("Don't Tease the Mantis" is not a follow-up sequel to The Blue Oyster Cult's hit, "Don't Fear the Reaper," but it should be.)

We've all had that moment when for a split second, your brain isn't sure what you're looking at, and it quickly runs through a few likely scenarios:
​
Is that a toy someone dropped?
No, it's a Tinkertoy or something.
Wait--it's a tiny alien, and now I'm freaked out.
Oh, it's a praying mantis. And I'm still freaked out.

There's something unnerving, unnatural, and intelligent about the way the mantids move around that makes a lot of people instantly wary. Their articulating legs, their hypnotic, swaying motion, and the freaky way their heads track you as you walk around them, working up the courage to shoo it away.

It's the worst when you find them at your door, blocking the entrance to your own home. You feel bullied and ashamed that this tiny alien-like arthropod is denying you access to your own property.

As predators of other arthropods, they are beneficial, in that some of the insects they eat probably would have harmed your vegetation. However, a lot of the other ones they eat would have helped your vegetation, so there's debate about how much good they actually do in your yard. They don't focus on a single type of prey, so they end up eating the good with the bad insects. But even though they are freaky, we don't go out of our way to kill this insect.

I'll never forget Mrs. Alan's 3rd grade class. Brian brought in a grasshopper from recess to feed the mantis in the aquarium in the back of the room. The boys gathered around for this exciting learning opportunity which was sure to end in gruesome gore--as much gore as you can expect to get in a 3rd grade class, anyway.

After a few seconds of sizing up its prey, the grasshopper pounced on the mantis, defeated it, and began eating. This is not what we expected at all, but we were still excited to have seen something gross.

So they're not undefeatable! And they're not actually all that ornery, although you can rile them up by poking them with grass, getting too close to their strange heads, or by insulting their mothers.

But if you happen to find one on your leg, like I did last night, you may at first think it's a shoelace. But when kicking your ankle sideways doesn't cause it to fall away, and you look down and see two large eyes looking back at you, you needn't freak out. Just scrape him off onto the nearest bush, and congratulate yourself for being so brave. And the longer it takes your camera to focus at that distance, the braver you are.

When it's 100 degrees out, and you've been working a while, you'll notice a change in your demeanor, and it's not toward being more pleasant. This is doubly true for hornets and yellowjackets, who love making nests on the hot sides of your tool shed and house, and hang their nests in inconvenient heights on tree limbs.

And why do they seem so cranky!? You're out there on your own property, you've tried to be nice, you've tried to live and let live, and then BAM! Your kid got stung just walking toward the pool.

It's tragic, and it happens every summer. And it gets much worse as the summer progresses. As the life cycle of the wasps and hornets that live in your yard draws to a close, there are lots of workers who aren't designed to survive the winter, and no longer have any work to do. As such, they naturally join gangs, harass local property owners, and generally turn into nogoodniks.

​Not so for the humble bee, who still has plenty of work to do, and just wishes these other vespids would quit giving "bees" a bad name. Our goal, when called to a stinging insect job, is to avoid bees, and only target yellowjackets, wasps, and hornets that would potentially be a liability if an allergic family member or passer-by were to be stung.

Remember that when you call, identify the enemy as "wasp" or "hornet," because we don't want to kill the bees. If you do have bees, we call a local apiarist to handle it for you.

There are natural predators of stinging insects. Check out this incredible picture we got of a robber fly that dwarfs a fairly large hornet. He had an incredibly large lunch that day. Imagine the largest hornet you've seen outdoors. That's how big the hornet in the picture above was. Now you can imagine how much bigger the fly was. After eating a meal that big, the fly wouldn't need any more for a while, which leaves us, your local pest control company, to make up the slack. It's a big burden we carry, but we care an awful lot.

The bane of everyone's picnic is, of course, the yellowjacket. They're not shy to invite themselves to any party where there's meat.

​Always after your corn on the cob and your steak, this disruptor can ruin everything quickly. And it's no fun for us, either, because even if you're on a program, they can come over from your neighbors' houses. That's why we recommend you call everyone in your neighborhood to get on our plan!

​Just remind them that quotes are free, and so is the call: 800.422.4803.

The earwig. That ever-present denizen of the rose garden. You begin to see them once it gets warmer--when it's hot enough to dry out their moist habitats, you'll often see them heading indoors, looking for something cooler and hopefully damper.

