Bolton Pest Control

Archive for June, 2011

Whether it is curiosity, interest, or a genuine desire to study these amazingly fabulous tiny social creatures there is no better way for keeping ants than to do it by using one of the farming methods. Being able to build ant farms from kits can be a cheap and fulfilling alternative to buying ant farms such as ant farm Milton and others, but the farm is just the beginning of a highly entertaining learning center.

If looked after in a correct fashion you could end up with an ant colony that flourishes and lasts for years to come. Watching them live their daily lives is fascinating to say the least.

One of the biggest things to know straight away when it comes to home, office, or a school ant farm colony is that they certainly are not a hands on activity in a very similar way as the fish tank would not be. Any movement or disturbance of the farm is likely to cause a cave in and to the colony this could of course prove to be fatal.

Choosing the type of ant farm for ant raising is pretty much a personal thing based on the level of input and involvement you wish to have.

Ant Farm Kit: There are various types of kit available, and by building the ants home yourself you can save on the initial costs as well as gain from quality and size of the farm.
Illuminated Ant Farm: The name pretty much speaks for itself. Uncle Milton illuminated ant farm seems to be the one of choice here and allows the colony to be seen hard at work both day and night. Comes as a plastic home with illumination lights incorporated into base, generally blue or green.
Gel Ant Farms: A clear plastic environment with a solid gel composite contained inside. The ideal situation here is that once you add the ants to this environment they will not only tunnel within the gel, but this also provides a great food source for the entire ant colony.
Giant Ant Farm: The winner has to be the Uncle Milton giant ant farm. An ideal environment for keeping ants in and allows a larger nest to flourish and even breed in giving you an even better scope for your daily visual enjoyment.

For the different colony housings there are many makes and variations on a theme, but the types depicted above tend to be the three main types of housing for raising ants. With any animals or creatures that we decide to keep they all require food and water, keeping ants is no different and as they can live off of our scraps quite easily this is a zero cost investment once the housing and ants have been purchased.

Keeping ants is a great amount of fun and the learning that can be gained on a day to day basis is an experience in itself, an ideal temperature for them is between 60 and 70 degrees. If they get too cold it will reduce their lifespan rapidly.

One of the best providers is ant farm Milton or perhaps better known now as Uncle Milton ant farms, which produces an amazing array of ant colony environments for keeping ants in. Build ant farm kits that allow you to make your own ant farm tend to be less favourable as they do require a little more initial input even though they may be slightly more cost effective. Find out even more about ant keeping and ant colonies as well as a chance to see the biggest selection of ant farms available: (http://www.theantkingdom.com)

Why not treat your family to one of the most amazing spectacles that will keep you all watching in amazement for ages, time after time. Link to the amazing spectacle website
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It’s quite easy to forget the nuisance caused by ticks and fleas during the cold months when you read a book sitting in from of crackling fire with your pet cuddled at your feet. I really won’t blame you for not researching about flea control and spending time to understand various products available in the market for the purpose. But as soon as the spring comes, you are your best friend is ready to bound outside to warm yourself and stretch legs. Weather is lovely, and you want your pet to lose some of the ‘extra padding’ acquired over the winters.  But what you tend to forget is that along with you, fleas, ticks and other bugs are also waking up to the warmth and looking for a host.

If your pet sleeps with you on the bed and is allowed on the couch, you have added reason to ensure that it remains free from ticks and fleas. Once fleas invade your living space, getting rid of them is not an easy job, so make flea and tick prevention a part of your pet’s routine.  Treating your pet for fleas year round with a product such as Hartz Flea Dropsis a safe and effective way to keep the little buggers out of your house. It not only kills the flea and tick along with their eggs and but also prevents their return.

Do you know that fleas and have a life cycle that lasts for over 2 years? If they ride into your home on the back of your pet, you can be sure that their eggs will scatter into your carpet, furniture, bedding and every nook and corner and lie dormant until conditions are favorable to hatch. With Hartz Flea Drops year round regime, you not only save your dear pet from a lot of discomfort but also keep the pests from feasting on it and causing allergic reactions.

The Pro-Glide™ applicator of Hartz Flea Drops easily penetrates the fur to kill and repel fleas and ticks for up to 30 days. The applicator is angled for improved application of the drops directly to your dog’s skin so that it annihilates mosquitoes, flea eggs and larvae. It not only exterminates fleas at any stage of its life cycle but also prevents re-infestations for up to a month.

