Focus 580; Pest Control

This morning we're inviting in this first part of the show. Questions about household insect pests and our guest of the show is Phil Nixon he's an extension entomologist from the U.N. and that's his specialty dealing with these sorts of things and he's been on this program before many times to try to help out with those kind of problems if you have a bug problem can be in the house or can be in the yard in the home landscape could be something that's attacking your trees or your plants or it could be just something that's bugging you inside. If you call in and tell us about it we and what I say we I mean he will tell you Tell you what to do. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line that is good anywhere that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 so at any point here if you have questions you can give us a call. Well glad to have you with us. Glad to be here. I'm sure that we'll get some calls here going in a bit. Maybe one thing that we might talk about you said that it's time to be thinking about dealing with bag worms if you have them.

Yes let's do that. And by worms if you're not familiar with what they are going to be when they get full grown or spindle shaped tape or both hands in a bag that's up to about an inch and a half long and they cover the outside of this. It's really a soaked bag to cover the outside of with their. Clippings from a from a plant that are feeding on and they will start to top a tree and work their way down and they feed on a variety of trees and shrubs primarily. We see them feeding on an arbor via the and spruce. They'll feed on White Pine eastern red cedar. Other Juniper's will feed on deciduous trees too such as crab apples and oaks and so on but really where they do their damage are in the evergreen you know evergreens because if they strip a branch commonly that branch will die and so it becomes important the eggs hatch out in early to mid June and we don't and they will blow from tree to tree as young larvae for about two weeks before they settle down to feed and they have settled down now to feed and so

now is the time to treat your bag worms and we recommend treatment of using bacillus Thurn Jansa square stocky which is sold called BTK many times so does dipolar throw aside another brand names. There are also other pirate Royd insecticides that are effective and but usually recommend for home owners the BTK and it works quite well. If you need to be able to talk to the top of a tree with a sprayer in order to do the job and if your tree is too tall for that you need to hire it done because they start to top and you can lose atop a tree which greatly reduces the appeal of the rest of the church. So you've got to make sure that you can reach top a tree and if not you may need to have a tire done but these will are serious passon will will kill trees. OK we have a caller here. Let's try here for Lie number two are bad. Hello good morning. Please tell me when I hear music. Yes so we're hearing it too and we really don't know what it's about. I tell you what if you can put up with that.

Go ahead and ask your question and then maybe Phil can tell you I'll call you back. Oh right well my apologies folks we're not quite sure what's going on here this morning our operator and refrain is tearing his hair out in there trying to figure out what's going on. If we can do that we will take calls as always. And if not I think we can continue to chant here with Phil.. Well one of the things that we said we could talk about was the grubs in lawn and I'm sure that people maybe are are itching to do something about it or wondering about it I think in the past probably one of the things that we've talked about is the fact that people tend to want to get on that. Too soon. And they were there too eager to do it and there is that there is a particular window that you want to do it so you can get it at that the right time right. That's correct and what happens is that this is the time of year in which the Beatles are flying are actually going to be laying the eggs that will produce the white grubs later in the year that can cause damage to your lawn. There's two groups to me three

species. One is the Japanese beetle which many people are seeing around feeding on the trees and shrubs right now and they will be laying eggs in the turf as well as the annual white grubs or mass chafers or two species and they look somewhat similar they're both both about a half an inch long and tan in color. June beetle like insects that will fly to lights at night and they've been coming out and are are getting numerous they're not to have a yet. But they are laying or eggs in the soil as well as the as a half inch June beetle half inch Japanese beetles which are metallic green with copper wing covers and they will lay their eggs primarily during the first couple weeks of the month of July and depending on how the weather holds we'll have a lot to do if we're going to have a problem with those. The insects were very much like irrigated turf green grass in order to lay their eggs in too and they will go to those areas if our weather pattern holds and much of Illinois where we're got