It all starts in late fall, when a male and a female pair up, and spend the winter together in a pile of leaves, under wood, in bark cracks, in your tool shed, or even an inch or so under the ground. Early spring comes, the female kicks out the male, and she spends a couple days laying up to 80 eggs. Once they hatch, she actually sticks around to take care of them, helping them hatch from their eggs, barfing up breakfast for them--you know, typical maternal stuff--until after their 2nd instar state. Earwigs don't have a larval stage, so they come out as tiny versions of the adult. Each version is called an "instar," and after 5 of them, they're fully-sized and rarin' to go.

Breakfast includes plants, plant leaves, rotted plants, dead animals, and insects smaller than itself. Definitely not a vegan, and the earwig would definitely not give you dirty looks for eating a steak, but they do seem to prefer rotting piles of plant material.

Birds, frogs, lizards, centipedes, and spiders all find the earwig tasty, and are handy to have around the vegetable garden and rose garden.

To date, it has not been documented that an earwig will crawl in your ear and lay eggs to feast on your brains, but perhaps the people who would do the research have already been infected. Or maybe I've been watching too much Dr. Who.  As far as we know, the term "earwig" comes from the shape of their unused wing, which, when extended, forms the shape of a human ear. The "wig" part of "earwig" just means insect, so you can throw out the idea that they used to make their homes in British parliamentary wigs. Although that would be cool, it's unsubstantiated and bad science.

Curiously, I once had a customer believe she had accidentally inhaled eggs one fall when gardening, and was quite certain they were coming through her digestive tract and living in her insides. I inquired how that was possible, since they need oxygen to survive, and how they would reproduce in there, but this line of question was overruled entirely, and she later informed her doctor that I had assured her it was possible.

It's a crazy world, and all the crazier for having earwigs in it. Give us a call if you'd rather not have them around your prize roses, living room, or kitchen!

Many folks are surprised to see that so many young weeds have been thriving underneath this season's long-lingering snow.  The good news is that it isn't too late to apply a pre-emergent herbicide, and the even better news is that some of the pre-emergents that can be safely used in bareground areas even have some post-emergent effect. The emerged weeds will die, albeit very slowly in such cool temperatures.

Even in landscaped areas, it is still possible to apply pre-emergents to get ahead of the summer annuals - and the sooner, the better.  Pre-emergent herbicides need anywhere from a half-inch to a full inch of irrigation or rainfall to get properly seated in the soil before they can work their magic.

Your existing weeds, likely perennials or winter annuals, will need one or more post-emergent herbicide applications before they can be persuaded to disappear - and the warmer the ambient temperature, the better the efficacy of the application.  Yeah, we know - it's mighty cool right now.

While we can't do much about the late winter blues, we can definitely help you get ahead of your weed problem with the right application at the right time.  Best of all, we don't charge for estimates!  (Well, in our daily service area, anyway - but if you're in Hawaii and you're paying our way, we're sure we can work something out.)

...or 16 ounces per acre. Winter is FINALLY calling a truce, giving us a chance to get out there and help hundreds of customers (not an exaggeration) who are patiently waiting for us to treat their gravel and other bareground areas.  Being careful to use as little chemical as we need to do a good job helps us use those chemistries longer, and prevents excess from ending up where it doesn't belong.

We apply to areas we pre-measure (usually via GPS) and then treat with just the right amount of chemicals to stunt most of the weeds that are set to germinate in late winter and early spring. But before we can do that, the snow has to melt, and the soil has to dry up---just a little.

What you may not realize is that preemergence chemicals require water to push the chemical to the top couple inches of soil, where it works on germinating weed and grass seeds. If it sits on top of the soil or gravel, it doesn't help much at all. For this reason, we want it to rain a little bit AFTER we apply the chemical.

Would you like to quit worrying about the weeds in your driveway, parking lot, or that back corner where the tool shed sits? We have fantastic, affordable programs that will give you free time while your neighbors spend their weekends with a bottle of RoundUp.

​Call us for a free quote. Seriously. Until it quits snowing, we have plenty of time. 800.422.4803

Nobody wants a weedy parking area, either at home or at work. We can treat your gravel twice per year so you won't have to waste your weekend pulling & spraying weeds.
It's tree-friendly, works great, and lets you focus on other projects. But don't wait until it's too late--you want to get this scheduled WHILE IT'S STILL RAINING!
Once it quits raining, you'll have to water it in by hand, and by then, the weeds will have sprouted anyway. Keep them from sprouting--don't wait until you see them!

You want a nice, green lawn--without the crabgrass, quackgrass, and Bermudagrass.  Unfortunately, these grasses germinate at different times, meaning preemergence chemicals need to be applied at different times.  If you're serious about keeping the weedy grasses out, let us give you a free quote for a program that will leave your neighbors green with envy!

