Pirate Ships & Trojan-Horse Bed Bugs

BED BUGS PLAGUE houses, apartments, hostels, hotels, motels, barns, caves, and even ships on the high seas. There is no escaping bed bugs, even for frigates, warships, passenger ships and pirate boats plying the world’s oceans. If you doubt it, just talk to U.S. Navy entomologists like David Claborn at the Entomological Society of America (ESA) meetings.

Cockroaches, rats, lice and bed bugs sometimes outnumber sailors on ships at sea. About the time of the American Revolution, in the 1770s, ships were often such damp, putrid, scurvy-ridden pest-holes that half the crew would be sick during the voyage. And mortality was high. Captain James Cook of Great Britain’s Royal Navy was one of the early advocates for bringing ship hygiene up to modern standards.

Scrubbing decks with dilute solutions of sweet-smelling vinegar was one of Captain Cook’s practices to keep rats, lice, bed bugs and cockroaches at tolerably low levels. Caribbean pirate ships, a less sanitary lot, used “primitive fumigation techniques” like placing “tubs full of flaming tar and sulfur inside the hulls to kill the vermin and improve the odor,” said Claborn. Infestations were sometimes so bad that brandy casks were poured onto the decks as mop water and scrubbed into the wood.

In the modern world of asymmetrical warfare in the pirate-ridden waters off the coast of East Africa, bed bugs and other vermin have been used like weapons by the pirates. When a small pirate boat fired a rocket on a U.S. Navy ship, the U.S.S. Fearless, a wooden minesweeper, took action. The Fearless scooped up the pirate boat into its well deck. The well deck, a dock for floating military equipment, was raised up and the pirate ship came to rest high and dry.

“That’s when the insects and the rats started leaving the boat, perhaps lonely for the recently incarcerated pirates,” said Claborn. “When the corpsmen called me from the ship they reported, and I quote this: ‘at least three species of cockroaches, bed bugs, spiders, rats and some really scary things that we don’t recognize’. Our immaculately clean warship now has a Trojan horse populated not with Greek warriors, but with bed bugs, cockroaches and rats.”

Just like on land, the bed bugs and their harborages were hard to find and hard to disinfest. A minor victory for the pirates. All infested shipboard items had to be discarded, all the fabrics washed, and crack and crevice residuals were sprayed to stop the bed bugs from biting.

Interplanting, Ancient Roots

INTERPLANTING IS ANCIENT. It predates agriculture. Interplanting even predates the dinosaur, going back to the first plants growing side-by-side on planet EARTH. Indeed, interplanting is a natural ecological phenomena, existing much like the stars in the night sky.

On farms and gardens, interplanting is sometimes called companion planting. Ancient farmers observed natural interplanting or companion planting in their fields, along with winds, rains, heat, cold, insects, solstices and lunar and planetary movements across the sky. Today, much of the natural interplants occurring in farm fields and gardens is derisively referred to as weed growth (though major crops like maize and wheat still contain the genes of weed ancestors). Indeed, it is a value judgment when native wildflowers like prairie sunflowers are labeled weeds and destroyed by cultivation or herbicides.

In the U.S. state of Tennessee in the 1930s, during America’s Great Depression, the insect factor in interplanting was first subjected to scientific experimentation by an entomologist named Marcovitch. Writing in a 1935 issue of the Journal of Economic Entomology, a still extant publication of the Entomological Society of America (ESA), Marcovitch traced his interest to experiment station reports by other entomologists. Much like the ancient farmers who based planting decisions on empirical and astronomical observations, an entomologist writing in 1906 “advocated for the control of the melon louse the planting of mustard or kale or rape around the melon field. The lady beetles would thus become plentiful after feeding on the cabbage aphids and be ready to attack the melon louse.”

Marcovitch’s penchant to begin the modern era of experimental companion planting was also inspired by a 1929 entomological report that woodlots fostered populations of aphid-eating syrphid flies that destroyed aphids in garden peas. In contrast, pea fields away from woodlots were devastated by aphids and sometimes yielded no crop. Figuring that aphid damage to vegetables was a consequence of an absence of biological control by aphid natural enemies, Marcovitch began a series of scientific interplanting experiments to boost natural biological control in crop fields.

Tennessee turnip strips planted in March yielded aphid natural enemies like lady beetles and small parasitic wasps that migrated later into adjacent strips of peas, beans, corn, okra, cotton, cucumbers and watermelons. Aphid populations declined in the main crops, thanks to the adjacent natural enemy-laden turnip rows. In contrast, “control” watermelon plots lacking adjacent turnip rows to provide natural enemies were destroyed by aphids early in the season.

