Focus 580; Home Pest Control

This morning we're pleased to have back with us again Phil Nixon. He is an extension entomologist with the University of Illinois and occasionally particularly when things are warm and insects are active. He's good enough to come here and answer questions so if you have some kind of bug problem if it's in the house if it's in the home landscape or home garden call him and tell us about it give us the best description and feel will suggest how you might deal with it. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. Glad to have you with us once again. Good to be here. We were just talking about before we got going of course what else Japanese beetles. And I said that I've been on the lookout. And so far I have not seen one. But there are some reports now that they're out there and they're around they're here. We know of not very numerous yet apparently haven't really I've not seen any. We have had several reports of people seeing them and this is. And so we don't know for sure how many are going to show up we did have some cold weather that helped. That may have helped knock down a number of larvae definite

furrows in the ground around in Central and I was about 15 inches in a Norman Illinois about 30 inches. Maintain that temperature for about two months and we know that that if larvae of of Japanese beetles are exposed to freezing temperatures for more than six weeks they normally don't make it so and they don't usually go to deep down into the soil so we were optimistic we won't have any but we are going to have some how many is yet to be determined. Typically they show up in the last week of June and typically by now we would have a good idea but everything's been coming out about a week late this spring. It's been a little cool part of the time so it may still happen in a big way. Well we just cross our fingers and hope it won't be too bad. Yeah well you know it's but we this is a this is a good time in which people should be watching their trees and shrubs. They tend to attack roses and grapes and raspberries and crab apples apples. Linden Birch.

Wells and other trees and shrubs but primarily Voser the big ones and we do know that they like to feed in places where others have fed previously so if you can go out every day or every other day in and hand pick the beetles off we recommend a jar with some soapy water or some rubbing alcohol in it and if you touch the bead or get close to a veto he'll fold his legs and drop straight off the leaf if you have a jar in any if you catch him and kill him. And if you can keep him off of particular for a first couple weeks then guess who has the damaged plants it's the neighbor hands of the neighbors will get the Beatles more than you and I have much more damage so start out as early when they're first showing up is the ideal time if you want to do your non chemical control of the Beatles. And if you do if there's if there are some plants they really like that you really want to try to protect then you're going to have to spray. Then you're probably gonna have to spray and we recommend Carbery which is sold as 7 or

Cy flu fren which is sold as a bear advance garden. Insect killer and it will either one of them will last for about two weeks and the beetles are out in heavy numbers until about the middle of August so spraying three times two weeks apart will pretty well protect US plants and you know if there are other plants that aren't all that important to you don't look real nice don't worry about it no need to spray everything the beetles it will make a whole lot of difference for a number of beetles that have come into the plant you're trying to protect if you try to kill everything in your yard so to speak so just spray it just treat those that are very important merrier entranceways things of that nature are very obvious you know. And that will that seven that will kill a lot of a lot of stuff. Yeah yeah it's something that when you apply it you want to make sure that you keep it off of the off of the flowers because that will kill bees and other beneficial insects coming to the blossoms. But sprayed too in the foliage should be fine.

All right Phil Nixon is our guest this morning he's an extension entomologist from you or I and if you have questions about dealing with insect pests around the home could be inside could also be outside in the home. Landscape or garden. You should give us a call. The lines however at the moment are full so you'll have to wait for a bit. We'll start out with a color in Matt. And that's on line number four. Hello good morning. I have a question. The last couple of weeks we seem like an evening in the house. We get bit by. Sort of an insect you might find for five bites on yourself in the morning. They're like red and there are maybe eight a quarter inch in diameter always seems to be like this time of year. I think that we know it's last year at the same time we don't have any pets or anything in the house. Sometimes what they know because it's not just on is not any particular part of your body right now it's just over or say or maybe a warm fire you buy again OK.

Commonly what this is caused by are going to be spiders at night might get in your bed and then as you're all over you you go to you're crushing them and they will bite in self defense. There is. Not a whole lot you can do about that spiders are difficult to patrol in in the house. Dust type insecticides are most effective. Some of the silica gel materials are available to homeowners. Otherwise a professional pest control operator will have. Well have a dust type insecticide it can be used. Unfortunately those aren't available to the general public so those will help reduce the number of spiders than in the house. That may be what you're responding to. One way to find out is that you can put what we call sticky traps which would be they look like roach motels in fact most motels will work. They're essentially a board that has sticky material on it you place those along the baseboards if you have spiders even very high numbers on your house.

