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| What's Eating Your Home? |
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Bees, Ants, Beetles, Termites: Are They Chewing Up Your Home? They If any of these organisms has established a nest in the wood of a structure, homeowners probably will need the services of pest management professionals to help determine and implement an effective plan to control them and prevent re-infestation. This is especially true if any form of chemical control is needed. At Lady Bug Pest Services we take an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach. IPM is the pest industry's preferred decision-making process that anticipates and prevents pest activity and infestation by combining several techniques or materials to achieve long-term management, such as structural repair, maintenance, biological and mechanical control techniques, and pesticide application. Professional pest management can be important because the untrained eye often cannot see the structural damage caused by carpenter bees, carpenter ants, powder post beetles, or even the dreaded termites. Everyone knows about the dangers of subterranean termites, which cost in excess of $2.5 billion in treatments and damages each year as they tunnel their way through structures. Damage to affected wood may be so great that the building may crumble or collapse entirely. Not generally known is that there are seven species of carpenter bees throughout the U.S. They get their name from their ability to drill through wood and nest in near-perfect holes of about one-half inch in diameter. The hole is usually located on the underside of wood surfaces, including siding, soffits, decks, overhangs, fence posts and window frames. They tunnel aggressively in cedar siding. Although the hole only appears to be only an inch or two deep, it rarely ends there. The female bee takes a right-angle turn and bores a gallery anywhere from four to six inches in a new gallery and up to 10 feet for galleries developed and used by several bees. This channel serves as a main corridor in which they usually wall-off smaller chambers a few inches long to hold their eggs and developing young. Female carpenter bees will drill galleries in a wide array of woods, but prefer weathered and unpainted woods. Pressure treated lumber in decks won |