Since Marcovitch’s pioneering 1935 report in the Journal of Economic Entomology, books have been written on interplanting experiments to increase natural biological control in crops.

Beneficial Bugs Challenge Theoretical Physics

INSECTS, MICROBES, PLANTS and other organisms form complex ecological systems with all sorts of synergisms, antagonisms and cooperative interactions, leading oftentimes to beneficial insects controlling what we consider pests. Whether it be forest, desert, farm field or garden, intricate and nuanced ecological communities can be nurtured to provide a measure of “natural” biological pest control.

The nuanced complexity of biological and ecological systems has at times intrigued theoretical physicists usually more attuned to quarks, neutrinos, chaos theory and quantum phenomena. Murray Gell-Mann, winner of the 1969 physics Nobel Prize as a Caltech (Pasadena, California) professor “for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions,” created the Santa Fe Institute (New Mexico) to better focus on “the theory of complex adaptive systems.”

Humans, plants and animals are individually and collectively at the ecosystem level examples of complex adaptive systems. Which is one reason creating sustainable agriculture is such a challenge, and companies such as Rincon-Vitova Insectaries end up with catalogs of 55 pages of beneficial insects, microbes, seeds, traps and other inputs for creating sustainable garden and farm systems. And even then, it is not always easy and can take longer than expected to force changes in even the smallest complex adaptive system that is a backyard garden.

“Unfortunately, it will be a long time before human knowledge, understanding, and ingenuity can match–if ever they do–the “cleverness” of several billion years of biological evolution,” wrote Gell-Mann in his book, The Quark and the Jaguar. “Not only have individual organisms evolved their own special, intricate patterns and ways of life, but the interactions of huge numbers of species in ecological communities have undergone delicate mutual adjustments over long periods of time.”

Rainy Days Wash Pests Away

WORLD WAR II was raging around The Netherlands from 1941 to 1944. But in Zeeland province entomologist D.J. Kuenen slogged on with his solitary, long-term studies of climate and rainfall effects on fruit tree red spider mites in apple and plum orchards. Even under the best conditions in peacetime, long-term ecological field studies that could aid in natural pest control are few and far between. The reason is simple: longterm ecological field studies are an expensive, labor-intensive, problematic way to advance a career in academia. The more-assured path to tenure and gainful employment is a series of quick, narrowly-focused lab studies yielding a plethora of speedily published papers in scholarly journals.

DDT and the synthetic pesticide era, along with high-yield chemical farming, exploded in the years immediately after World War II. The tedious years of meticulously gathered data on natural pest control from wind and rainfall (a form of overhead irrigation) was consigned to languish for decades under layers of library dust in tiny articles in obscure journals. Kuenen and his predecessors studying the pest control efficacy of wind and high-pressure water sprays were several decades ahead of their time. Much like the monk Gregor Mendel’s now-celebrated genetic experiments growing wrinkly and smooth garden peas.

Today, the pendulum is swinging back to more natural forms of pest control. Kuenen and his Roaring Twenties predecessors studying wind and rain as natural forms of pest control would be warmly welcomed at sustainable agriculture gatherings today. Ecological field studies showing that heavy rain showers and wind storms blasted away 90% of pesky spider mites would be spurring graduate students and inventive farmers to simulate the natural pest control benefits with artificial wind and water blasts from hoses, sprinklers, and other devices.

Pheromone Revolution Hits Half Century Mark

HALF a CENTURY ago the PHEROMONE REVOLUTION commenced in earnest. German chemist Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt opened the floodgates as lead author of an article announcing the isolation and chemical identification of a sex pheromone female silkworm moths produce to attract male mates. Butenandt had already shared the 1939 Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering human reproductive steroid hormones. So the 1959 article announcing the first pheromone in the monthly chemical science journal Zeitschrift für Naturforschung B (14B:283-4) attracted the attention of Rachel Carson and stimulated the efforts and imaginations of many others searching for insecticide-reducing alternatives.

HALF a MILLION virgin female silk moths were sacrificed over a span of almost THREE DECADES to identify that first sex pheromone, named bombykol because Bombyx mori is the scientific name of the Chinese silk moth of textile fame. In the past half century, thousands more pheromones have been identified, mostly from pest insects of economic interest. But also increasingly from beneficial insects providing biological control.