They will get caught at night running along the edge of a wall there and you get a pretty good idea of how many there are in and wow what kind there are. So that's a way to kind out where you have spiders to start with. But that's bites a showup like that are most likely that another possibility can be that. But you may have some sort of of an allergic reaction to food or something else and you scratch yourself at night and create the bite and that can happen as well so that's something that you tend to need at this time of year but it's unusual from what you normally do. It may be a food allergy maybe something else that way that can also be a possibility. These spiders never been able to see that. Just normal like house spider or something a lot smaller. There would be oh no they're big enough to see but they're typically going to be active at night and and so you may you may not see them just because you're not. You just don't notice some of the can. Then you walk along a ceiling or along up alongside and really don't come out until the middle of the night. And you may not be up

to see them at a time so that's probably as much as anything. If you do get up on a movie night you normal little blurry eye you're not going to see something like that. Exactly I mean normally I would be back are experiencing the more prevalent during this hot weather. They can be any time of the year. Many times the people get bit in the middle of winter when they're going to crawl into a warm bed because everything else is cold you drop the thermostat at night. But but in this kind of weather any time of the year they can be numerous and they more will come in at this time of year so it's a possibility of it. That would be it's you know it's hard to say it would be before you really do any spraying it would be good to try to trap them see if you do have something that's happening that way. I will try to thank you and thank you for the call. Next up we have someone in Champagne line number one. Hello. Hello yes I have a problem with. Fear of the Lying on my part. OK I think we can get rid of him. We don't know how to get rid of him.

Well you won't like my answer but that's the I'm assuming the cedar is got some age too it's got several years of age on it right. What'll happen is you'll get carpenter bees we have two kinds of smaller and larger Carper be a larger want to make a hole about a half an inch in diameter a smaller one about a quarter inch in diameter and they'll be perfectly round in no go into wood particularly unpainted wood and pave as Cedar Redwood gets older and loses some of its some of its protective qualities. They will attack it as well. They have it once you have an opening like that you can put the Scarboro or Sevendust around the opening and as they go in and out to pick us up and that will kill the individual. OK if you want to leave the hole open because you're likely to have young bees come out of there later in the summer. Yeah there seem to be a lot of them and if you clog up the hall though Major each make their own hole so instead of one hole you have 8 holes or some long outline they have a tendency to not like to attack painted or varnished wood and so putting up a coat of paint on on your

nice cedar sign you love to see un painted may help reduce some it appen it works about two thirds of the time in helping keep it away otherwise you're looking at using the Sevendust around the opening as they show up in the spring. Thank you for care. Bring me breakfast. OK thanks for the call and then you want it. Once they the B.S. with because what's happening is that the parent be it was laying eggs in their right and then they develop they and then they come out. So that's why you don't want to talk about the whole is done with and at the end of the fall if they when when they have all come out then you can call you and you can call call in and paint the wood if necessary or whatever the case may be but you know what they'll do is they'll go in and they will turn over as much as two feet up a board and then they start provisioning cells that they create in that tunnel with with pollen and nectar and. And they'll do a series of these you know a guinea each one and in the and in the don't normally dies off the hatches the larva feeds on the pollen. Becomes full grown few pates comes out as an adult be

and what I find a lot of people think well you know if we cocked if we cocked this whole Philonous Hoeven whatever's in there can't get out not thinking long enough to realize that if the bee was able to chew a hole in the wood the kids will be able to chew a hole out of a wood and so I get some calls sometimes of Waikato whole but now instead of one whole I have seven holes in a row right across here and what happened as is typically if the whole main hall is open they will all come back out the hole that mom made. If it's close then they may each make their own hole so you have a hole about every inch right ward. You say we have some of the COS here they're there in champagne as well so we'll go next line number two. Yes I think every prized servant vices. Several really expensive for getting rid of the security of your property from work with a propane tank to produce carbon dioxide. What they call sonic energy or any of these devices is a factor. We have limited data on the mosquito magnet.