plenty of rainfall and grass is nice and green and and the soil is moist. Regardless of whether it's your gator or not as it is right now in central Illinois the. The jet the boat beetles will lay their eggs over large expanses of areas and we really won't have probably any real damage anywhere because the beetles will be spread out in the grubs will be spread out. But if it turns off dry and hot like it typically does in the first half of July and the non irrigated turf gets that brownish look what horticulture is called dormant and what homeowners commonly called Dead. It's not really dead it will green back up without any water on it as it rains more in the fall in late summer. In those situations that they will flock to irrigated turf and they will lay their eggs there and so the people that water in lines will have them. And this is the month any time this month is when you would apply one of two chemicals that we look at preventing them in irrigated turf. And that one of those is a matter close thread which is sold as

merit and you'll find it as merrit in garden centers. The other one is how ephemeral zide which is sold as Mach 2 commercially but you'll see that as grow backs in your. In your home home garden center and things of that nature home center and that material can be applied sometime any time during July it will take about three weeks to kill the grubs but they'll be dead by the time you start to see any real damage in the lawn in the latter half of August through September and October. The insects will feed on the roots of the grass and cause the tops to brown out loosens up and you can just pull the turf back and the grubs will be right there they're C-shaped and white up to an inch long. If you don't treat now and you feel like you might get away with it you can always check the turf in the early part of August cut through the turf pull it back and if you do have grubs at that point then there's a third compound called tri core foreign soldiers die locks. D y l o x. And that's applied only when the

grubs are present. It will kill grubs in three days and give you good control. OK I know the beetles are out there I've seen them in my yard they may be been around for at least a week. Probably made most of that yes. So in and it's now the sixth of July how much longer are the the adult insects that are out there now Japanese we don't the Japanese people how much longer are they going to be there out for about six weeks and so we'll have them in fairly high numbers I mean you can find a long lived didn't get eaten by anything else japanese be you know in early October or even later. Numbers enough high enough to do any real serious damage already. Any problems about the middle of August and they will attack. They'll start feeding on the tops of trees primarily are going to attack crabapples lindens. Birches willows. They like grapes. They they really love roses. The smart weed for one thing as well. And you can be controlled on plants that you're that you're concerned about with insecticide sprays.

We recommend either carb or real which is sold as 7 or siphon friend which is sold as bare advance garden multi insect killer and this material will give about each or either of these will give about two weeks of control so you do the math you're doing about 3 sprays. We recommend to people only treat those trees and shrubs that are really important in a landscape that they look nice like ones next to the front door ones that people walk by on the sidewalk and notice a lot. Large plants that you may not be able to treat very well or those that are kind in the back yard are mainly used to hide the garbage can or be up against a fence or something. Just let them go. Tree damage at this time of year by by any insect is not very severe on a deciduous tree tree that normally drops its leaves so so that the damage by the Japanese beetles at this time of year is not a real serious health problem of the tree it may slow their growth some but is primarily an ascetic thing in to reduce the amount of insecticide use and reduce the cost of your Haven't

sprayed reduce it is only treat those trees that are really very important and very damages very obvious in your landscape. OK well we could try going here with a caller we have somebody ready to go line one in Abana. Let's go there hello. Good morning this time it seems I have that it looks great when we do and whatever the problem was I guess we got it taken care of so please go ahead. Great Actually I think part of my question was asked and that was going to be about Japanese beetle horrible this year and my joy that week and I have all of the trees that you listed and get on all of them and always like to say if you plan it they will come. Yes if you plan to write trees they will come. Absolutely. It seems like it's a lost cause although I hate to see just the skeletons of trees remaining. There's going to be going on. We're so typically for your larger trees they'll eat the top third to a half of the leaves on a tree and leave the bottom half to two thirds of

the leaves so from the canopy up so generally you're going to lose all the leaves but you know you do lose a large number Oh well I wish that was the case in my yard because last year they just about ate all of the land and there was nothing left of it and this is a huge tree. I don't know maybe it was a tasty their idea that they really like. And I noticed that they even go white pine. It's like you play one tree and they just go and attach themselves to the new tree. They will feed on white pines all usually not very heavily. Well that's not good. And of course of Easter branches on white pines those those branches may die so you've got to be very watchful about heavy feeding damage on and on and on Evergreen. So actually I could go ahead but what points to the cause. Yes more important. Yeah they're more of a threat of being having serious injury than Then the linen and other trees near yard. Well given that I have about 20 of those I think the rest of my summer is going to be spent