According to researchers like Jeffrey Aldrich at the USDA-ARS Chemicals Affecting Insect Behavior Laboratory (CAIBL) in Beltsville, MD, the potential applications of natural enemy pheromone and semiochemical research, such as herding beneficial insects into crop fields where they are needed, is still in its infancy. Projects include using pheromones to increase biocontrol by predatory spined soldier bugs (Podisus maculiventris). These beneficial stink bugs are capable of biologically controlling pesticide-resistant Colorado potato beetles, Mexican bean beetles, and cabbage and tomato caterpillars.

One idea is using pheromones to trap natural enemies, and then creating mini-insectaries by placing cages full of natural enemies into crop fields and landscapes. Predator production can be maximized with “an in-field nursery where we are putting these trapped bugs right inside of the (mesh) cage” over plants in the field, said Aldrich. “You pick a mesh size where the adults can’t get out, but when they lay eggs then the nymphs can walk out and start feeding on pest species in the vicinity.” In field tests, potato defoliation was reduced and yield significantly increased.

In bean field tests, spined soldier bug nymphs walked upwind towards an aggregation pheromone. In sequential plantings, this technique could be used by farmers to move or herd predators out of maturing fields into more newly planted fields. Pheromone technologies are also being explored to maximize biocontrol by minute pirate bugs, big-eyed bugs, tachinid flies, and other natural enemies.

Lacewing Silk

GREEN LACEWING consumption of moth eggs, small caterpillars, spider mites, aphids and other pests promotes sustainable biological pest control in farms, gardens, greenhouses, zoos, malls, conservatories and other landscapes. Sustainable cotton farmers around the world have long utilized green lacewings for biocontrol, but few ever had an inkling that both cotton AND lacewings could be fiber crops. Indeed, biocontrol companies like Rincon-Vitova Insectaries, which has a green lacewing logo, may one day be garbed in garments woven from organic cotton and green lacewing silk.

Not that green lacewing silk is likely to make a major fashion splash anytime soon or displace traditional mulberry-reared silkworm cocoon threads. Rather, adding another insect silk to the textile design palette is just another milestone marker from several decades of studying the chemistry, genetics, biology, physics, acoustics, ecology, etc. underlying biocontrol by green lacewings. The latest technical details from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific Industrial and Research Organisation (CSIRO) on the superior textile properties of green lacewing egg-stalk silks is just one more brick in the ecological edifice.

Ecologically, besides finding shelter from the elements and locating nourishment, the real world for an insect is also a constant struggle to avoid being prey to natural enemies. Even pest natural enemies like green lacewings are preyed upon by their own set of natural enemies (e.g. spiders, bats, parasitic wasps, ants). Lacewings adapt by eavesdropping on bat echolocation signals (a form of radar used for navigation and prey detection) and flying evasive flight patterns. Green lacewings trapped in silken orb spider webs have their own almost ritualistic behaviors for chewing themselves free, and tiny wing hairs are designed to smoothly slide free from sticky spider webs.

Thin tough silken egg stalks that are strong yet flexible loft green lacewing eggs safely out of the reach of marauding ants. For extra protection, the high-protein silk egg stalks are also coated with oily ant repellent chemicals. Interestingly, the egg stalk silks are very different from green lacewing cocoon silks. Textile buffs are intrigued, as egg stalk silks rapidly solidify after being secreted as liquid droplets that are extruded into thin strong fibers swaying like palm tree trunks topped with lacewing eggs.

From an engineering standpoint, these green lacewing egg stalk silk properties suggest the possibility of new industries and biological silk factories. In a future decade, green lacewing silk may be woven along with silkworm silk and cotton into apparel and furnishings. An unexpected dividend from years of research related to green lacewings and biocontrol.

Wintergreen = Biocontrol Aromatherapy

WHEN ENTOMOLOGISTS hip to chemical ecology speak of HIPPOs, they mean HERBIVORE INDUCED PLANT PROTECTION ODORS, not the massive hippopotamus native to riverine Africa. At Washington State University (WSU), David James and his entomological colleagues have spent the last several years testing fragrant wintergreen oil, a common HIPPO produced by distressed plants, as a means to boost biological control of crop pests by natural enemies.

The same fragrant wintergreen oil (high in methyl salicylate) used in mints and mouthwashes can be formulated into slow-release dispensers to attract beneficial insects into crops in greater numbers earlier in the season than would otherwise be the case. The dispensers minimize environmental and worker health impacts and crop damage (phytotoxicity). Also, the dispensers can last 3-4 months, providing extended periods of natural enemy attraction. Sprays evaporate more quickly, potentially meaning more applications. Nevertheless, spray technologies are still very popular and 2% wintergreen oil in canola oil is being test sprayed worldwide in crops ranging from hops and cotton to soybeans, strawberries and sweet corn.