That which is as you might guess the most expensive one is termly in Rome about a hundred dollars or more. It's a propane tank material operation which produces carbon dioxide and it has been shown effective in some in some limited testing some some pretty extreme testing on some islands off the coast of Florida that they actually close in the summer because they get too many mosquitoes people they keep people from going on because they can't control mosquitoes they found they were pretty effective there but they haven't. But that hasn't really been duplicated them much. So we know that that one has some results on it. Most of the other traps that you can buy the ones that have we know that the ones that have the ultraviolet light. The purple light the bug zappers actually will increase the likelihood of you getting bit because they will bring the mosquitoes from a long distance and female mosquitoes looking for a blood meal don't go all the way to the trap they then start looking for a blood meal once again the vicinity of a trap. So one of those will actually increase the amount of bites you have. That's been known for years but we can't get it off the market

because the laws whether written doesn't have to show it can work. And then most of the others are have been shown to be of limited value as well in general the only trap that I'm aware of that has has any data which shows that effect as effective as a mosquito magnet. Thank you your day Soko and to have a champagne person line number three. Hello I'm calling about two different kinds of crickets in the house. There are those that have certain arched legs those are called Camel crickets and they probably look worse than they really are. Then there is the. The black singing crickets come out at certain time of the Year Later in the summer and those are called Field crickets. The Kemah crickets will are as you mention are very long legged have very long antennae they don't chirp and typically when they jump a jump about three feet at a shot and get some interesting phone calls about those they will reproduce in a basement where it's nice and damp and really to they're probably not going to cause a whole lot of damage they may feed on

the ends of some rugs area rugs things of that nature you may have down there but they're probably not going to cause any real damage they're feeding mainly on mold and mildew and you can live with them if you want or you can use an aerosol roach spray in cracks and crevices to get rid of them caulking cracks and crevices in a foundation on the outside and not having bark mulch or fallen leaves next to the house will reduce their living out there which will reduce the number of come inside the field crickets. The black ones same story. They can also do some damage although a few critics normally aren't going to reproduce in the House are not going to live in a house very long. Typically an individual that comes in will normally only live for a couple weeks. You may have a crickets in the house for longer now but it's different individuals as the fall comes and gets in or gets called within a couple weeks so all die out you won't have any more for the rest the winter into the spring. So again a live and let live thing works with both types of insects but aerosol at Roach sprays around cracks and crevices in a basement

well could rid of them and caulk in cracks and crevices. Foundation will help him coming in and reducing the mulch and so on outside will next to the foundation reduce or numbers. Well thanks a lot. You're welcome and thank you. And let's go next to Chicago. Line number four. Hello. Oh I have a question. But I did not get the. Product for the B outside. OK material common Amos Carbery all but where you'll find it is sold as seven SCV i n and you want to use a dust formulation it'll be sold as Sevendust and it works because the dry dust tax attaches electro statically to the hairs of a bee and they groom them selves and get in their body it's and that's often used there. You would just put a very small amount around the whole litter going in and out. You can many of these come in a in a bottle that will kind of blow out a small amount of the insecticide or you can put a little bit on a on a on a tissue a Kleenex if

you will. Dob it around the whole late evening when you're not as active and throw away the issue. Yeah when you can as late mean as you can still see to do it without a flashlight because you disturb the flight of a light you don't want to be holding the light. What's the best way. Spraying your house around the outside of your house and your doors and windows are and when and what. What sort of product. Well generally what we have available for an outdoor foundation spray are going to be permit or in type materials. There's a variety of brand names that you'll find in garden centers. But. But it's perm Efren p e r m e t h r i n and one product commonly as 8 insect spray and there are others as well. These will provide protection for about a month. This we recommend is only a short term answer of a long term answer is caulking cracks and crevices in your foundation so you don't have as much

places for the insects to come in and then also making sure that you don't have to cane organic matter next to the foundation that will that will feed these insects or or be prey for feed feed to prey for other insects and spiders that may come in. So we don't recommend the spraying as a general course. If you're going to do it once a year it would probably be you know sometime in early to mid September when things start coming in for a fall. No organic meander around the house. What do you mean by that. Accumulations of fallen leaves or bark mulch tickly bark mulch is a very popular thing for people to put around their house. But as it breaks down that is food source for four crickets and spring tails and variety of different types of creatures and then these in turn provide prey for spiders and centipedes and in a variety of other things all of which eventually will work their way in through cracks and crevices in the house so you know I putting a smorgasbord out for them is the best way to get these things in your house.

