The best place to apply granular or liquid insecticides is on a healthy lawn, mulch or foliage. Sweep any excess product back into the lawn or the original container for later use.

Ten years ago the most common lawn and garden insecticides for consumers contained the active ingredients diazinon and chlorpyrifos (Dursban).  These insecticides were popular because of their relatively quick kill, effectiveness against a wide range of pests, and ability to keep killing for several days to weeks or months.  Today those older products have been completely replaced with a group of insecticides known as pyrethroids.

Pyrethroids were judged to be safer both to people and the environment, however recent research has turned up some problems with pyrethroid use that gardeners should be aware of. New studies have shown that pyrethroid insecticides, which are not very water soluble–but do stick very tightly to soil, are increasingly being found in the sediments of urban creeks and streams.  Though not directly toxic to fish, these residues have been shown to be toxic to some invertebrate animals that live in stream bottoms.  This is an ecological concern because these benthic invertebrates form the base of the food chain in streams.  Kill the little critters at the bottom of the food chain and life all the way up to fish and wading birds are affected.

No one really knows for sure who is applying these insecticides that are ending up in streams, but we do know that any time pyrethroids are applied to impervious surfaces (sidewalks, driveways, the siding of homes and even bare soil, the chance of rainwater washing these pesticides attached to soil or dust is much higher.  For this reason, the Environmental Protection Agency is requiring new changes in the labels of professional and consumer packages of pyrethroids.

Much of the new wording on Pyrethroid Labels will be found in the sections on “Environmental Hazards Statements” and general “Directions for Use”, and they replace current wording with stronger wording to users of the products to avoid any application that would allow that product to move off of the intended site of use. One of the most common forms of misapplication by home users is likely applying pyrethroid granular products to sidewalks and driveways, or bare soil, where they can be washed into storm drains.

Using a pesticide is not necessarily bad for the environment, but it does require a few additional precautions:

• Sweep up excess granular insecticides from sidewalks, curbs and driveways.  Dispose of the granules on soil with vegetation or mulch; or if labeled for such use, apply to a pesky fire ant mound.
• Don’t apply insecticides to bare soil, especially before expected rain, as this increases the chance of contaminated soil eroding into streams where it is not wanted.
• Water-in insecticide applications made to soil immediately.  This is the most effective, and environmentally sound, way to apply granular or spray products for fire ants, white grubs and other soil pests.
• Avoid mixing or disposing of insecticide near a storm drain or curb gutter, and never pour excess insecticide into a sink or storm drain.  This is one of the surest ways for a pesticide to get into natural waterways. Pesticides are not easily removed from waste water, and storm drains empty directly into our rivers and lakes.
• Maintain an untreated buffer of 10 feet or more around streams and ponds when using liquid or granular insecticides.
• Always follow label directions carefully. The label is not merely a set of guidelines for use, it’s a legally binding document. Using more than the label directs, or using a pesticide in any manner not specified on the label, is a violation of federal law. 

I may be one of the few Americans who didn’t see this ad when it came out during the Superbowl (I missed the first half), but since one of our pest management agents forwarded it this week, I am now up-to-speed.

The animation on the ad is impressive, and the artists obviously did their homework in designing their lovable bugs. I identified a caterpillar, bumble bee, ants, two kinds of grasshopper, lady beetles, a praying mantis, dragonfly, and (the star of the lineup, in my opinion) a jumping spider–all rendered pretty accurately from an anatomical perspective, if not a behavioral one.

It’s fun to see insects being included in popular culture, especially when people are encouraged to see the world from a new (insect) perspective.  But in real life cars are not especially kind to insects.  Some of you may remember that about a year ago Dutch biologist Arnold van Vliet decided to estimate annual insect mortality due to cars.  After enlisting 250 drivers and counting insect mortality on a small part of each car (the license plate), he estimated nearly a trillion insect fatalities caused by cars every six months in the Netherlands alone.  Extrapolated to the U.S., where we drive our 200 million cars about 2.5 trillion miles annually, blogger Stephen Messenger estimates this would mean we’re killing around 32.5 trillion insects on the front grills of our Tahoes, Camrys and Ford F-150s each year.

Chevrolet may be doing the insect world little good by introducing its fancy new sports car, but at least its ad is clever.

None of my children showed the slightest interest in being an entomologist when they grew up. In some ways I don’t blame them. I know very few rich or famous entomologists. You probably won’t be asked to sit on a bank board, or have a hospital wing named after you.  But entomology does have its benefits as seen in a new brochure published today by the Entomological Society of America.

I remember that when I informed my father that I had decided that I wanted to become an entomologist, he was not impressed. His response was something along the lines of, “Well, what will you do with that?” This brochure from the ESA is designed to answer that question a lot better than I’m sure I did those many years ago.