In their earliest hop yard and grape vineyard field tests, James and his coworkers found that wintergreen oil attracted significantly higher numbers of pest natural enemies like predatory green lacewings, minute pirate bugs (Orius spp.), spider mite-eating lady beetles (Stethorus spp.), and aphid-eating syrphid flies. By getting higher numbers of natural enemies into the fields earlier than might otherwise have been the case, pests like spider mites were kept under biological control all season long. Leafhopper numbers were also lower, leading James to suspect that parasitic wasp species attacking this pest were also boosted by wintergreen oil.

This is the basis for commercial products such as PredaLure, sold by Rincon-Vitova Insectaries and others to maximize natural enemies providing biological pest control. Plants are virtual chatterboxes of chemical communication, and wintergreen oil and methyl salicylate are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of natural compounds awaiting field testing. Farnesene, caryophyllene and the male-produced lacewing aggregation pheromone iridodial are among the other green lacewing attractants attracting research attention.

When attacked by insects, spider mites, and pathogens (e.g. viruses, bacteria, fungi) or under environmental stress (e.g. chilling, drought, salinity), plants can ooze chemical exudates from their roots into the soil and waft a variety of communication chemicals into the wind. Thereby neutralizing pathogenic soil microbes, luring in pest-eating natural enemies and tipping off downwind neighbors in the plant community to ramp up their immune response in preparation for impending pest attacks.

We have only scratched the surface of what exists and what is possible to develop for biological insect control.

Planet Moth

WITH 200,000 known species, Earth is almost Planet Moth. Only beetle species are more numerous. Moths have been denizens of Earth since prehistoric times, long before the ascent of man. Mostly nocturnal, secretive and nondescript, moths play a quiet ecological role, doing some vital pollination of plants and nourishing the food chain by feeding birds, bats, lizards, fish, frogs and many other critters.

Silkworm moths, domesticated as a crop on mulberry trees in China about 5,000 years ago, are famous in the textile industry. Clothes moths are infamous for feeding on garments, and have spurred herbal pest control innovations since ancient times. Humankind has sprayed billions of tons of synthetic pesticides against cotton bollworm moths, Indian meal moths, diamondback moths, cabbage loopers, leafrollers, leafminers, stemborers, codling moths, corn earworms, inchworms, armyworms, spruce budworms, gypsy moths and bagworms, to name but a few. However, alternatives like pheromones are becoming more widely used to monitor, trap, and confuse moths and prevent mating and egg laying (eggs hatch into caterpillars that eat, pupate and beget new moths).

Biocontrol by natural enemies, including birds, bats, toads, spiders and other insects, is part of the ancient planetary rhythm for controlling moths and maintaining global ecological balance. From Texas, Arizona, California and Mexico to China, Russia, Central America and Australia, microscopic Trichogramma wasps are among the most popular insectary-reared natural enemies released to stop moth egg hatching. Cotton growers escaping the pesticide treadmill have traditionally been big users of Trichogramma wasps. Tomatoes, corn, grapes, tree fruits, ornamental nurseries and many other crops also use Trichogramma, green lacewings and a wide array of other natural enemies purchased from Rincon-Vitova and other insectaries to lessen moth attacks and minimize pesticide use.

Of course, the moth wars are not all one-sided. Spray pesticides too often and moths become resistant. And moths can elude and make life challenging for their natural enemies. For example, many moth species respond to bat ultrasound echo-location signals with evasive aerial maneuvers and jamming signals. Moth immune systems may even encapsulate and prevent parasites from providing biocontrol. Each female of one fat Australian moth species can lay 18,000 eggs, the ultimate defense, essentially ensuring survival by sheer numbers.

Beneficial Termites, An Oil Alternative for the Hydrogen Economy

TERMITES AS beneficial insects? Seems preposterous when Formosan subterranean termites (Coptotermes formosanus) cause billions of dollars of structural damage annually in the U.S. And termites are not found in the catalogs of Rincon-Vitova and other insectaries selling beneficial insects that minimize pesticide use by biologically destroying pests. But back in his Nobel Prize-winning days as a University of California, Berkeley, physicist, U.S. Dept. of Energy Secretary Steven Chu looked deeply inside termites and saw microbial biorefineries producing hydrogen gas and a potential solution to America’s almost addictive dependency on foreign oil imports.