Nonetheless, it’s important to keep an eye on your pet when you apply any flea control to ensure that there are no undesirable reactions. If there are, wash off the product with a lot of water and talk to your vet.

Hartz is a premium brand of pet care products which has been catering to pets includes dogs, cats, parrots, finches, goldfish, tropical fish, reptiles, chinchillas, guinea pigs, hamsters and rabbits etc. for over 80 years. Hartz Flea Dropshappens to be one of the most popular creation of this 1,500 products strong Company.

To know more about the Hartz and check out their entire range of the products, log on to http://www.hartz.com/
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Rat extermination is not as easy a procedure as roach or ant control is. For roaches and ants you can basically spray pesticide and they will be controlled. But it is not so in the case of rats. For rats you will require to adopt a totally diverse approach. Unlike roaches and ants, rats can smell the various dangers around them. They will use each tactic to avoid the different pesticides and sprays, to stay alive. To successfully carry out the rat extermination, you will want to use a variety of do it your self pest control approaches.

When you determine to handle the rat control dilemma your self, the first thing that you really should check out is their place of residence. After locating their living region you must uncover their path into your property. That is how they enter your home. They can come by means of the roof, some holes in the basements or doors. Try to block all the incoming routes for the rats. Usually the rats look to live in a dark places where there is no noise. So you can look into your store rooms for balls of fur. Keep track of all the dark nooks in your residence. Also take notice of their droppings that rats will have left on the way to their holes.

After you have discovered the rats location of residence, you next require to determine on the method of rat extermination that you will utilize. Gather the pest control items that you will be making use of to be a rat killer. There are lots of strategies to control these rodents but which technique to pick will depend on where the rats are residing. You must take into consideration the accessibility of the area. If the region where the rats live is open and huge then you should use a snap trap. In open areas, a snap trap is the most efficient technique to kill the rats. This trap will use bait to lure the rat. Bait is connected to a spring propelled lever which will close or shut down as soon as the rat eats it. In this trap, the death of the rat is immediate with out putting the rat by means of the ignominy of staying in the trap.

Now if the rats are staying in some narrow or closed component of your residence then you should make use of a glue trap. In the glue trap, there is a lengthy strip of glue like substance covered by plastic. In the UK these glue traps are effortlessly accessible at the pest control shops. The plastic gets peeled off and the trap is placed in the rat infected region. As soon the rat actions onto it, it is trapped forever inside it. In this trap the rat is not killed. But the rat can also not escape from the glue trap. There is a plastic bag tied to the glue trap and the rat will be trapped into that. You can dispose of this plastic bag. This will also support in the sense that no other animal will be able to eat the rat inside the plastic trap. By making use of these residence remedy pest control approaches of rat extermination, you can keep your residence free of charge of any sort of rodents.

Hi There
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The leafcutter bee is a solitary bee which along with mason bees and carder bees belongs to the family Megachilidae.This family of bees is notable for the fact that their pollen carrying apparatus (called a scopa) is restricted to the under surface of the abdomen, rather than mostly or exclusively on the hind legs as in other bee families.The leafcutter bee takes its name from its method of nest-building.

As a solitary bee the leafcutter does not live in a colony like the honey or bumble bee.The female leafcutter is solely responsible for nest finding, building and the welfare of the next generation. However, it is not uncommon to find several in close proximity to one another. In fact in some parts of the world their territories can be quite extensive even covering several acres if the conditions are right. Leafcutter bees like mason bees, can cause damage to property depending upon their numbers and where they choose to build their nests.

Life cycle

If you see neat segments cut out of the leaves of your roses or other shrubs, leafcutter bees are the likely culprits. Using their mandables (mouthparts) they remove neat pieces of leaves or even flower petals in some instances, to construct and line their nests, overlapping the pieces collected to construct cigar-shaped cells in hollow spaces. Leafcutter bees will nest in a variety of places, in the ground, under stones, in cavities in wood and stone, plant stems, and in dead wood. As many as 12 pieces of leaves are used by the leafcutter bee to form each cell. Smaller circular pieces of leaves are used to seal the cells and there are usually 6 to 10 cells per nest.

Before sealing the cell the female leafcutter bee deposits a supply of pollen and nectar, then lays an egg on top, seals it up and goes on to build the next one. Each cell can take the bee around 6 to 8 hours in total to complete and seal off. Once she has sealed the last cell and has laid all her eggs the leafcutter bee has done her job and dies.

