Ants, Pests & Flooding
In Ant Problems, Pests, Pests in August, Pests in July, Pests in September, Pests in Summer
Ants, Pests & Flooding:
Most of the pests we deal with are not affected by the recent flooding. The main pests that we deal with at PEST UK that will be effected are will be rats and mice. They can swim ad flooding may encourage them to move into buildings and as long as the area does not remain flooded for too long then fatalities would be limited, probably less for the time of year as Winter is when the rat and mouse population decreases to to lack of food and cold weather. For although the weather has been wet it has not been very cold. The flooding may also increase the food supply of worms and slugs but reduce the bird food available as people tend not to feed birds as much in wet, mild weather but more so in very cold frosty or snowy weather. As mentioned in previous Blogs Weils disease can be a problem in flooded areas as the virus is transmitted in water. Insect, especially hibernating insects are surprisingly resilient to flooding. Ants and hibernating wasps and bees are the insect pests that we deal with that flooding may affect.
Today we are dig our third ant job of the year. This is very early and treatment of ants at this time of year (inside) will probably ned another treatment later in the Spring. A nests tat are situated on the edge or under a building may e affected by heat and light from the building and start foraging inside. This leads to the occupier calling a pest control comp. The trouble is that the insects metabolism is slow so absorb any insecticides, including the uptake of insecticide baits. This makes treatment a very slow process. Normally an external insecticide and/or baiting treating is needed for success bt although not cold it is still too cold for ants to be foraging outside at the moment.