Global warming worriers might think this a bit odd, as collectively the world’s termites emit an estimated 15% of global methane, a greenhouse gas and natural gas energy fuel. But, oddly enough, the eastern subterranean termites (Reticulitermes flavipes) and Formosan subterranean termites dining on wood structures in the USA are more environmentally correct creatures, eschewing methane and emitting valuable hydrogen gas instead. This hydrogen gas, if produced in bio-refineries powered by termite technologies, could replace traditional carbon-based petroleum fuels and reduce oil dependence.

In chemical terms: For every mole (a chemical unit of measurement) of wood glucose consumed, subterranean termites excrete 2-4 moles of hydrogen gas. Just like cows, termites have an array of gut microbes aiding digestion of plant cellulose. Microbial prospectors searching the termite gut instead of rainforest jungles, have discovered previously unknown gut microbes converting wood products into hydrogen gas. Harnessed in bioreactors, hydrogen gas produced by termites and their gut microbes can be the basis for a new hydrogen economy as the power source for pollution-free vehicles.

Mississippi State University’s Zhong Sun and others reporting at Entomological Society of America annual meetings note that termites and their gut protozoa are the best biological hydrogen production technology known. In part, this is because termites can convert 74-99% of cellulose substrate into fermentable sugars. Thus, one gram (0.035 oz) of wood in a termite biorefinery can generate 10 liters (1 quart) of hydrogen gas.

Onward to the hydrogen economy, with subterranean termite gas in the automobile fuel tank.

Bed Bugs, Turning Up the Heat

PESTICIDE RESISTANCE and bedbugs’ innate ability to avoid toxicant contact by hiding in cracks and crevices during daylight hours make alternatives like traps and heat hot topics at Entomological Society of America annual meetings. In contrast to ticks, where researchers have at least investigated biocontrols like micro-wasps, insect-killing nematodes and fungi, bedbug natural enemies have mostly escaped scientific scrutiny and testing.

Rutgers University’s Changlu Wang, an IPM (Integrated Pest Management; using multiple techniques) expert, is better known for his cockroach trapping skills in large public housing and apartment complexes in Indiana. Against bedbugs, Wang uses natural diatomaceous earth in bedbug interceptor traps (Climbup(TM); Susan McKnight, Inc.). This is in addition to clutter removal, bagging and washing infested belongings, new encased mattresses, and steam treatment (vaporized hot water) of floors, drapes and sofas.

Interceptor traps are designed to monitor bedbug infestations, and provide researchers population data. But these bedpost traps are also good control tools: In 10 weeks capturing 50% of the 8 to 1,103 bedbugs per one-bedroom apartment in Indiana. Though bedbugs can still crawl up from walls or behind headboards if a bed is flush against them, or even drop from ceilings.

Unlike “moat” traps surrounding bedposts, interceptor traps have a small container (which Wang fills with 20 ml of antifreeze for insect collection) inside of a larger container that Wang fills with an insecticidal formulation of diatomaceous earth. Future bedbug traps may also be able to take advantage of recently discovered airborne bedbug aggregation pheromones.

At the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Roberto Pereira and others are working on heat fumigation to kill bedbugs. When test tubes containing bedbugs are placed in 111-113 F (44-45 C) hot tubs, these hardy insects survive an amazing 2 to 6 hours.

However, specialized pest control companies in the southern California counties of San Diego and Orange routinely use heat (hot air) fumigation instead of chemical pesticides against drywood termites embedded deep in wooden structures. It requires skill to arrange fans to circulate hot air in buildings. Temperature readings inside the wood are needed every half hour or so to calculate the heat dose needed to cook the insects. If it can be done economically with termites living in walls, heat fumigation can also be done with bedbugs. But expect stiff resistance to heat technologies from established companies with large fixed investments in traditional chemical fumigation skills and equipment.

A cheaper alternative to whole room or whole building heat fumigation is relatively low-cost portable heat chambers. Small heat chambers (e.g. constructed of foam boards) costing $400 or less are already used by the hotel industry, shelters and others to disinfest furnishings. In Florida, portable heat chambers stop the annual spread of bedbugs on preowned beds and furnishings purchased by students. Hospitals have used heat to disinfest wheelchairs of patients too sensitive for pesticide treatments.