These bees are unusual in the insect world as each female leafcutter lays on average only about 15 eggs. Compare that with a queen honey bee who can lay 100′s of thousands of eggs in her lifetime.The young over-winter in their cells as mature larvae and emerge as adult leafcutter bees in late spring-early summer. The last egg laid is the first to hatch and these are usually males who then stay around on nearby flowers waiting for the females to emerge.

Pollination

Leaf cutter bees are considered to be very efficient pollinators and are being increasingly bred in the US and elsewhere as a substitute for failing honey bee colonies, in particular Megachile rotundata, the alfalfa leafcutter bee or lucerne leafcutter bee.This species was imported from Europe and has now been introduced into most major regions of the world, as it is an efficient pollinator of alfalfa, carrots and other vegetables.

Originally imported into North America to pollinate alfalfa, which honeybees avoid as the flowers need to be pried open to reach the pollen, these leafcutter bees have become widespread. The alfalfa leafcutter bee is now managed intensively in North America and has become a multi million dollar business. They are also widely used in Russia and New Zealand and Australia where alfalfa is known locally as Lucerne.

It has been calculated that one alfalfa leafcutter bee can do the pollination job of 20 honey bees. As unlike honey bees they do not collect pollen in baskets on their legs but collect it in hairs on their abdomens and are therefore more likely to spread it about as they move around.

Stings

Leafcutter bees as with other solitary bees tend not to be as aggressive as honey bees and to a lesser extent bumble bees. Both the male and females are more likely to use their mandables, however the female leafcutter does have a stinger but will only use it if squeezed or caught beneath clothing. The leafcutter bee`s sting is not as painful as a honey bee sting but is more like the bite of a mosquito in terms of pain level. Therefore unlike honey bees there is no necessity to wear bee suits when managing leafcutters.

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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The brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), also known as the Norway rat, is the most common rat in Britain, and the one you are most likely to find scurrying around your house or garden. Like mice, rats are ‘commensal’ rodents, which means they ‘share man’s table’ – a good description, as rats thrive in human environments.

As well as causing extensive damage to building infrastructure and contaminating food from urine and faeces, rats carry a frightening number of diseases, including Lyme disease, Weil’s disease, toxoplasmosis, salmonellosis, Q fever and amoebic dysentery.

Numbers of brown rats are on the increase, particularly in the inner cities, as littering, fly-tipping and fortnightly bin collections provide rats with greater access to food waste. Moreover, with an increasing number of local authorities now charging for rodent control services, members of the public are more likely to try to tackle rat problems themselves, usually by putting down over-the-counter rat poisons or setting traps.

Many don’t realise, however, that the first thing they should do is deal with the source of the rat problem by making sure that food and leftovers are properly cleared away, and that waste bins are rat proof. Young rats can squeeze through holes as small as 1 cm in diameter, so any potential entry points should also be sealed.

Rats are neophobic, which means they are very wary of new things, so it may take some time for them to investigate traps or eat poisoned bait. Getting rid of rats takes patience. There are a variety of traps on the market, ranging from the traditional snap trap, which kills the rat quickly, to humane traps which catch the rat alive.

Humane traps do not harm the animal, but you are left with the problem of what to do with the rat once it has been caught. If you are unable to kill it humanely, you will need to release it at least 2 miles from human habitation. It is illegal to drown a trapped rat or treat it cruelly.

Traps need to be positioned in areas of rat activity, preferably between the food source and nest. Fluorescent tracking dust, flour or talc can be sprinkled over areas of suspected rat activity, to confirm feeding routes. It is a good idea to position the traps without setting them, so that the rats become used to them. After a few days, the traps can be set.

Although poisons (rodenticides) can be effective in getting rid of rat infestations, they can take a long time to work, and there is always the risk of the rat dying in an inaccessible place, such as under the floorboards. A decomposing rat is not pleasant to live with! Poisons also present a hazard to children, household pets and non-target wildlife.

Once the infestation has been dealt with, householders need to ensure their home remains rat-free, by continuing to block entry points, keeping the place clean and tidy, storing food properly and removing food waste. Rats are attracted to compost bins and wild-bird feeding stations, so these need to be checked regularly and rat proofed too, if possible.

Removing food sources, and sealing all possible entry points, are the best ways to get rid of rats permanently from buildings.
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