bees, digger wasps and cicada killer wasps dig single burrows several inches deep into dry or sandy ground. Mammoth 2-inch long cicada killers have a particular affinity for nesting in sand traps which can make them a problem on golf courses. Several solitary bee species, including cicada killers and halictid (sweat) bees nest in groups, locating their individual burrows close together. However, solitary bee and wasp species are relatively docile and not particularly defensive of their nests. They pose only a limited problem to humans, rarely stinging unless stepped on; but their habit of nesting near areas occupied by humans can create occasional problems for gardeners, landscape workers, golfers or barefoot children.

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The real threat from underground bees, wasps and hornets (a type of wasp) comes from species that live socially in colonies that can number in the hundreds. Opportunistic insects, social bees and wasps often colonize abandoned animal burrows but will also tunnel into the ground, excavating multiple passages to house the colony and hold the queen’s eggs and developing larvae. Some ground bees such as bumble bees are fairly docile, attacking only when disturbed or threatened. Other ground-dwellers, particularly yellowjackets (a species of wasp) are highly aggressive and may attack without warning. Yellowjackets are so sensitive to noise and vibration that a running lawn mower can trigger an attack.

The sight of attacking ground bees or wasps is frightening. They shoot out of the narrow entrance to their underground nest like a stream of machine gun bullets, attacking and stinging immediately. Releasing pheromones that incite their nest mates to frenzied attack, they will try to swarm over their foe and can be relentless in their pursuit. While many humans can outrun bees and wasps, which have a 6- to 7-mile-per-hour flight speed; the speed of ground bee attacks takes most victims by surprise, causing panic that can hinder their escape to safety. Few people survive a ground bee or wasp attack without suffering multiple stings, particularly in late summer when colonies have reached maturity and stinging insects are at their most aggressive.

Ground bees and wasps pose a considerable threat to humans because they frequently build their nests in areas shared by humans – lawns, gardens, parks and golf courses –and because their nests usually go undetected until they are disturbed and the insects have launched their attack. The slight domes or narrow openings that mark the entrances to underground bee and wasp nests are often hidden by lawn or garden vegetation. The shallow depressions caused by excavated nests can easily be mistaken for natural low spots in a lawn. Nests built under ground debris remain invisible until the debris is removed. When underground bee and wasp nests are discovered it is usually by observation of heavy bee traffic in a specific area. Bees or wasps consistently seen hovering over a patch of lawn or garden generally indicate the entrance to an underground nest. Careful observation from a safe distance will reveal insects entering and exiting an opening in the ground. Heavy bee traffic to and from a piece of debris or woodpile and the sight of insects milling around the area are a good indication that wasps or hornets have built a nest under the debris and into the ground.

The internet offers a number of “home cures” for the elimination of ground bees and wasps. Most of these do-it-yourself pest control techniques are of questionable effectiveness, can be detrimental to landscape plantings, and carry a high element of risk to the home owner’s health and safety. Seldom does a home owner escape without multiple stings when trying to eliminate an underground bee or wasp nest. Until a nest is eliminated and dug up, there is no way to know how large the colony is or how many exit holes the nest contains. Ground nests always have multiple exits. Bees and wasps can easily attack from a secondary exit while a home owner is attempting to treat the primary nest entrance. The elimination of ground bees and wasps should be handled by licensed pest control experts who have the requisite knowledge, safety gear and pest control products and equipment to safely and effectively eliminate dangerous stinging pests.

Jesse Eaton is a member of the pest professional team at ChemTec Pest Control. This New Jersey based pest control firm serves commercial and residential clients. ChemTec Pest Control is located at 186 Saddle River Road, Saddle Brook, NJ. You can reach the bee and wasp experts at ChemTec Pest Control at (201) 843-0780 or by email at wecare@chemtecpest.com. Please visit us on the Web at www.chemtecpest.com (http://www.chemtecpest.com).
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