Silverfish & Firebrats

SILVERFISH AND their heat-loving firebrat cousins attract surprisingly little research interest despite being major worldwide pests and chewing up rare book and paper collections along with food and textiles. But University of California, Riverside, entomologists are developing a renown for venturing into overlooked urban and domestic pest control realms. For her UCR Masters thesis, Mirtza Millard, an accomplished SciFi and Fantasy book illustrator, followed in the 17th-century footsteps of English microscope pioneer Robert Hooke. Hooke’s 1665 book Micrographia featured a lavishly illustrated chapter titled “To the small Silvery Bookworm.”

Millard, who is leaving behind Riverside firebrats and silverfish to study Texas ants, recommends baiting and trapping strategies rather than conventional pesticide sprays. Though pyrethroid and diatomaceous earth insecticides are often helpful, silverfish and firebrats may be repelled and go into hiding in cracks and crevices when surfaces are sprayed with conventional pesticides.

Fipronil, carbaryl or avermectin formulated into egg noodle and dog food baits work well against firebrats in lab tests; boric acid, indoxacarb and imidacloprid were not so effective. Conventional ant and cockroach baits (e.g. hydramethylnon) may be tasted (scraped on the outside), but are ineffective because they are not eaten. At UCR, Millard found that small particle (0.25-0.4 mm) baits made from grinding up high-protein egg noodles worked better than large particle and starchier baits.

Millard traps these wingless, crawling insects in small glass jars ringed with a sticky surface on the outside to make it easy for the pests to crawl inside. Once over the top of the jar, the insects lack wings to fly and cannot crawl out over the steep slick glass surface. It is similar to when silverfish seeking moisture and humidity get trapped in bathtubs and sinks and futilely try to crawl out.

Jar traps are best placed near cracks and crevices and in corners near foraging sites. It takes trial and error to master trap placement and figure out foraging sites. So try placing the small glass jar traps in different corners and near cracks and crevices until the best trap placement is learned. Numbers trapped may be small, as the insects cluster together mainly to mate, lay eggs and keep warm (via body heat) when it is cold.

Coffee Grounds for Mosquito Control

RECYCLE BIODEGRADABLE coffee grounds and simultaneously knockdown mosquitoes vectoring dengue, yellow fever, West Nile virus, malaria and other diseases. Hermione Bicudo at Universidade Estadual Paulista in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has been working towards that goal since the early 1980s. Mosquito control alternatives are needed, as mosquitoes are rapid, prolific breeders that rapidly develop resistance to pyrethroid, organophosphate and other types of insecticides.

Bicudo’s lab began studying caffeine effects on Drosophila fruit flies in the early 1980s. Drosophila fruit flies are a model insect widely used from the early twentieth century to unravel the mysteries of inheritance and genetics. Caffeine has been used relatively safely for centuries, and is found in medicines, cosmetics and food and beverages like coffee, tea, guarana and chocolate. Used coffee grounds are a ubiquitous waste product in modern caffeinated societies.

A resurgence of yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, in Brazil prompted Bicudo’s lab to test whether deleterious caffeine effects on Drosophila fruit flies (e.g. less frequent mating, less egg laying capacity, shorter life spans) might also slow mosquito population growth. Approximately four full soup spoons of used coffee grounds in a 250 mL glass of water killed 100% of aquatic mosquito larvae. This translated into fewer adult mosquitoes (the biting, blood-sucking stage) and less new mosquito egg laying (thus, lower mosquito populations over time). Used coffee grounds also have fertilizer value for plants, and can be dusted onto Bromeliads and other garden plants (possibly also puddles, ponds, tree holes, used tire breeding sites, etc.) where accumulated water forms potential mosquito breeding sites.

In contrast to other researchers, Bicuda’s lab found that caffeine solutions became more effective against mosquitoes with age. Day-old caffeine solutions took 20 days to kill 100% of mosquito larave; 25-day old caffeine solutions killed 100% of mosquito larvae in 1 day. Combined with elimination of mosquito breeding sites, used coffee grounds or caffeine solutions could prove very useful in IPM (integrated pest management) programs to slow pesticide resistance and reduce mosquito breeding.

Beneficials Sweet on Alyssum

INTERPLANTING SWEET alyssum (Lobularia maritima) is an excellent way to promote natural biocontrol of a wide array of landscape, orchard, field and garden pests like aphids, stinkbugs, leaf and fruit worm caterpillars, etc. Companion planting has ancient roots, figuring in the writings of the Greek Theophrastus in 300 B.C. and the Roman Pliny (Plinius Secundus) in 1 A.D. Though popular in organic gardening and farming, floral interplants escaped serious scientific scrutiny until recent years.

