Ants Mis-information and Mis-communication

I was truly amazed by the recent site visit I did with my team at a very classy and reputable school here in Dubai. We conducted a spot inspection on the site and discuss our findings and recommendations to the client. During our conversation, the client shared with me that she also had a pest service done at her apartment against ants. She was wondering why after the treatment their were so many dead ants on the floor. According to her, the pest control service people told her that "as the ants are dying from the poison, the live or remnant ants are throwing the dead ants away from the nest". The dead ants she is seeing on the floor were the individuals evicted from the nest, discarded by their own heartless sisters.

After hearing her story, I could not help myself, I need to tell her how mis-informed she was and how the company which conducted the pest service for her apartment are spreading lies and does not even know what they are talking about. I continued our discussion by stressing to her that ants do not throw the dead members away from the nest, in contrast, ants are the most efficient and diligent foragers. They will readily gather up any dead insects (even members of their own colony) and utilized them as ready food source. To these busy foragers, all protein and chitinous materials are game. You also need to add to that the bits of sugar, seeds and your itsy bitsy food crumbs.

Furthermore, I also shared the process and effect of  an ant treatment, assuming that the pesticide applied during the treatment is an ant gel bait, as ants are taking in the gel bait, they are directly ingesting the toxic material. Ants have a feeding and social behavior that involves the mouth to mouth transfer of regurgitated food (that is why you often see ants touching their mouths as if kissing each other), also they can share food from exuding liquids from special glands near the tip of their abdomen (close to thier behinds) in a process called trophallaxis. Through the process of mouth to mouth sharing of food and via trophallaxis, the ants are spreading the toxicant, as the poison is working through their individual guts, it is systematically reducing the members of the colony. To say the words of a popular song  "killing them softly!

Contact poisons and residual insecticides have a different mode of killing than the ant gel baits. I will be sharing the details on the next articles.

Sadly, due to ease of getting into the pest service band-wagon, there are a lot of pest service providers out in the market who dont have the right science behind their business. The concept is, as long as they can form a team that can carry a sprayer, they can now render pest service.
       
This is the sad state of the pest service industry, there are a lot of mis-information about bugs, about pesticides and about the practice of pest management going on. This situation becomes even more complicated because their are a lot of residential and commercial clients who readily accept the statements of the pest service technicians as gospel truth!

This is where the trained professional must come in. We must bring back the science of entomology and pest management into the pest service industry. Training, continuous training and sharing of information to the team members and the the concern clients must be a primary concern. The pest service technician must work and live by its name (technician - a person who knows and has the skills for a specific subject or occupation).                          

The Art of Moving and Leading Forward

A great deal of the Samurai bug's duties upon taking his new assignment is to ensure that his men are moving forward with their tasks and to lead them and inspire them to push thru with their assigned tasks. Move Forward and Lead Forward!

Easier said than done... considering that I have a multi-racial, multi-language team, with personnel that have varying levels of skills, education and professional experience, with diverse attitudes, temperaments, internal conflicts and frustrations!

Being out in the field, I was able to observe and learn of our field personnel's attitude toward service, communication, passion and the love for work.

It is really easy to recognise the stark difference, if the staff you are working with have the heart and the passion to do what he is task to do or if he is just making and waiting for the time to finish the task. I really admire those with a constant "fire in their belly", relentless, passionate and focus. But there are also the 5:01 crew who are always looking at the clock, even when in the field, more conscious of the time that they need to finish the job than the actual quality of work upon finishing the job.

Another observation I would like to highlight is that some people are outrightly creative and innovative in their approach to work, while others are just content of being in a "duh" moment, "I duhnno, I duh'nt care, I duh want". Most of the time, those who are in the "duh moment" stage  are the ones who are always reasoning out, always complaining and to put it blatantly, these are the sloths! Sloths which prefer the easy way out and the quickest way out of their schedules so that they can come back into their beloved tree or branch for their "snooze"!

Well this is the exciting and challenging part of leading men into battle, sometimes you cannot choose those who will be asigned in your regiment. The commander needs to initially take all those in his fold and establish his command. As he is establishing his command, he builds up  and molds his team into that effective fighthing force, he also begins to root out and point out if there are scalawags among the ranks. This is the most challenging part of establishing the command, getting rid of the reprobates!  But this needs to be done or else the bad tomato(es) will ruin the whole contents of the basket!

Moving forward and leading forward!       