I had put a bunch of dry reuse you know fallen leaves in the front of our foundation there was like a stone wall not three feet high and then the evergreens in there and them. My sister had said that in the front closet there were ants. Well these sat there could have been from. The app could have been related somewhat the answer generally scavengers will feed on some of the cane organic matter. Plus a lot of small operators an hour or so and then once they get in that area they'll come through cracks and crevices. Typically when ants come into the house they've just found a way in. You can you know if you can figure out how they may have gotten in and caulk cracks and crevices that helps or use ant baits were pretty effective. But particularly those made by combat are probably the most effective and we have to my last question is we had a large dam to go one year in the front of the house. The want. Yeah HUNTER How do

you handle laughed. Well you can open up the top of an individual ant hill like that and use the term after an insecticide into the ant hill and that will kill off an individual ant hill. Oh it's a called perm Efren. It's material I mentioned earlier are for a land of foundation and that will that will eliminate that and here we do not recommend spraying. Small and hills are just Ariane hill or anything of this amateur because for one thing I'll just come right back. Once the insecticide breaks down oh but if you have a large one it's that's killing them or when you run across when you mow over in this sort of thing then you can eliminate that and hero with a permit for him and in the open nest at the top. Thank you for your knowledge. OK thank you for the KO. Our telephone number here in Champagne Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line that was good anywhere you can hear us 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 and our guest is Phil Nixon he's an extension entomologist with U of I having problems with insect passed around the home. You can call us.

We have had a question here for somebody who would like to have you talk a bit about centipedes and millipedes and I guess that they're interested in knowing a bit about what conditions they like. Why it is that they're coming into the house. What you can do about that if you have them in the house. Tell us about these guys that sets a good follows right up with the last caller because this is another one of these things that comes in from the outside and millipedes are close relatives to insects but are not insects and they feed on decaying organic matter and so mulches and so on along the foundation are just perfect for it. Centipede is a predatory critter a millipede is going to have many many legs it's going to be slow moving hard shelled and when it dies it dies in a coil centipedes are very fast moving many legged creatures elongated. They feed on other critters insects and other small animals and so I tend to tell people think about them is kind of a strange looking spider their act

their what they do is kind of the same thing. Both types of creatures need high humidities high moisture levels in order to survive and so typically you're going to find them along the outside where they've got high moisture level such as mulch is and falling leaves etc. indoors. The highest moisture levels typically in the basement so you'll see them there occasionally up stairs. They are no more considered particularly dangerous. Particularly the millipedes are not easily controlled by any insecticide. You'll get almost no control with any type of material you put out. Reason is because insecticides are developed for insects the millipedes. I'll be at relatively close relatives are not insects so their physiologies are enough different that they really don't get controlled by that centipedes are little more controllable with insecticides. But the bottom line is reduce the debt or getting men along outside foundation caulk cracks and crevices in the foundation.

And if your basement is humid then perhaps consider a dehumidifier something to keep the air dryer down there right there on back here to callers and we'll go next to line 1 and this is her panel. Below the flow of keeping influx away from you when you are sitting still thing and when I am with what I found work for me when I have a group and want to be set up a couple I calmly will recommend that where somebody is wanting to protect themselves safe from mosquitoes when they're barbecuing or something like that a window fan blowing across them will produce enough of a wind speed that they really cannot maneuver in that tie a high of a wind and figure out how to land on you and bite you. Yeah that's a very good idea. I use a commonly Thanks for the call. Thanks. Oh I got a question mark. Sort of a question. We were with relatives this past week and one was talking about her neighbors what the neighbors and I'm a grafter