buying. Well it's only every two weeks but still it's probably three sprays right now my other question is about termites and how do you know if you have or don't have termites. Is there a way to check for them and they might have a 10 year old house. What do I do. What is it that I need to inspect or should I have a professional come look at it doesn't hurt to have a professional come in every three years or so maybe even more often than that if you've got a concern about some vets that's stronger. But what you look for are areas that where you've got mud tunnels going up across the outs across the foundation on either side the inside or outside of a foundation inside of a basement wall or inside of a crawl space wall. And these will be look like they're made out of mud. Be about as big around as a lead pencil. Maybe as big around as a finger and they will they will go up from the soil to the. To the wood of the house and that's a

clear sign that you that you may have termites in him. If you break those tubes open active ones will have little eighth inch long white insects that will show up and the tunnel will be will be repaired within a couple days as well. Usually even less than that and so that's that's always a that's a clear clear sign that you've got the termites now inside the house they'll tend to go to the hard woods and so they're more apt to be around baseboards the sill plate on the House which is the ward it lays on top of the foundation and and also moldings around doors and windows. These can be tapped with a with a screwdriver or something of a sound hollow or if the tip of the screwdriver goes through the wood you know you've got a problem. And because they will leave just below or outside surface of the wood or sometimes even just the paint behind. They will also go up and they will eat the

cardboard coating on dry wall. And so what you'll see are our thin lines going up the side of your inside walls if they're dry wall where the termites have eaten the cardboard on the surface of drywall left pane intact and the moisture there will cause the paint to bubble or discolor and there's a high humidity inside termite colonies. These are all signs that you that you may have or may have termites and or if you get to winged termites which are going to be typically a quarter to three states of an inch long and going to be long wings sticking way out behind an insect which is very dark brown to black in color and they will come out in large numbers at once with these very glistening light reflecting wings. So apart from keeping an eye on. Open for us to speak and have a professional look at it every three or four years. There's no preventative measure.

Well there's a lot of things that are done to houses that are already preventative Termite's like high moisture level you want to make sure there's good drainage around your house. It's one of the main reasons why houses tend to be have filler around them to help them drain away from the house along with wood rot. You want to make sure that you don't do something to mess up the building code it prevents termites and wood rot from occurring and that is having at least a foot to 18 inches of Foundation showing around your house particularly the Champaign-Urbana area I've see a lot of houses in which people have decided I don't like to look at that foundation let's build citing the all the way down to the ground. That's just asking for termites. You don't want to have any piles of firewood right against the house whether touching a house that's provides a bridge to termites getting in any type of moist conditions you've got in your house particularly along the long edge non-fixed a foundation you want to take care of any any water leaks

things of that nature. The moisture will bring them in. These are all things that are done in fact many of the things that are built into your house are there because of termites and also wood rot so a lot of times we just try to avoid. Messing up what's already been given us in the way of protection and prevention against termites. Thank you very much. Lynn thank you. Our guest this morning in this part of focus 580 built Nixon extension entomologist. And we're talking about insect pests around the home if you have a problem. Give us a call enough Ill see if you can help. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. And next we will talk with someone in Aurora. One number for Hello. Yeah hi good morning. I suddenly seem to have a bite is in my shower. What kind of I do to have them that think that's a great

place. Well the first step is that if you haven't had spiders there before and you've been there for quite a while there may be some sort of moisture situation that's increasing the attractiveness of the area. Spiders are going to go where the prey is where the food is where the little insects are and related things and most of those will feed in a house on molds and mildew is associated with moisture and particularly near a shower stall you may have have a leak around that stall or something like that you want to check to make sure you don't have a cracked low on the shower somewhere or or any indication of moisture discolored wood damp wood around that shower in the bathroom Otherwise if you get underneath that that floor in the basement or something like that look to see if you've got any darkness of the wood in discoloration or moisture there those would be all clues that you've got some a water leak which is producing mold which is producing bugs which is bringing the spiders out of the net. An aerosol ant roach spray around in cracks and crevices