 

A different festival of light, life and love

Today is a very special day! For the Indian populace here in Dubai, they are celebrating Diwali, a colorful and amazing festival of light and life. For our Muslim brothers, it is the Hajri, Islamic New Year, the start of a new life under the guidance and blessing of the Almighty God. So the fun, the color, the fireworks and the sweets are filling up the whole city of Dubai.

The loud fireworks are breaking the silence of the Dubai night, the bright and colorful lights adoring the apartment buildings are truly a sight to behold. Its constantly reminding of the coming Christmas season.

I had a large dose of sweets today, courtesy of our Indian friends and on top of that starting tomorrow we will be having a long rest day weekend in celebration of the coming Islamic New Year! Looks like the samurai bug will be having some time for rest and hopefully exploration time as well.

Personally, it is also a very special day because my beloved lady samurai bug and I are celebrating our union and her wonderful birth!  I am truly amazed and blessed that her birthday and our anniversary concided with these two special occassions, the festival of life and light and also the start of the year ushering blessings, hope and prosperity. May this coming season for us be filled with love, life and the goodness of the Almighty God.   

new city, new assignment, new adventures

After having been detailed in the Oases City for more than a year, I was given the chance to hit it big at the Las Vegas of the Middle East.. the captivating city of Dubai! New City, New Assignment, New Adventures.

After the wait, the anticipation, I am now more than two weeks moving forward into the new assignment. An assignment I will describe as challenging, requiring a lot of guts and the forging tactical alliances. This new job role is definitely not for the faint in heart!

After all they will not call Dubai, Las Vegas in steriods for nothing!!

Indeed God is good and gracious, He has allowed this samurai bug to transcend the lab and the training room to be back in the actual battlefields and direct the troops to victory. I know that the gracious Lord has surrounded me with good people, the challenge here is to make them even better for the advancement of the cause of the company and for the glory of the Lord God Almighty!

As I re-start my blogging after more than a month hiatus, expect to recieved first hand accounts of the journeys of the samurai bug!   

  

Friday Food Overload

Another long work week is over. Well having atleast a day of rest and re-charging is nice. My idea of re-charging is loading up on my favorite food.

No running and training session for a day!

Friday is eat too much day! Friday is time for a food overload.

My food trip for today: chinese noodles, fried bananas, egg sondas, spring rolls and  a big bowl of assorted fruits, with a big jug of orange juice to push it all in.

Well you might call it over-over load, I have been just eating and munching all afternoon up to this evening.

Tomorrow, I need to get back to my running mode!    

Be committed to write!

Its nice to be back on the blog!

Got a little pre-occupied with a lot of exciting things recently that I missed writing out my musings.

Well as it is always said, "be committed to what you are doing! The need to write must always be satisfied! The busy mind should always have an outlet.

To sharpen the sword it must be wielded and use!



 

The process of waiting

For a well-trained warrior, the process of waiting is a quite a difficult ordeal. Its the uncertainty of things to come that makes this process somewhat tiring and a little bit disturbing. It's the thirst for action and movement that makes one uneasy if place on a corner and then be instructed to "wait for further developments or instructions".But if there is something I have learned from 'sentry duty', "patience is truly a virtue" and "good things come to those who know how to wait". 

As of press time, your Samurai Bug is awaiting clarity about the direction where he should be going and what will the scope of his new assignment. The journey is starting a little slow this week, still awaiting further instructions and notices from higher command (I might say). But what can one do in the face of these uncertainties, nothing else but hope and pray that "all things work our for the good". Hopefully as the new month starts, a clearer picture of things to come starts to appear.

Sense of Direction and Purpose

As a new explorer, trying to get one's bearings is quite a challenge!

The purpose and direction for the journey ahead needs to be established first.

Things the Samurai Bug must do on this journey:
1. Chronicle his encounters with the various creepy crawlies
2. Chronicle his encounters with this so-called "humans"
3. Chronicle his observations on the interactions, conflicts and all else in between that occurs between the creepy crawlies, the humans and their environment
4. Chronicle his travels, take a snap-shot and document notable features about the trip

With the 4 items of focus for the journey, it really looks and feels like this adventure will be something quite interesting!     

The start of the Samurai Bug's Journey

The Samurai bug has just broken out of its pupal case!
 It has been a long process of delopment inside the amazing transformation chamber. It is finally breaking free!
The image is somewhat blurry at the start, but as the multiple lenses of its eyes seek the light, the image is becoming clearer. Its sees a strange and new world out there..a strange and new world indeed. Its innate hunger for adventure, exploration and knowledge overcomes the creature...with a prayer it lunges itself into the unknown. The first steps out of the pupal case signals the start of the Samurai Bug Chronicles.