Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Another Pest Control Season is Here


In actuality the tri-state area around Evansville, Indiana, the season for pests of all kinds is a year around situation.  However, spring brings all of the hibernating bugs out for the summer and fall until winter.  Usually sometime in January after a snowfall and the temperature rises a little to melt the snow, water floods the ant colonies and with the slightly warmer climate the ants begin looking for dry shelter, food and fresh water.  This past week the mercury has risen to balmy weather that has brought on lots of rain that will drive ants out of the ground and into our homes or other shelters.  March is the time of the year that all sorts of bugs start their spring cycle followed by spiders.  All kinds of insects will soon be everywhere – wasps, worms and beetles of all kinds.  Honey bees and bumblebees will find the newly blossomed flowers as we begin to enjoy the renewed spring weather.

Sadly, all of these spring pests become problems for most of us and we begin to attempt to get these unwanted insects and spiders under control.  Nature helps a lot with predators like birds, spiders and other insects, but, often it is not enough!  It is time to get professional help to eliminate those stinging paper wasps and all of those flying bugs coming into the house every time a door is opened.

The best solution is to get the professionals on the job before the spring invaders take over.  ACCA Pest Control Professionals can provide a spring preventative outside-treatment that can head off most of these pesky bugs and spiders into the summer months.  Call ACCA at 812-879-8905 to schedule a spring exterior service.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Facts/Thoughts on Crawl Space Venting During the Winter

Since relative humidity  in air raises when it is cooled, it can be lowered when we heat the air.  During the winter we could open vents in our crawl space on a cool or wintery day bringing in near freezing air to mix with the much warmer air under our house that will significantly lower the relative humidity to 5% or less.  This dry air will begin to dry out the crawl space.  Granted the cooler outside air will lower the air temperature in the crawl space, but the wood and other materials will dry out and there will be no condensation.

Some of the negative side of this process includes: cold floors, cold drafts, and increased utility bills!

Monday, October 19, 2015

Busy Ants!


When I was a kid, I noticed that ants traveled around on trails going like crazy back and forth… busy, busy ants.  They were fascinating to me as an 8 year old!  For some childish reason, I decided to smash them with a nail hammer all along their trail.  I guess it was my bad side thinking I was doing some good to rid the world of these ants. 

So, I crawled along this very long line of ants, not paying any attention to Mom watching me nearby.  Mom called out to me: “What are you doing?”  While still hammering I retorted, “I am killing ants!”  Mom did not like me doing this.  She told me that these ants were not doing anything wrong and that they were beneficial to the world.  I said: “you do not like them when they come into the kitchen.”  She explained that sometimes beneficial insects become pests when they get in our way, but these insects are not in the way and not being a pest at all – they are just part of nature being productive to their colony.  She said that I was just wasting time, not doing anything productive. 

I am not sure I totally understood what she meant that day, but I have not killed any more ants unless they are being pests to people!  This brings to mind a quote from Henry David Thoreau who used ants to make a point about being productive: “It is not enough to be busy, so are ants.  The question is: What are we busy about?”

Saturday, September 12, 2015

How Good is an Electrical Sump Pump Without Power?

A sump pump without power is not going to pump much water out of your basement or crawl space!  Most of the time when we get water from outside it comes in at a good pace from a rain storm.  And, unfortunately, too often the electrical power goes out.  How is the electrical pump (without power) going to pump out that water before it floods the basement/crawl space?

It will not pump out any water when there is a power outage, unless you have an alternate source of power.  Two other sources of power are available: generators and batteries.  A disadvantage (not counting cost) of a generator is that you need to be present and awake to turn the generator on to start the pumping.  Batteries are generally less expensive and can be hooked up to automatically supply power when needed to activate the pump when the electrical power is off.

How much back-up power do you need?  That question can be best answered by our professional, certified specialists at ACCA... we can suggest what you will need and properly install it for you.  If you do not have a power back-up for your sump pump, call ACCA before the next rain storm to provide you with power protection and peace of mind.  Call 812-479-8905 to schedule a free inspection.  This would be a great time to test the pump to ensure it is working properly.

Monday, August 31, 2015

What About Mold on Basement Walls?


Before we can resolve mold problems on walls, we need to look at solving the causes.  We first must drain away all of the water from the basement floor.  Now let us look at the walls.  Basement walls allow water vapor to pass through them.  Block walls allow water vapor through easily because of their hollow cores and allow cold, damp outside air to pass through, as well.

Chances are those basement walls are damp, stained and nasty looking.  They are often stained from moisture, mineral and mold with shades of gray & black colors.  Mineral stains look ugly, too.  Most walls are chalky & flaky with peeling paint or other types of coatings.  There are several possible solutions or options for these ugly, nasty walls.