will help reduce the number of spiders reducing the humidity generally in the bathroom may also help. If you don't already do so leaving the bathroom door standing open between uses will help reduce humidity in there again reduces the mold and mildew is reduces the bugs reduces the spiders indirectly. What bite is that that might be in the home. It would be dangerous to not dispose of to dispose of. I mean you know the most common spider that's likely to show up inside a house in Illinois that that could be dangerous would be of a brown recluse spider. Occasionally we see black widows but they're a very uncommon thing inside houses are more apt to be in an outhouse or around a park or something like this. Horn a woodchuck hole but a brown recluse spider is a nocturnal roaming spider and it's brown in color has very long fairly long spindly legs. Not tremendously so and the body size the span is typically about an

inch and the body size is typically only about a quarter of an inch. 316 something like that. And it will have no markings on it on a brown body except for a dark violin shape on the back in the middle of the back. And this can be can be difficult to tell for sure that's what you're looking at. Most spiders have some sort of markings there but if you've got internet access you can go and see a photo of a brown recluse and compare it to a spider you might see. Thank you this is focused 580 HERE I AM 580 W while Urbana My name's David Inge the host of the show. Glad to have you with us this morning and we have also as our guest in this first hour extension entomologist Phil Nixon and if you have questions about insect problems around the home you can give us a call 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line. That one is good anywhere that you can hear us that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. The next caller in line is in Chicago and Lie number two. Hello.

Yes hi. I hear that you didn't make it. Right how does that work. What happens with the MSC you know magnet uses propane as a source to produce carbon dioxide which will carbon dioxide is one of the chemicals that mosquitoes use to find their fair hosts to bite people or birds or other mammals. And. The mosquito magnet with limited testing has been shown to be very effective. Most of the devices that are reported to control mosquitoes really don't some of unsound emitting things and light things and so on. But the mosquito magnet in an device is similar to it appeared to be to be effective. Does it have a little pressure tank in there. Actually what you have is a propane tank that you have to have to replace or refill periodically in order to have a supply of CO2 that's being put out by them by the unit.

I see where I've got all the time you know. It's the price with a lamp the light and it and the man. Now if I put a piece of dry ice up there with that that's carbon tax. Right that's right. We do the same thing. That's right. I give it a try try if you can find a find of dry ice is very available and the light material of the lights have been shown repeatedly of the zapper bug zapper type things have been shown repeatedly to actually increase the number of mosquito bites you're going to get. Because what it will do is it will attract mosquitoes from a distance. But the mosquitoes come all the way to the lighter males which don't bite or females who have laid all their eggs and are long longer biting females that are looking for a blood meal will be attracted to or yard by the light and then they start looking for a warm blooded host. So it's been shown over and over again that these actually increase the number of bites you get in your yard. OK sorry to burst your bubble. Yeah. Let me ask you another mosquito question. Has an off the air question that from someone who was interested in knowing what would be the safest outdoor

backyard spray for controlling mosquitoes there. They have kids and they have dogs and they're particularly concerned about the possibility of West Nile virus. Well what we normally would recommend is a rather than spraying a lot of areas repeatedly. We recommend you know watching when you're out and avoiding evening activities where mosquitoes that carry West now are going to be more active. And then to wear like colored clothing that will cover the arms and legs and and then use an insect repellent containing DEET such as cutters or off or one of the or of the soybean canola oil mosquito repellent called Bite blocker. These are been shown to be effective applied to the skin or the clothing in the case of DEET to help reduce the amount of mosquitoes bites along with the West Nile virus. We recommend because this mosquito of the house mosquito which carries West Nile virus is a primary vector is not a very long far

not a very far flyer and likes putrid water. We recommend making sure of it. You and your neighbors clean out. Make sure those gutters are cleaned. Make sure wading pools and bird bags are dumped and refreshed dumped and and dried out once a week to kill any mosquito larvae. Same with pet water balls old tires tin cans. This is where the mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus are coming from or normally coming from in your own neighborhood and doing that as is the main thing. Only on an occasional outdoor function sort of thing like you're having a once a summer party or something is going to be in the evening. Do we recommend any spraying for mosquitoes in an area. And there we recommend either mouth or or some of the pie reefer and materials which are sold for as mosquito foggers. These can be sprayed into into shrubs and trees underbrush the sort of area and will give several hours of control but to go out there and blitz your yard every day or every other day or even twice a week just to reduce mosquitoes in a process