Dormant sprays are a staple for fruit trees, trees susceptible to fungal infections, and are a great way to ward off early-season fungal infections. Especially in a year like this, with LOTS of rainfall, fungal infections will be a problem.
Don't forget the shrubs & roses--these plants harbor a lot of overwintering insects and egg cases that can't wait to hatch out and start sucking your plants dry. The dormant oil (mineral oil) smothers them, halting bad insects before they can damage your plants.
Ditto for Copper--this gives your prized roses, dogwood trees, and other plants a head start against fungal infections.

Look into many back yards this time of year, and you'll see a massive display of aphids taking to the wing (video).

Flying en masse for a week or two, they're an incredible nuisance for rollerbladers, runners, bikers, walkers, or anyone else who likes to breathe. Or dislikes tiny insects stuck to your eyeballs.

Blue ash aphid, Smokey-winged ash aphid, and several other colloquial terms describe the pests that  plague Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho every fall.

Even with sunglasses, I once spent 5 minutes trying to dislodge one of the little insects from my retina.  This final batch represents the end product of months of reproduction, culminating finally in the presence of some egg-laying females.

This is when you see the inch-thick congregations on ash trees.  The females lay their eggs in cracks in the bark.  Next spring, they'll hatch out, begin reproducing without mating, boogie over to an evergreen tree, and spend a few weeks snacking on a fir.  It's a fairly complex insect (info sheet)--moreso than you'd think based on their size.

They can do real damage, so the best thing you can do is actually a non-pesticidal approach:  Dormant spraying.  A dormant oil applied in the next couple weeks will help smother live aphids on the trees & shrubs as well as prevent oxygen from reaching the eggs in the bark cracks.  A late winter dormant (Feb - April) takes care of many more.

These are on sale at your local hardware store right now:  The Pre-Baited Hobo Spider trap.  Apparently, the hobo is scary enough to warrant its own trap!

Of course, we know that there's nothing in the venom of the hobo spider that is more dangerous than other garden-variety spiders; that has been proven several times, most recently by WSU.

Further, most of the spiders identified as hobos are actually mis-identified. Here's the best guide on how to not mis-identify a hobo spider.

So is the hobo a "safe" spider? Look at it this way--we're learning more about allergies and proteins all the time, and it may be that some people will react to certain amino acids that others will not.  Bee stings are the perfect example of this.

How do you tell if it's a hobo?  I refer you back to the guide.  Here's a hint:  get out your scope, because you can't tell with the naked eye.  A super-duty magnifying glass may work, but a low-powered microscope is best.  Here's a question, though:  Now that you know it's NOT especially dangerous, do you really care whether it's Tegenaria agrestis, Tegenaria gigantea/duellica, or Tegenaria domestica?

While not especially dangerous, nobody wants a spider to bite him or her.  For that matter, you don't want anything biting you, whether it's a 3-year-old or a tiger!  One of the big reasons is infection, and that's what the early hobo bites proved to be--infected puncture wounds that resulted after the patient rubbed bacteria into a hobo bite wound.

Can you treat for hobo spiders? Yes, but don't expect a bomb to work.  They don't leave any residual.

For the record, I have sent an email to Victor, who made the "pre-baited" trap shown above.  I'll let you know as soon as I found out what it is they're using for bait!

Picture shown below was taken by Chris, on our staff.  It's a female hobo spider.

While endemic to many parts of the country and world, here in the Inland Northwest, we still see plenty of cockroaches, but they can typically be resolved with just a little elbow grease and a visit from us, your friendly neighborhood pest control team!

In other parts of the country, cockroaches move in and out and from house to house and apartment to apartment with such regularity that people who want to maintain their sanity have monthly visits from pest control operators to remedy the problem.  And make no mistake--they are a problem, tracking around disease vectors, causing allergic reactions, eating each others' fecal matter, and just generally being disgusting.

We recommend an extremely thorough cleaning of the home first.  I mean, pull-the-fridge-out-remove-the-oven-drawer-and-get-out-the-bleach-and-sponge-and-go-to-town type of cleaning.  All hyphens aside, what we're trying to do here is eliminate food sources they can use.  Even a tiny spot of jelly is equivalent to a cockroach banquet, so you have to start with a clean slate before the baits work well.

Then we come in, and use state-of-the-art baits and occasionally insecticidal dusts (boric acid, etc), growth regulators (to prevent more reproduction), and aerosols to give them a massive punch.  Even then, we recommend two follow-up visits, because eggs will keep hatching and nymphs will keep emerging for several more weeks.

Want some interesting info on them?  Check this link out!