  • Use ZenWall paneling for a finished look without fully finishing the basement.
  • Use ThermalDry Wall System when you plan to finish the basement.
  • Use BrightWall paneling for an unfinished basement.
  • Use CleanSpace for stone walled, unfinished basements.

Will mold grow behind ZenWall, ThermalDry, BrightWall, or CleanSpace?  Mold will not grow on clean concrete or plastic.  Mold needs organic material such as wood, paper, cardboard, latex paint or just plain dirt for it to grow.  We must keep organic materials dry to keep mold from growing.  Inorganic materials like concrete, plastic, metal, glass, etc., should be used in places that can’t be kept dry.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Say What? No, Say Who!


Pictured here is the oil portrait by Charles Willson Peale of Thomas Say in the uniform of the first Long Expedition, 1819, from the Ewell Sale Stewart Library, The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.

Say who, Thomas Say… that is who!  He was an American naturalist (1787, Philadelphia, PA—1834, New Harmony, IN) who is the founder of descriptive entomology in America.  In fact, Thomas Say is considered the Father of American Entomology! Let me take you back in time, say (pun intended) to the early 1800s in southwest Indiana.

New Harmony is a historic town on the Wabash River in Harmony Township, Posey County, Indiana, United States. It lies 15 miles north of Mount Vernon, the county seat. It is part of the Evansville metropolitan area.

Established by the Harmony Society in 1814, the town was originally known as Harmony (also called Harmonie, or New Harmony). Bought at two dollars an acre, the 20,000 acre settlement was the brain child of George Rapp and was home to exclusively German Lutherans in its early years.  Here, the Harmonists built a new town in the wilderness, but in 1824 they decided to sell their property and return to Pennsylvania. Robert Owen, a Welsh industrialist and social reformer, purchased the town in 1825 with the intention of creating a new utopian community and renamed it New Harmony. While the Owenite social experiment was an economic failure just two years after it began, the community made some important contributions to American society.

New Harmony became known as a center for advances in education and scientific research. New Harmony's residents established the first free library, a civic drama club, and a public school system open to men and women. Its prominent citizens included Owen's sons, Indiana congressman and social reformer Robert Dale Owen, who sponsored legislation to create the Smithsonian Institution; David Dale Owen, a noted state and federal geologist; William Owen; and Richard Owen, state geologist, Indiana University professor, and first president of Purdue University. The town served as the second headquarters of the U.S. Geological Survey and numerous scientists and educators contributed to New Harmony’s intellectual community, including William Maclure, Marie Louise Duclos Fretageot, Thomas Say, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, Joseph Neef, Frances Wright, and others.

Now, all the way back to more modern times.  Over the last 25 years or so, as a Pest Control Professional, I maintained the monthly pest control program of most of the New Harmony’s historic buildings.  I do not ever recall any mention of Thomas Say… most of the other people mentioned above, I have known about them in detail.  I find it odd that I do not remember him discussed within my profession, either.  I have been familiar with entomology since I was a kid in 4-H, I took the entomology project, entering my display box of the insects I had collected and labeled at the county 4-H Fair.  I knew what too many others did not know that entomology is the study of insects, not the study of words (which is etymology).

I was a participant in the State 4-H Entomology Judging Contest held at Purdue University my last 2 years of being a 4-H’er.  Later in life, my kids took entomology in 4-H.  In all of this time I did not know of the Father of American Entomology, Thomas Say, who lived and died not far from where I have lived my whole life!  This is the purpose of this blog article: to ensure that southwest Indiana people learn about this famous individual.

Thomas Say was a self-taught naturalist.  At the age of 25, he became a charter member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Living frugally in the Academy building, Say took care of the museum and became a friend of William Maclure, President of the Academy from 1817 to 1840.

In 1818 Say accompanied Maclure and others members of the Academy on an expedition to the off-shore islands of Georgia and Florida. In 1819-20, Major Stephen H. Long led an exploration to the Rocky Mountains with Thomas Say as zoologist, and in 1823, Say served as zoologist in Long's expedition to the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

During the 1819-20 expedition, Say first described the coyote, swift fox, western kingbird, band-tailed pigeon, Say's phoebe, rock wren, lesser goldfinch, lark sparrow, lazuli bunting, and orange-crowned warbler.

Thomas Say accompanied William Maclure and other scientists and educators from Philadelphia on the famous "Boatload of Knowledge." The party arrived in New Harmony, Indiana, in January, 1826. One of the passengers was the artist Lucy Way Sistare, whom Say married secretly, near New Harmony, on January 4, 1827.

In New Harmony, Say continued his descriptions of insects and mollusks, culminating in two classics:

Thomas Say, American Entomology, or Descriptions of the Insects of North America, 3 volumes, Philadelphia, 1824-1828.