Although entomology is not an overly glamorous profession (we do get parts in TV and movies on occasion), entomologists do some amazing work and often have a lot of fun in the meantime.  As the brochure explains, medical entomologists fight disease and save lives, veterinary entomologists prevent animal disease, agricultural entomologists help farmers in developed and developing countries thrive, and we urban entomologists help diagnose and safely manage pests of homes, schools and businesses.

So if you have a son or daughter with an interest in science and biology, this may be something you could pass along.  After all, you could do worse than to raise an entomologist–they might become politicians!

Witches broom symptoms of rose rosette. Reddening of affected leaves is seen on some plants.

Last July I posted a story about rose rosette disease, which seemed to be on the rise during the summer.  A recent update to the scientific understanding has been posted by Oklahoma State University that supports the theory that RR is a virus-caused disease and preserves the notion that eriophyiid mites may be a prime force behind disease spread.

I’m not enough of a virologist to judge the strength of the research, but the story provides a little bit of insight into how scientific knowledge advances.  New knowledge often comes with false starts and surprising discoveries; but given time it is self correcting.

Stricken honey bee with two emerging Apocephalus borealis (Diptera: Phoridae) emerging from the junction of its neck and thorax (from Andrew Core et. al 2011).

This accumulation of multiple stresses is, in fact, the current best guess by bee researchers on what is causing the much dreaded “colony collapse disorder”, or CCD.  Often cited as one of the signs of the apocalypse, along with global warming, catastophic oil spills, nuclear meltdowns and earthquakes, CCD is proof enough for many people that ecological disasters lurk around the next corner.

As if honey bees didn’t have a hard enough life, now comes a report from San Francisco State University about another possible emerging threat to honey bees.

Andrew Core and California colleagues published results this week in online journal PloS ONE about a tiny fly, Apocephalus borealis, found attacking honey bee colonies in the San Francisco area.  The fly, a relative of South American phorid flies that attack fire ants, had originally been recorded as a naturally-occurring parasite of bumble bees here in North America.  However the researchers note that, despite the fact that honey bees have been meticulously observed and studied over the years, no one has previously seen these phorid parasites attacking honey bees.

Like the fire ant-attacking phorids, these bee phorids pounce on foraging workers and deftly lay an egg in between the segments on the bee’s abdomen.  Within a week or two, fully developed wasp larvae can be found emerging from the neck of the deceased honey bee.  The study showed that before meeting their grisly end, infected bees would leave the hive at night and die outside of the colony.  Such behavior is also seen in bees affected by CCD, although the researchers do not believe that CCD and the phorid flies are related.

The fact that these parasites have never before been observed attacking honey bees lead the authors to conclude that this may be an example of a relatively new phenomenon, one that might be bad news to our increasingly beleaguered beekeepers (Note: In case you missed it here, these bee parasites are not the result of phorid flies imported for fire ant control.  The bee-attacking phorid fly species has apparently been here in North America for a long time, but the authors of this study theorize that, in a twist of evolutionary opportunism, this native fly has developed a new taste for honey bees in addition to bumble bees–their long-time prey.).

Amid all this bad news about honey bees, it’s important to know that, at least in Texas, wild honey bee populations appear to be in little danger of going away.  Honey bees have weathered many biological and human assaults in the past and will likely survive phorid flies too.  The ones to feel a little sorry for are our worried beekeepers and farmers who depend on strong bee colonies for a livelihood and who provide us with tasty nuts, fruit and honey.

The most common Texas scorpion, the striped bark scorpion (Centruroides vittatus), has a painful sting but is not deadly.

Scorpions are one of those icons of life in Texas. It’s hard to imagine Texas without its droughts, twisters and hurricanes, floods and venomous wildlife. But when it comes to scorpions, Texas is not the riskiest place to live. Arizona and parts of New Mexico are home to the deadliest scorpion, and the target of a new antidote called Anascorp, recently approved by the FDA.

Marketed as the first antidote for scorpion stings, Anascorp, Centruroides (Scorpion) Immune F(ab’)2 (Equine) Injection, is made from the plasma of horses immunized with scorpion venom.

A sting from the Arizona bark scorpion, Centruroides sculpturatus, can cause shortness of breath, fluid buildup in the lungs, respiratory problems, blurred vision, swallowing difficulties, abnormal eye movements, walking problems, coordination difficulties, and excess saliva. Infants and children are most at risk, and should probably be the primary users of the new drug.

If you encounter a scorpion in your home, don’t panic.  Place a glass or jar over the scorpion, slide a card or stiff piece of paper underneath and flip over.  You can then take the scorpion outside to safer pastures, or destroy it humanely.  If stung by one of our Texas scorpions, expect some pain; but unless you notice signs of an allergic reaction, symptoms should go away relatively soon.  For more information about scorpions see our Scorpion factsheet E-362.