really with home was concerned about being at a quote. Nothing quite for mosquitoes and I thought I'd be more worried about people being clean their gutters I didn't think graphic just I don't mosquitoes don't know. Now the adults will tend to hide in in foliage areas so all the tall grass would provide a place for the poor the adult mosquitoes to sit during the day time. So do the shrubs so do the flower beds so do the trees. It's really not adding any real problem that way to any great extent. And you're perfectly right standing water is a much bigger problem because that's where the larvae are going to survive and and grow up and and the clogged gutters the old tires the birdbath and wading pools that have water Samina more than a week. These sorts of things are much more of a of a source of mosquitoes than tall grass. Thanks. Oh I think you're the go to the next color and that would be a

line number three in Mahomet. Oh yes. Christians need enemies. It's FREE. Try to read her article very good. Late June early July is when spring sufficient. If you do it now it is. If you got excited and found out that they hatched two weeks ago and went out and sprayed it then you're probably going to spray again but. But that's why we stench and try to get people to hold off until the first week of July last of June because what'll happen is when the bag worms hatch out they climb to the top of the tree as as little caterpillars drop down on Selkirk strands that are two or three feet long and blow in the wind and they will do that for about two weeks until they finally decide to settle down and feed and so the two weeks has gone by from a time a hassle now they should be settling down a feeding and a treatment now will give you control with one application and we

recommend BTK of a bacillus Thurn Gensis Chris stocky which is sold as a die pillar third aside as the main product to use for controlling those. Last spring just a spruce tree. You want to spray anything that that is being attacked in the West what best way to tell if there be an attack particularly if the trees are fairly large as use binoculars. You'll be able to see what they do in their young larvae as they will feed on the on the surface of the of the foliage and you'll get light areas of the foliage the foliage local white t shirt lighter green ence in areas where they're feeding they feed most heavily on Spruce arborvitae. And East Easterton eastern red cedars and other Juniper's but they'll also be common on deciduous trees crab apples are a common hosts or birches variety. I've seen among Oaks there's a variety of things they will be on but usually they are worst on arborvitae Juniper's including eastern red cedar and

spruce was OK thank you very much. Thank you and to Urbana next line number two. Hello. Yes I have a rather general question just about the field of anthropology. Every time I listen to this program I'm sort of struck by what I perceive is an academician. And applying his knowledge very practically. But it seems to me it would be analogous to my calling up a talk show with John Audubon and asking him about how to best hunt and kill game birds. I suspect that he was attracted to the field of Entomology more as a biologist or something like that. And yet his practical application of it is is I guess emotionally end of the spectrum and I'm just curious if you could talk about how he got interested in entomology and how he found the reality of how he applies that knowledge to be different

from from what emotionally or intellectually first attracted into the field. OK OK. Hang up. Believe or not I've answered that question many times before. I know hundreds of entomologists and professional animals around the country have yet to run across one who got into this business simply because they wanted to rid the world of the pests. Practically all of them got into it because they found the animals fascinating and for my own situation I was. I was one of these kids that you know if if Phil wasn't around he was probably down at the pond town pond looking to see what was in the water and what was crawling around on the shore and was a biology major and it was all a G-Major and you get to a point somewhere towards the latter part of your undergraduate where you decided hey you know you you might like to have a job and where you paid where people get paid is where. You have pests and so practically all of them ologist that I know got into it because

they they thought they thought animals were neat. They thought insects were neat. And the bottom line is is that if you're going to work in this field and there are plenty of jobs that are better in better non-economic areas May Berenbaum who's on the show from time to time is a great example of a person who is at the top of her field in that area. She's known internationally for her for her knowledge and. But but many of us. But jobs are much easier to find in more of an area where you're actually controlling insects. So how do I handle that that I love the bugs. Just for being bugs. But then I tell people how to kill them. My answer to that in my rationale is that I tell people how to do it in such a way that they're not seriously harm any environment in the process. They are being very selective at how they're trying to control those insects. And in the long run there are millions and millions of insects that are not being killed because I'm telling people how to control McCririck way.