Thomas Say, American Conchology, or Descriptions of the Shells of North America Illustrated From Coloured Figures From Original Drawings Executed from Nature, Parts 1 - 6, New Harmony, 1830-1834; Part 7, Philadelphia, 1836. (Some of the illustrations in American Conchology were drawn by Mrs. Say.)

Say was a taxonomist, as were most of the early entomologists, and he described considerably more than 1,000 new species of beetles and over 400 insects of other orders, including species in every important insect order. A hasty check of his writings shows 404 new species definitely listed from Indiana, including eight orders.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, his work, which was almost entirely taxonomic, was quickly recognized by European zoologists.  Say accompanied various expeditions to North American territories, including an exploration of the Rocky Mountains led by Stephen Long in 1820. He served as curator of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia (1821–27), and was professor of natural history at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (1822–28). He was invited to join the experimental ideal community at New Harmony, Indiana. Although the community was disbanded in 1827, Say remained in the town, which grew as a cultural center.

Volumes of Say’s American Entomology, on which he began work in 1817, were published in 1824, 1825, and 1828. His American Conchology, 6 vol. (1830–34), was illustrated by Charles A. Le Sueur, a colleague in the New Harmony experiment. Collections of Say’s extensive writings in entomology, conchology, and paleontology were published after his death.

In her book, Thomas Say: New World Naturalist (Hardcover, 340 pages, published May 1st 1992 by University of Pennsylvania Press), Patricia Tyson Stroud states:

Explorer, pioneering natural scientist, and a founder of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, Thomas Say (1787-1834) devoted his life to establishing the authority of American scientists to name and describe their native flora and fauna (until then, specimens were sent to Europe for that purpose). He was the first to name and describe for science the coyote, plains grey wolf, and swift fox, in addition to several western birds and many amphibians. He ranks with William Bartram, Alexander Wilson, Thomas Nuttall, and John James Audubon as one of the great naturalists of early America. In the early nineteenth century, Say was successful in founding the sciences of entomology and conchology in the United States. He wrote the first book published in America on insects, American Entomology (1824-1828).



The Purdue University entomology department’s web site is supporting a movement to enact through the Indiana State Legislature, the creation of a state insect.  State Representatives Sue Scholer and Sheila Klinker are sponsoring a bill to name the Pyractomena angulate (Say) as the Indiana State Insect, known as Say’s firefly (or by many of us as a lightning bug).  It is, specifically, Say’s firefly that he described in New Harmony about 1824 that is being proposed.  Fireflies are widely known as beneficial, attractive and… enlightening!

Son of a wealthy Quaker merchant, Say himself chose to sacrifice material comforts for the sake of science and was chronically ill from the malnutrition he experienced as a young man. In the 1820s he followed British philosopher Robert Owen to Indiana, where Owen established the utopian community of New Harmony. While the utopian experiment failed and Owen returned to England, Say remained in New Harmony and made it the base for all his scientific expeditions. 

Each moss,
Each shell, each crawling insect, holds a rank
Important in the plan of Him who fram'd
This scale of being.

--Stillingfleet

This epigram graces the three-volume work American Entomology: or Descriptions of the Insects of North America (1824-28), the masterwork of Thomas Say (1787-1834), the Father of American Entomology.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Fireworks & Beetles!


July 4th. is all about Independence for the American Colonies and the forming of the United States of America.  We celebrate this day with picnics, parades and fireworks.  The other night I watched fireworks from our neighbors and noticed a few fireflies and thought back to the days as a kid catching lightning bugs in a jar and watching them glow.  I also remembered helping my kids catch these interesting blinking bugs in our back yard.  I thought I knew quite a bit about these little insects, but decided to do a little extra research to post for this blog.  I was pleasantly surprised by what was posted by Purdue's Entomology website about this beneficial flying nocturnal insect. http://www.entm.purdue.edu/entomology/outreach/firefly/

SUPPORT A STATE INSECT FOR INDIANA
Insects constitute 80% of the world's animal species, and they are critical to the ecological balance of our earth. Insects are decomposers and recyclers, serve as pollinators of flowering plants and are an important food source for many animals. Insects have been used in song and poetry, For instance, the only insect-related song to top the popular music charts was "Glowworm." Sung by the Mills Brothers, this rewrite of a German folk song was a Number One hit in the 1950's.  Robert Frost wrote in his poem "Fireflies in the Garden": Here come real stars to fill the upper skies, And here on earth come emulating flies. James Whitcomb Riley states: "And fireflies like golden seeds are sown about the night."  We have a state tree (the tulip poplar), a state flower (the peony), and a state bird (the cardinal). Indiana should join 40 other states that recognize the contribution insects make to the quality of our lives by also having an official state insect.