upset the ecology of your backyard is not recommended by the extension service. This I've been wondering about because I guess I have occasionally used these kind of fog years before if I knew that I was going to be outside in the peak times and have wondered exactly how that the product first of all has a very strong sort of floral scent. At least the thing that I've been using and so I'm wondering well is this actually does it have insecticide in it or is the idea that supposed to throw the mosquitoes off. Make it harder for them to find where you are. Well a floral scent is primarily something that makes it easier for you to put up with the repellants particularly DEET we do know is a mint is a product that literally blocks the receptor of the mosquito so they can't smell a so to speak they can't pick up or carbon dioxide can't pick up or lactic acid that they used to zero in for the bike. So it's actually a century blocker on our part that we're using in in repellents typically.

All right well let's go again to next call it file 0 1 number 1. Hello Yes hello. I have evergreen trees bag worms about quarter eighth quarter inch long I sprayed them with dipole about four or five days ago. It has sensed range. I have to do what I can as long as that dye Pelle sat there for preferably at least two hours and preferably for hours. It would have gotten. It would be have it would be tight enough to foliage it should not wash off. And in fact with it being four days I dare say that if you went out to squeeze and bag worms you'd probably find that most of them are dead by now. Oh you're saying everything I want to hear. I have just in case I ran a dipole and I got another product that they didn't have any of the active ingredient is spin. Spend the day and spin Oh said that's been OSen. Yes I know said it's sold commercially as conserve.

It's it's also on the homeowner market. That material is gangbusters against bag worms though it's a great product to use. It's a little more toxic then than the BTK but not tremendously so that's a good option. OK lastly should I spray these trees every so often one should have done it if you did it four days ago because you want to. You want to scout the situation and see the bag worms that are killed and not fall off a tree but active bag worms will have green foliage at the top of the bag and if after a week or so you start to see quite a few of them with green foliage top a bag. You know you didn't get them all and then a retreatment is necessary but if you've got good coverage first time you should not have to treat again until at least this time next year. All of this is crazy. Thanks for the good news. You're welcome. We have some other callers here on our toll free line in equality Illinois I don't have that right. Equality.

Line four would be so nice that burrow under the would do they go through the woods. What they'll do is they'll go part way into the into the board and then they turn make a right angle and go up the length of a board sometimes as much as two or three feet would be as also known as carpenter bees will look like they look like bumblebees Obi rotund bees when some species are about an inch across somewhere only about a half an inch or a quarter of an inch across and they'll make a series of cells what we recommend particularly this late in the season is that probably the the damage has already been done and the cells already been produced. We recommend not doing anything now let the bees come out the young ones. And then in the sometime during the winter or late fall. Cock up the hall and usually they attack on painted surfaces so painting the wood or putting a varnish on it that will stand the outside elements will usually prevent the bees coming in in the spring of the year when if they are going

in we recommend Sevendust Carbery also to dust form around the opening which will kill the queen bee. That's going in and making the cells but this late in the season they should be pretty well done. And what we get sometimes is people cock up a hole and in all 50 all 10 or 12 bees make their own hole the outside so instead of going out to mother's hole and so now instead of one hole you have a dozen holes up your up your board so you're had to leave that hole open this time of year and cock it in winter and finish the wood. Thank you. 100 days do we. How do you tell the difference between a carpenter bee and a bumble bee bumble bee the easiest way to tell in a way I normally tell in a field is that it is a bumble bees will have some yellow on their abdomen yellow hairs on her abdomen sometimes it's just the very base of the abdomen but they will have some yellow carbon or bees typically do not have any yellow hairs on her abdomen. If you really want to get get friendly with a bee