Two famous microbes, the amoeba and the Paramecium, next to a fairy wasp, Megaphragma mymaripenne, one of the smallest insects. Credit: Alexey Polilov

The fairy wasp is widely referred to as the smallest insect. Fairy wasps are parasites on the eggs of other insects.  The supposedly smallest fairy wasp species is Dicopomorpha echmepterygis, a Costa Rican species that parasitizes the eggs of a barklouse–an insect that itself is barely visible to the untrained eye.  The males of Dicopomorpha echmepterygis are thought to be no more than 139 micrometers long–smaller than a Paramecium.

The wasp in the picture, at 200 microns-long,  is slightly larger than Dicopomorpha, and was published to illustrate a recent study that shows that small size comes at a cost.  It seems that Megaphragma mymaripenne goes to the extreme length of shedding nuclei in its nerve cells to help achieve its minute size.  That’s the insect equivalent of a filed down toothbrush for a backpacker, or a sprinter shaving his head to get a faster speed on the track.  You’ve got to admire their commitment.

Just like the unfathomable distances of space, measurements of smallness are difficult for most of us to comprehend.  If you are reading this at a desk, search around and look for a ruler.  Now look at the metric side of the ruler.  The smallest markings there are millimeters (mm), 1/1000ths of a meter (39 inches for us unenlightened Americans).  Of the insects and mites that come across my desk for identification, the smallest that people see and send in are usually in the 1-2 mm range.  These include some mites, thrips, booklice, and even a few very small beetles.  The periods at the end of these sentences on your computer screen are about 1/3 to 1/2 of a millimeter.

A micrometer (also called a micron) is 1/1000 of one of a millimeter.  So fairy wasps are about 1/5 the length of a millimeter.  Pretty small.  That’s about 1/3 the width of the period at the end of this sentence.  A human hair, for comparison, averages about 100 microns in diameter (1/10 mm).

I’m battling a cold at the moment, caused by a virus that is probably only about 20 nanometers across.  A nanometer is 1/1000th of a micron, or one one-millionth of a millimeter.

Obviously small doesn’t mean unimportant.  Many of the world’s tiniest insects have extremely important roles in the ecosystem.  In the case of fairy wasps, their role is helping control other tiny insects.  Many of our most important beneficial insects are small–1/1000th the size of a lady beetle or less.

I guess the point of all this is that size does not equal importance.  Science is showing us that the tiny things in this world, that so many of us seem to think beneath our dignity, are actually beyond our comprehension.

John saw fly tying as an exciting blend of art and the science of entomology.  Part of his class consisted of learning about the biology and classification of aquatic insects.  Aquatic insects, of course, are the models for most flies used in fly fishing.

If you are a fly-tier, or interested in getting into fly tying, check out the auction at Lone Star Auctions.  When you go to the site, search on the term “fishing” to see the 20 lots.  Each lot includes two vises, hooks, and an assortment of other items used for fly tying. Given the current shortage of feathers due to the latest hair fashion craze, this could be a good deal.  The auction is open to the public and runs until November 16.  For additional information, contact Kathy Seaton (979-845-9742) or Sherry Boyd (979-846-9743).

I know John would be pleased to see these supplies used to create beautiful fishing lures.

The tiny spartina bug, Ischnodemus falicus, emerges from cordgrass to become an occasional pest around homes.

Try as we might, we can’t escape nature.

That might be the lesson for many folks who live near rural areas in east and central Texas.  This week I’ve had several calls about a small black insect invading homes.  Scientifically it’s known as Ischnodemus falicus, a member of the Lygaeid or seed bug family.

This insect has been invading homes in Tyler and the northeastern Texas counties and has also been reported from the College Station area.  It is an example of a typical fall invader–not dangerous or damaging apart from making itself a nuisance by invading our homes.

Ischnodemus is reportedly a feeder on cordgrass, Spartina spp., which grows along lake and pond edges or in poorly drained bottom soil, eg. bar ditches or old pond beds.  They can become locally abundant, sometimes after these grasses have been mowed.  They are attracted by lights, and may be drawn in large numbers to house lights and lighted windows.   They are small enough to squeeze in around doors and windows.

Fortunately, these handsome bugs don’t do any damage either to the home or to outdoor garden plants.  They are a reminder, however, that none of us are really that far from nature.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Before you water your trees, check your community’s watering restrictions.  Sprinklers or unattended hoses watering around trees may not be legal on a given day.  Even with watering restrictions, however, most cities allow you to water trees with drip irrigation or soaker hoses, or by hand.  Be sure by checking your local municipal website.

If you notice unusual weeping, or small holes appearing in the bark of a favorite tree, check out the recommendations for borer control in Extension Publication B-5086.