And I think I also want to say that there have been you know filled with doing this for a long time with us and there have been occasions a number of occasions where I think it is and what he tries to ask people is can you live with this because. If you can then maybe you should just take a live and let live sort of tack and then if the person you talk to says no I cannot live with this then you say well OK here is what I want to tell you to do but we want to tailor it to the thing that we're talking about. So you've got to make sure you know what it is that you're trying to do. Do the best approach and then do the thing that is going to get rid of the thing that you think is a problem and cause the least problem to all of the other. And so actually we're talking before about the spring of the seven you know maybe you have some plan. It's really important to you. It's going to get mauled by Japanese beetles. And you want to say OK I want to take care of that plant take care of that insect which you also want to be careful that you don't damage other insects that are beneficial or the earth and they're not a problem so you don't. And I think you've been really good about saying you know the people don't do

indiscriminate kind of don't spray everything don't you know and be very careful follow the directions. Know what you're trying to control and I think that's all good. That's all information that's yeah there's there's some ecology comes in around the edges for instance in that question about the Japanese beetles indicated that you know if those trees aren't out and those trees aren't as important in your landscape don't worry about them. You reduce the amount of spray application in that process. The idea that the insecticides will last for two weeks you don't need to spray every two weeks. There are other people got turned spray every other day because there might if seen one on there that greatly reduced the amount of insecticide being applied I feel good about those sorts of things. Practically every question that I answer will have something that we call integrated pest management involved where you look at various methods of controlling the pests coming in from a foundation. I talked about mulch and caulking these are non chemical methods these are ecologically useful methods in helping reduce the number of insects inside the house. Bottom line is there's over a

million species of animals on this earth. We're one of them and we've got to learn how to live with the rest of them. And insect is that's the most numerous Yes arose numerous recorders all the animals in this earth are insects different kinds. Well let's get back to the phones here and talk next to somebody in Rantoul. Why number one. Well I haven't been listening to the program until just now and. I don't know if you talked about this but I have a problem with your wig. OK. And they aren't as bad this year as they've been in past years. But I do find you know like one or two every day and even the upper levels of the house and I have no idea how they're getting here. Well the airwaves are general scavengers they're feeding on decaying organic matter and will be feeding on mulch is next to the foundation cumulated dead leaves or just organic matter in the soil. They come in through cracks and crevices in the foundation and caulking those will help making sure your door threshold fit tight. This will help keep keep them out. Excuse me if I'm out but the other thing is is that they are not a problem in the fact of maintain themselves or

reproduce in the house. They have to lay their eggs in soil and they have to be in temperate soil they will not lay their eggs in and survive in in the soil in a hostile House plan or something like that. So what will happen is they may be in your house for two or three four weeks maybe even much as six weeks. They'll feed on decaying organic matter to hide in cracks and crevices in the daytime come out at night. But the bottom line is they're not going to reproduce are not going to increase are not going to become a problem like say cockroaches would be. So that's really a situation where you can use an ant Roach brain cracks and crevices to get rid of those that are inside you can cause cracks and crevices in the foundation. Get a man. Reduce that organic matter alongside a foundation if there is any. And these will help reduce the problem and even if you do have some inside realize that they will die themselves and without reproducing and so they will not become a major problem. I've found just enough moments of a man in an empty. Large tryst as long as there's They will hide in cracks and crevices in a day

time and so it's not uncommon for now I've heard I've gotten many calls of people that other kids are out swimming and I threw a swimsuit on the bar on the basement floor and I lifted up the swimsuit the next day and there were 50 or 60 or 100 deer wigs underneath it was a damn cracker crevasses to them you know and the same thing they'll get in the. In these lawn chairs and chases that have that have made out of aluminum tubing and they'll be in large numbers inside those. Crack and crevice so hide in during the day time and they're not doing anything in areas. Are they looking for more places they look like something waste and damp and dark Yes but. And then they'll come out at night to feed and they feed and they have a variety of feeding habits. Interestingly enough they are known to be major predators of the fleas and will eat adult fleas in large numbers. They also will feed on plant material they'll feed on full flower petals they'll feed on lettuce they'll feed on various types of the leaves of many types of flowers such as zinnias marigolds and so on. But mainly they're

scavengers feeding on dead or getting matter in unless a vet you have next your house the fury or wigs will be there sort of fear will come in your house. OK I just wondered are they sending a couple scouts out of my house because now their individuals are just working on their own. OK because I find like one or two every day. Yeah it's just a matter of what they do is if you think about it. If you're if your critter is a little long silence foundation and you're like no hide in a cracker crevice during the day time you're going to work in a career crevice and try to get as deep as you can with that crackles all the way through to the inside of a basement all of a sudden. Gee here I am inside the house. OK that's kind of how they get in. OK. Thank you very much. I can think you are banned in X line too. Hello for the last couple of evenings I've heard what I think. Are cicadas and I thought that they appeared later on in the summer but I also know that there's a few different kinds. Could you comment on whether what I heard is likely a cicada and what's going on.

