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).
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).
Extremely useful information which you have shared here. This is a great way to enhance knowledge for us, and also helpful for us. Thankful to you for sharing an article like this.Rat control adelaide
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