Australia’s wine grape growers are among those who take their sweet alyssum companion plantings very seriously. At Australia’s EH Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation ecological engineers and entomologists like Geoff Gurr of Charles Sturt University are fine-tuning companion planting. Firstly, you need to choose companion interplants that supply nectar, shelter and other resources to beneficial predators and parasites but not to pest species.

The Aussies focused their scientific studies on a Trichogramma species parasitizing and destroying the eggs of the lightbrown apple moth (Epiphyas postvittana), a key pest of Australian vineyards. In “clean” vineyards where weeds and ground covers are destroyed by herbicides or cultivation, biocontrol species like Trichogramma may survive as few as two days, versus three days with water only and up to 20 days with sweet alyssum (the best ground cover tested). Alyssum flowers doubled the number of moth eggs parasitized over a 10 day period. In contrast, when the alyssum plants were deflowered the Trichogramma perished and there was little biocontrol.

But there is more to the story. “Not only is plant species important, but the cultivar within the species is critical,” Gurr told an Entomological Society of America annual meeting. For example, Trichogramma survive far longer on white-flowered alyssum cultivars compared to purple and other colors. Alyssum also boosted predators without aiding the apple moths, which was not the case for every ground cover interplant tested.

Most landscape and cropping systems have not been subjected to the same level of ecological and laboratory investigation as Australian wine grapes. Thus, Rincon-Vitova and other insectaries selling beneficial insects generally recommend blends of flowering plants supplying floral nectar throughout the season.

Beating the Bed Bug Blues

“SUCH BUGS and goblins in my life,” said Shakespeare’s Hamlet during the medieval era when “bug” meant bed bug. Indeed, bedbugs have been part of the human condition from prehistoric times. By 400 B.C. the ancient Greeks were scratching bedbug bites and singing the Big Bed Bug Blues. Bat caves, bird nests and animal barns are the natural habitats supporting bed bugs and their goblin-like natural enemies like itch mites, assassin bugs, assorted ants, centipedes, and spiders.

Though bedbug biocontrol by the currently-known crop of natural enemies seems better left to the Batcave and more rustic outdoorsy habitats, natural ecological principles still apply in human dwellings. Contrary to the DDT-nostalgia (interestingly, lacking scientific citations) infesting Wikipedia, pesticides cannot substitute for human smarts in fighting bedbugs. Even in the heyday of DDT bed bugs were hard to kill and there was pesticide resistance, Clemson University urban entomologist Eric Benson told an Entomological Society of America (ESA) annual meeting. Indeed, overdoing pesticides is likely to kill natural enemies and stimulate outbreaks of new indoor pests (e.g. rat mites).

An integrated pest management (IPM) approach pits human ingenuity and a multiplicity of tactics against bedbugs. Shripat Kamble of the University of Nebraska told an ESA annual meeting of traditional bedbug remedies rememebered from a childhood in India: “People commonly used in the summertime heat treatment. Keeping the cot outside in the hot sun,” and shaking the bed so the bugs spilled onto bare ground hot enough to kill. “Another treatment that was commonly done was boiling water, and then pouring boiling water through all the hiding areas of the bed bugs…A lot of times it worked, and sometimes we still had problems.”

Nobody, not even the professionals, has a surefire remedy guaranteed to work against bedbugs every time in every household. Like Shakespeare and the ancient Greeks, bedbugs are likely to remain a part of the modern human condition.

Ticks are a Drag

TRADITIONAL BIOCONTROL by natural enemies is notably sparse for pesky tick species vectoring Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, brucellosis and other maladies of man and animal. Pesticide spraying selects for robust pesticide-resistant ticks. Hence, alternatives are needed. Recognizing reality, the USDA-CSREES through competitive grants is funding an international group developing a biological approach stimulating natural immunity.

Immunity via vaccines is more commonly associated with microbial diseases like polio, smallpox, measles, mumps, flu and yellow fever, not insects or arthropods like ticks. But Jose de la Fuente of Oklahoma State University and his international colleagues have a good track record with a widely used vaccine for cattle ticks (Boophilus spp.). By virtue of hosting fewer ticks, cattle with tick immunity have less of the diseases transmitted by ticks. The molecular biology is explained in journals like Veterinary Research Communications.

While this is all well and good for cattle ranchers, TICK DRAGS are a non-chemical home alternative to rid yards and grassy areas of ticks potentially transmitting Lyme and other diseases to cats, dogs and people. Tick drags consist of a piece of white flannel cloth with an attached handle or rope for dragging across grass and other low vegetation to capture ticks.