bumble bees have large eyes. Carpenter bees have small eyes and so Mobi eyes will almost meet atop the head of the Carnaby eyes are only maybe covered only if say a third of a head or something like that so you really want to get friendly if a bee you can find it out that way but the easy way is to look for yellow hairs on the abdomen right. We come back here some local folks next in line is Urbana and line number two. Hello. The other way it helps if you're attacking your house. Well that's the other way that you can do it you can do that or if you're going in the ground level bees nest underground and so they'll use an old rodent burrow or something so they'll be going down into the soil rather than into the wood. I've caught them when I noticed the other floating in the air or what looks kind of like problem trapping. Particularly painting under the hole. OK well the bumble bees and the carpenter bees and honey bees all feed their young on the same thing and all the other bees essentially true bees will collect pollen. They may have a little nectar in it depending on the

species and they provision cells by packing them full of pollen. Then they lay an egg on it and then they typically put use a piece of leaf or mud depending on the species of bee as a as a partition. Build another fill another cell full of pollen and lay an egg and do this sequentially down down the hole in the case of carpenter bees and the larva hatches out. Feeds on the pollen the females no longer present that time grows up it's a legless grub like larva pee pates and then comes out in the latter part of the summer as an adult bee and will and they all. Interestingly enough they all tend to come out the same hole which is always interesting to me because the one deepest down in the wood has to be beggars later earlier days earlier and still they tend to come out all together. When can we start putting the whole thing I'm going to be able to paint. Yeah we recommend plugging the holes or paying them during in late fall they typically

the bees will come out usually by latter part of August through September sometime of that nature so. So caulking up anywhere say in late September through the winter time and then and then painting should work and you'll have some days there where you can do that. My other question is about where we're at what we've been talking about mosquitoes those coils has spiralled. Right but you have light up rather dangerous. It's not thought to be so. Most of those calls produce citronella and are really no more dangerous than a Citron now a candle someone will produce. Well we'll fume out some other types of low toxicity insecticides to people you don't you want to follow label directions. You obviously wouldn't use those in a confined space. First place mosquitoes are going to come into a confined space. Typically they're going to have a way to get in. So following label directions they should be

safe to use. This is a EPA registered product. They would have had to show all sorts of safety testing in order to get that labeled and okayed for sale in the first place. And I've mentioned this before if I get some big cramp when we have the rings on our on our deck and calmly what I will recommend because most in Smiths mosquitoes are weak fliers they can handle even if five or six mon are breeze and in a window fan will put out that much of the breeze easily and this will blow them off course to where they really can't land and buy. That's a good way I recommend that commonly thinking about flooding and I think about an image that I have. I just thought I was in the wood working on clearing garlic mustard and I think I may think a few times when I'm in the woods and there was a hummingbird I heard it thought because I heard the way and it seemed there were no flowers around it seemed to be picking up insects from branches and even. Writing

the butternuts either with friends like some of you know I think those birds appear so fragile that I can't imagine they wouldn't be affected by poison that might affect certain things. Well generally the insecticides abuse particularly the foggers that my that would be used associated with with mosquitoes. The rate is very small and and typically they're not going to be a major factor even on something like a hummingbird. Course if you if you get into hummingbird you'll find out that hummingbirds do feed on insects to a great extent. It's not all just nectar and particularly if my memory serves me right is a is a major food source for the nestlings as well so. So yeah they will feed on feed on insects and true trying to avoid befog in even a commercial company is checking the level of mosquitoes and fogging only on an intermittent basis they're not you know it seems like a fog and every week they

certainly are not doing so. So it's a. That's an occasional situation probably is not a huge impact on the environment but a continuous thing would would be and that's that's what I was trying to caution in the previous caller about thank you. LEDs continue next Banna and that would be no pardon me it would be champagne line number three yellow. I want to continue on your discussion about termites and ask a few more questions. Sure. You were saying that sex with wings are indications of termites. Now I've seen some insects white ants with wings on those termites. Well you have to realize that ants also produce ants with wings and by far the more common thing is that a wing Dant will look like a wing dam from a point of view meaning net. If you look close to a body it will have a