Well we do have an emergency periodical cicadas in the Chicago suburbs but if you're not that far north probably know what you're hearing. They are singing primarily during the daytime. We do also have some. Some Katy deads that better and tree crickets that are better getting full grown and or adult at this time and they will make some up and down type songs that that will tend to sound somewhat like cicadas But you're correct the main cicadas that we have that are going to be singing in the evening are going to be the annular dog day cicadas and they're not likely to show up until until the end of July or somewhere around that time but chances are good that if you're hearing something that sounds cicada like me you mean it's one of the one of the Katy did Zoar or. Or crickets related to the grass in the grass opera groups. Are they up in the tree. How many of them are in fact. We always get a. I was going to interesting call about every year of there's a there's what's called a true Katie dead which likes to sit in the tops of the trees and saying in this sing song can normally be

heard a block away and the male will sit atop of a tree and start singing about 11 o'clock at night and run till 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning. I've had over the years numerous people who have tape recorded this call because they could not sleep at night with their open windows next to the top of the tree. You know he's just trying to catch a girlfriend you know and they will do this for several weeks on end. But but yeah there are they will make noise at night and there are very numerous species that will be singing the daytime some at night some and even some in the morning. The time of day will give you some idea what kind it is but there are numerous species of feed at night and sit in trees. Thank you. So much thinks that's funny because you know actually I was out last night doing Lola cooking and I thought that also I heard cicada and it was it was that and I thought to myself Well this is the first time I've heard that sound this year. And it was just one sort of one little chorus you know the rise and fall that was that.

And it it struck me as being a little out of place it sure sounded like say to me Well it's also possible that one can emerge early you know when we have a periodical cicada emergence we commonly start seeing occasional ones coming up two years before they emerge and a year after they emerge. Certainly for the dog day cicada. And there are various other cicadas that would come out earlier in the year that it could be one of them as well but the common dog day it's not on. It's not without possibility that one might come out a little bit early. You might guess if you're if you're a guy there's no gal around you're not going to say that that's called natural selection again. You know you're not going to reproduce and I don't care your jeans on so it's possible that there are a few cicadas out but we would not see them typically for another month. We have about 10 minutes left here with Phil Nixon he's an extension entomologist with the University of Illinois and he's here Kazan shall we talk about dealing with insect pests around the home. If you have questions you can cost 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5.

Someone apparently just wanted to to you if you could mention again what sort of spray is recommended for dealing with the bag worms or bag worms we recommend using bacillus Thurn Gensis Kher stocky. If you go into a garden center and say you want some b t k b as in boy he isn't Tom K as in Cary would BTK or a common brand names or die Pell D-I p e l or thorough side t h u r i c i d e. This is a bacterial insecticide that kills only caterpillars. It's very effective against and there are other McDuck to side that are effective as well but these are this is the one that will do one of. It does a very very good job on the bad worms and not near all insecticides due to resistant many insecticides and it also has the advantage that other than other caterpillars it's not going to cause any harm to other critters out there sorry. Got a cell phone caller here line for will get to them. Hello.

Yeah hi. What what can you do about their fly like fly the ones that look like stealth bombers. I think I have been able to find anything that traps and controls and I only got the idea of the deer fly their flying Blackfire two different critters I'm sitting here talking about the about the one in or about a quarter inch long and kind of yellowish looking that they are like a stealth bomber. Yeah those are deer flies and there are a couple of things you can do one is that the insect repellents that are available containing DEET cutters are off around a 30 percent solution materials are quite effective in repairing them. Another thing that is commonly used and appears to have very good effectiveness is that because they tend to zoom around your ears and back your head at least initially when they're looking you over and see if you're worth eating or not they will.