Fireflies (also known as "lightning bugs") are widely recognized as beneficial and cool insects. A firefly would be an excellent representative of Indiana's natural wildlife heritage. In addition the lure of fireflies has been shared by many generations of Hoosiers.
The magic of cold, living light production by fireflies has fascinated scientists for years. Understanding the chemistry of firefly light has resulted in the life-saving glow sticks that duplicate the light production system of this insect. Luciferin and luciferase have also been used in medical research as cancer and multiple sclerosis.
A Special Firefly
The firefly proposed as the official Indiana State Insect is Pyractomena angulata (Say), also known as "Say's Firefly." It was named by Indiana's eminent naturalist, Thomas Say, in 1824. Say lived and worked in New Harmony in Posey County, and is considered the Father of American Entomology. By naming this particular species as the state insect, we are also honoring one of the great figures in Indiana history.  Purdue has presented a strong case for fireflies to become Indiana’s State Insect!
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The University of Kentucky website:
WHAT IS A LIGHTNINGBUG?
Like all beetles, Lightningbugs, also called Fireflies, have chewing mouthparts and hardened front wings (elytra) that meet in a straight line down the back of the abdomen when closed.  Most lightningbugs have glowing abdomens, but even the species that do not glow are easily recognized by their elongated bodies, distinctive black-and-orange colors, and their hood-like "pronotums."  
 
All insects have a pronotum, the first plate on the top of the thorax, but lightningbugs have large pronotums which conceal the head when viewed from the top.  Lightningbugs are also unusual among beetles because their elytra, while more hardened than normal insect wings, are much softer than the elytra of most beetles.  Most lightningbug species are about 1/2-3/4" long, but some species are much smaller, at about 1/4".
MYTHS - LEGENDS - FOLKLORE
Because they are so noticable, lightningbugs have always been a part of human culture, and they have often been the subject of myth, legend, and folklore.  Europeans once believed that if a lightningbug flew in a window, a person would soon die.  The Chinese believed that lightningbugs were produced by burning grass.  Native Americans smeared glowing lightningbugs on their faces for decoration.  Japanese believed that fireflies represented the souls of the dead, an idea expressed in the animated movie, Grave of the Fireflies (1988).  There is also a novel called Fireflies (1970) by Shiva Naipaul.  In the book, a Trinidad man is fascinated by fireflies on his first trip to the countryside.

From the National Geographic Website: 
Fireflies are familiar insects that are actually beetles, nocturnal members of the family Lampyridae. There are about 2,000 firefly species. Fireflies love humid, moist regions of Asia and the Americas.

Many people don't know how the insects produce their signature glow. Fireflies have dedicated light organs that are located under their abdomens. The insects take in oxygen and, inside special cells, combine it with a substance called luciferin to produce light with almost no heat. Firefly light is usually intermittent, and flashes in patterns as an optical signal that attracts mates. Scientists are not sure how the insects regulate this process to turn their lights on and off. Firefly light may also serve as a defense mechanism that flashes a clear warning of the insect's unappetizing taste.

From Wikipedia:
The Lampyridae are a family of insects in the beetle order Coleoptera. They are winged beetles, and commonly called fireflies or lightning bugs for their conspicuous use of bioluminescence during twilight to attract mates or prey. Fireflies produce a "cold light", with no infrared or ultraviolet frequencies. This chemically produced light from the lower abdomen may be yellow, green, or pale red, with wavelengths from 510 to 670 nanometers.  Firefly luciferase is used in forensics, and the enzyme has medical uses — in particular, for detecting the presence of ATP or magnesium.

From NC State University Entomology website: http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/ent425/library/compendium/coleoptera.html 


The name Coleoptera, derived from the Greek words "koleos" meaning sheath and "ptera" meaning wings, refers to the modified front wings which serve as protective covers for the membranous hind wings.

Coleoptera (beetles and weevils) is the largest order in the class Insecta.  As adults, most beetles have a hard, dense exoskeleton that covers and protects most of their body surface.  The front wings, known as elytra, are just as hard as the rest of the exoskeleton.  They fold down over the abdomen and serve as protective covers for the large, membranous hind wings.  At rest, both elytra meet along the middle of the back, forming a straight line that is probably the most distinctive characteristics of the order.  During flight, the elytra are held out to the sides of the body where they provide a certain amount of aerodynamic stability.


Now, you know a little more about this special beetle that can create its own fireworks.  After generations of Hoosier & Tri-State kids catching fireflies (or lightning bugs as we always called them) in jars, these little bugs may become Indiana’s State Insect.  Thinking back many years, give me a special glow for the memories of my childhood with the hopes and dreams of my youth.