a hourglass type waste it'll be of a very thin waist between the thorax in the abdomen and termites don't have that. Also typically in ants a wing dam will have a body extending just essentially to the end of the wings that's a very long body in relationship to the wings and fills the space under the wings and termites are very very short insects of the wings torrent trailing maybe three times as long as the body length past the body itself so there's a tremendous difference there. OK and then if you really want to get close usually we dance have elbowed into any termites do not. The two pairs of wings are different size on the chance the second pair of wings will be a quarter of the size or slow of the first pair whereas in termite It's all four wings all both pairs are about the same size and shape and then typically termites emerge in late winter early spring and ants will emerge throughout the season so. But I usually 90 percent of the calls I get on somebody want to know whether they have a

termite or an ant. I'm able to do it over the phone by a person looking in if they've got that thin waist. Nobody goes as long as the wings is an ant. Don't worry about it. OK let me ask another question. You you said about termites. That's a term that the foundation is supposed to be several inches below the house before it reaches the ground. Correct. You're supposed to have exposed foundation. Now the other side of that is I heard from another speaker on the radio when when we get it. Hanks Peace program he always talks about trading away from the house so that you should have your own grading. Not exposing. I don't much of an expose. I doubt any sane at what he's probably referring to. And I would concur completely is that you want to grade away from a house so you get good drainage away from a house you know get moisture against a house that will attract termites and wood rot

as well as water in your basement. So but you don't want to in a process of grading your best way to grade is to reduce the least the soil back away from the house and not not make a grade by pound against the soil against the house. OK and he's been out with him looking at some termite things in the past and he's he's a strong proponent of that of that soil wood gap that I talked about so I know we're on the same side here. Thank you. All right all right we have about 10 minutes left in this part of focus 580 with Phil Nixon he's an extension entomologist at the UI. Every once in a while he's here on the program. We try to help with insect past problems around the home so if it's something it's in the house or in the home landscape give us a call 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5 and we have someone up next in Danvers and that is line number 1

below. Yes I'm calling about an infestation I have been like hell and we've never seen these bugs before. They're a little less than an inch long. It's skinny like a small worm that has legs like a tiny centipede. When you touch them they roll up. OK this would be a mill APD. There should be hard shelled and kind of brownish dark brown the black in color. And the millipedes are slow moving. Typically you see them as a coil and dead hardwood floor because they lose moisture very quickly through their bodies and if they get into the house typically they die within hours even in a fairly moist basement they will commonly be dead. These And these are really relatives of insects and as such the insects that we have the insecticides we have are not very good at preventing them or keep them out of the house. We recommend that you reduce the growing conditions that they like to survive in. And that means reducing dead organic matter.

That would mean fallen leaves or bark mulch is next to the house and then reduce the moisture make sure of it clarions are not so thick that they don't that that they're able to dry out in between rains within it within just a couple three days. So you don't have a constantly moist soil next to the house or other material caulking cracks and throws in the foundation will also help keep them out. Outdoors they're part of nature and usually don't need to worry about them. But we really don't have any insecticides that will work very well against millipedes they are not. They're related insects but too distantly for insecticides be very effective. Well I was surprised that they're crawling like across the living room floor which is like a really dry area. They seem to move faster than. I've any millipedes I seen so just like try to destroy the ones that are in the moist air and if you've got fast moving ones then you may have centipedes which are normally going to move quite quickly.

You know where a millipede might take it might take 30 seconds to move two inches a centipede couldn't do that in a couple seconds. So a very much faster moving creature. And and they will. They are more easily controlled with an aerosol and roach spray in cracks and crevices. They are predators they will feed on other on insects and other small creatures so you may have a situation if there's a lot of them. You may have a situation where you've got some moisture something that's generating mold which is again feeding the bugs which is feeding these but an occasional one is probably just coming in through them from the outside reducing the moisture and organic matter next to the House will also reduce these but these are going to be more easily controlled with a and roach spray in cracks and crevices baseboards the sort of thing. Thank you thank you. Let's go next to Kankakee County and our line number four below.

Answered part of the question exactly the same thing these things are about an inch long and have a antenna on the front of it and another eighth of an inch long and I don't know how you get rid of these things rather than using the Chinese method of grabbing them and flush them heard I was a Chinese buffet. They rate you're talking about real slow moving in curly millipedes Ketcham they they make a C. Yeah again. The millipedes need need dead organic matter and moisture. And if you can remove either or both you greatly reduce the number of millipedes and and that's and usually reducing the amount of dead organic matter next to the outside Foundation and the moisture reducing moisture there will greatly reduce the number of millipedes that come in now in some areas of the state and particularly in the Chicago metropolitan area where you're looking at Pearse water tables over Clay.