Tick drags were originally developed as a research methodology for sampling tick populations. Rincon-Vitova co-founder Everett “Deke” Dietrick, an astute applied ecologist, played a role in the transformation of tick drags from research methodology to practical home remedy. Many years ago at an Entomological Society of America annual meeting in Boston, a very frustrated researcher was complaining that the white flannel tick drag removed too many ticks during the first sweep and not enough ticks were left to get statistically significant numbers for his pesticide tests. Deke raised his hand and asked if his daughter in Texas could “repurpose” the tick drag as a backyard control device. The researcher said yes. Deke’s Q&A became part of my reporting of the ESA annual meeting, and the news spread rapidly.

The Fly Swatter

SWATTING FLIES may be a reflexive reaction to being pestered, as when bothered cattle swish their tails. Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs are usually depicted next to a high court official carrying a fly whisk. Whether nature or nurture, it is a strange news week indeed when PBS’s McLaughlin Group airs two video clips (White House Fly Swatting & PETA Protest) and discusses FLY CONTROL.

Democrat Lawrence O’Donnell said: “I completely support the president in this particular engagement.” Conservative commentator Monica Crowley opined: “The Dalai Lama would have patiently abided the fly.” Newsweek commentator Eleanor Clift acknowledged the human swatting instinct and liked PETA’s suction FLY TRAP but said: “I do have trouble killing a fly in my house. I generally open the door, try to let him out, and others come in.” Former independent presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan had the last laugh: “When you and I were kids, our parents used to UNROLL THAT FLY PAPER and all the flies stuck to it, and then you took it out and put it in the garbage.”

Real world fly control is a numbers game.  Catch (or trap) and release works better for trout in a mountain stream than for nuisance flies. What if the Prez had captured the nuisance fly and patiently taken it to the park across the street from the White House, and released it on a fresh pat of dog doo with full Secret Service protection from the environment and natural enemies?  The famous biologist Antony van Leeuwenhoek calculated that one female fly could produce 750,000 progeny in 3 months if unchecked by the environment and natural enemies (including man).

Another entomologist calculated that one female fly could beget 250 thousand billion offspring in a year. That could promote full employment by supporting a large fulltime army armed with fly swatters or catch-and-release suction traps (take your pick). DDT and pesticides were once widely seen as the remedy, but any organism reproducing as rapidly as nuisance flies becomes rapidly resistant to pesticides. Which is why Rincon-Vitova and others in the natural fly control biz usually recommend an IPM (Integrated Pest Management) approach combining remedies like traps, sticky tape and natural enemies. Entomologists like Fred Legner of the University of California, Riverside, decades ago searched nuisance fly homelands (e.g. Africa) for natural enemies and pioneered biocontrol with Spalangia and Muscidifurax species.

Modern Biocontrol Born in Los Angeles in 1888

The ROOTS of modern biocontrol began not far from Rincon-Vitova’s Ventura insectary. The year was 1888. The place was downtown Los Angeles, where Union Station now stands. Before there was a movie industry or a modern metropolis, L.A. was renowned for its picture post card citrus orchards. However, southern California was pulling out its citrus orchards, as the pesky cottony cushion scale (insect) was killing the trees. Even covering trees with tarps and pumping in fumigant pesticides did not help.

Charles Riley, the USDA’s chief entomologist in Washington D.C., enlisted Alfred Koebele, a German entomologist residing in Los Angeles, to test the then novel theory of biocontrol. Riley theorized that exotic insects became pests in new lands by escaping the biocontrol organisms (e.g. predators, parasites, pathogens) keeping them at low numbers (in ecological balance) in their native homeland. Thus, the solution was going to the native homeland of the pest and importing native natural enemies to recreate the natural ecological balance.

Riley persuaded the state of California to put up $5,000 in expense money for Koebele to search Australia and New Zealand for cottony cushion scale natural enemies. Koebele started the first field insectary in 1888, placing 500 imported Vedalia lady beetles under netting covering a citrus tree at the J.W. Wolfskill ranch in downtown Los Angeles. Similar field insectaries were started at the J.R. Dobbins and A. Scott Chapman ranches in San Gabriel.

The media proclaimed it a MIRACLE, as the Vedalia beetles cleaned up the scale insect pests. The citrus industry was saved. Millions of beetles grew from the original 500. People came on weekend outings to the insectary orchards to pray, thank God for the miracle, and collect and spread the beetles around southern California.

That’s how modern biocontrol started in southern California in 1888, and then spread around the world.