There are some camping supply company camping stores well sell a sticky piece of paper have it you can put on a back your hat and I'll many times catch them. I've heard the dryer seats will repel them somewhat stop as well. Dryer sheets like you put in your clothes dryer. How many of the sheets I don't have any substantiation of that I've heard from several people however. But in general we're looking at repellents in places in southern Illinois where where you know it seems like that they were just lining up to bite you. The deep materials work very very well when I was a graduate student in collecting and swampy here is down there. The but the but the insects are the larvae live in damp soils. You can't really do anything about the larvae about I can do is protect yourself from the adults and they do make very painful bites because if you consider that a mosquito is feeding kind of like a hypodermic needle it sticks a little tube in and sucks. The analogy to a deer flyer horsefly is that they carry a butcher knife and they slice the skin

and then lap up the blood comes out the bite is very painful compared to that of a mosquito. Are there no traps for them anything at all. Population I'm not aware of any traps. The people that tend to get in the traps mourn anything else for biting flies or livestock people and they use primarily they'll primarily use use dip rubs and so on. I don't know of any traps that are pretty and very effective against that type of fly. And no not all generalized farming sprays. No they're not really fogginess they're not really going to be very effective use or very strong fires will come from a long distance. You know they'll fly they'll fly a block in say 30 seconds so we're not talking about a a week stay at home flyer like a mosquito or fogging makes a difference. These things are fast flyers who will go long distances. They do tend to be most numerous in shady areas so. So what he knows during winter when they're out and numerous will help some but no I don't

think any sprays are very going to be very effective against these either. For about four years now somebody told me they come in cycles of some kind and they are well most native insects will be in some cycles I have not heard or seen or read about. About these particular ones going in cycles but I wouldn't dissipate they probably do most native insects will be numerous for about three years and then very uncommon for five or six years and then come back and be numerous again. The Helm alternates to temperature and their own predators how they fluctuate with their prey. OK thanks a lot. Thank you. Let's go here back to line number three a caller in the final. Hello hello. Yes I don't have this problem in file but my son who is about a hundred miles north has Box Elder bugs from box elder trees around his old house and they're coming in. He has a number of things. OK in a very dry Box Elder bugs actually have two generations a year most

people don't realize that they see him primarily in a fall. But they also come out as adults. In June typically about the middle of June it was a very hot dry year they will many times come to the house then. Or if you have large numbers of celery trees around you may see them coming in at that time of year but primarily work looking at the fall of the year. They will come to sunlit surfaces of houses and so they're going to be on the south and west sides primarily. You can kill them in large numbers when they're sitting on the outside of a house with insecticide all soap. This is sold as insecticide will soap and garden centers and hardware stores and you can use that daily if necessary there is no residual effect. There are really no insecticides that have much of a residual effect on on Box Elder bugs particularly those are available to homeowners and so. But you can spray them with that on a daily basis of necessary to reduce the numbers caulking cracks and crevices so they don't come in. Hope reduced somewhat but they'll come in around the siding and so on so that's very very difficult to

do. Other than that. The long term answer sometimes I will recommend to people that they plant trees on the south and west sides of house so that over time those surfaces are shaded and are not as attracted to the bugs Box Elder bugs for those people don't know or about a half an inch long black and red in color flat top when they come in hard numbers to the house. Also I've noticed that they're very much attracted to light colors so if you can have a painting a house a a more muted earth tone is tends to reduce the number of it will show up you'll still have them I won't be near as numerous overall things can be done some in short turns on longer term. Thank you thank you. Whenever a couple quick questions about dealing with the bag someone wants to know is there a particular time of day that's better than another to spray their outer day or night any time of day is fine. You don't want to spray when the temperatures are over 80 degrees you might end up with some burning on the foliage and will 7 work on bad worms. 7 will work when are very very young but once the bag worms get

homesick at about the middle of July if you spray the Baghran with 70 listen real close you can hear him laughing at you. Phil next I'm going to let you know we're still extension entomologists thank you very much. You're welcome once again for being here occasionally joins us to help with insect past problems in the home.