You can have situations where you can do everything you can and the moisture level stays too high and you continue to have millipedes come in and I get calls from out there about them crawling up off sides of the houses on foggy mornings and getting up to the second floor windows the sort of thing. Literally thousands of them on the side of the house and all over the driveway and everything else and there's very little you can do about that because you can't control the moisture in some of these housing developments that control in the forest or you're in a forest it's hard where you've got as the moisture and you've got the organic matter. And if you're live if you've got a house in the middle of a forest and you want to have a force come right up to your house you're going to have to put up with the millipedes in exchange for having the nice forced look at this is the first time in 10 years I've ever had them in my house that they have in the basement. First time they ever come caulking cracks and crevices around foundations will help run a dehumidifier in the basement make kit take care of him there to where they don't come up in the house so much. But the answer ant and roach spray does does very little control we normally figure

that in roach prey they come across a residue it's going to kill maybe one in five. Which from our way of looking at things you just well none even bother right. So back to cats and inflection them. Yeah that'll that'll work or get if you have a house. If you have humidity down in the house typically what you find is the curled dead bodies which you just have to sweep up. That's usually a better option than the than having them alive at least. OK thank you very much. You're welcome thank you. And then next to Bourbonnais line number two. Hello hello. Yes morning. I have a unusual problem my son got to Madagascar hissing cockroaches fix you excuse me six months ago we put them in a container that we thought would contain the babies. Unfortunately a kind of unusual but it's probably within the last week. Excuse me last three weeks they've been I have hatching

babies and we put the cockroaches outside and we went through his room and physically removed all that we could. I put some roach traps out. I also was planning to fog the room with commercial fodder. My main concern is I do these type of animals. Do they have the capacity to in fact have a house like you know normal household cockroaches. Probably not in this climate if you were living in Florida perhaps. OK but the Madagascar hissing roaches a forest species it needs a very high humidity in order to survive. And and it's probably not. The young are probably not going to survive. Rather than using a fogger I would suggest an aerosol and roach spray in cracks and crevices that's going to get them where they live and do a much better job than a fogger will do. I wouldn't bother with a fogger I'd use an aerosol at Roach instead. And and then you know once it's been been

several days you know you can probably move the movie at the adults back in under in a better cage scenario and being good shape. This Roach usually does not reproduce very heavily so and it has a very long lifespan so it's a but I doubts. So they typically are going to flood you with Pey bees and normally I would I would be suspicious of surviving I do know in certain parts of the world they can be a household insect but we're normally talking about the Caribbean not North America where you have more humidity and so on. OK thank you that you aren't here so you could luck thank you which I get real quick one more Homer line three Hello. Yes about every year this time I get big. I guess I call him a con aren't you and collar come out of the ground and I think I worry about him do they. OK these are long gate insects right about an inch and a half long. Yeah big. OK these are probably cicada killers and they'll have ready

clear ready swings and they will actually. They're more interested in the in the cicadas that you hear at night to dog their annual cicadas. They are very reluctant to sting the ones that'll fly around and bug you are males they can sting the ones burrowing into the ground will be females and you've pretty well got to step on one bare foot to grab ahold of one bare handed to be stung they can sting very reluctant to do so. We recommend coexistence. If there's a problem with them in a location where they are Sevendust around the opening will get rid of an individual but we normally recommend live and let live. Thank you honey thank you this is this is a wasp and it's actually a total loss. You're ever going to see this is that this is a time when they first start showing up typically they're around for most July. OK well there we will leave it this time around. We had somebody who want to know when was Phil going to be on again. Well I think in maybe at least one more time maybe in August by a month you had to be here to get in right in the

meantime look in your phone book in your local extension person whoever's close to you can help with this kind of question then of course then if they can't answer the question then Phil is the guy that gets the question. It'll be under University of Illinois extension or underneath your county name and University of Illinois extension under that. Thanks very much. Fundies and he's extension entomologist with you have I.