Warm seasons stir up bug business

Summer is heating up, and for Springfield-area pest control companies that means bugs and big business.

Phillip Shane, co-owner of Priority Pest Control Inc., visits homes, businesses and apartment buildings throughout the city on a daily basis to battle insect invaders.

“You can go in and pretend like you’re Indiana Jones, where they’re dropping on your head – the cockroaches are that many and that big,” he said.

While previous summer seasons drew 300 to 350 calls per week, call volumes this year are up about 30 percent, and Shane expects sales to rise similarly to $650,000 by the end of the year.

“From springtails, to fleas, to ticks, to ground beetles – you name it – there has been a steady increase this year,” he said.

To keep up with the high demand of customer calls, Priority Pest Control has hired an additional technician and the rest of the five-person crew has been working overtime, Shane said.

“It’s 12 to 13 hours a day, working Saturdays, too,” he said.

Bug Zero is another pest control company responding to the rising calls this summer. General Manager Michael Woodring said weekly call volumes are up at least 25 percent, prompting the hiring of an additional technician and seasonal help as well as all staff logging longer hours.

Woodring and Shane both pointed to the Ozarks’ warm weather in March and the mild 2011–12 winter for the explosion in the insect population this summer.

In the average year, the insect population begins growing and the need for pest control goes up toward the end of May and the first part of June, but this year with the lack of a hard winter, pest control season started months early, Woodring said.

“We were already having considerable ant activity in late February,” he said. “March and April were also big months for all kinds of pests, and right now, spiders are big.”

Maciej Pszczolkowski, an associate research professor of integrated pest management at Missouri State University’s Mountain Grove campus, said insects respond to warmer temperatures by speeding up their cycle of development.

“If the climate is warmer, the development of the insects will be quicker and that may lead to situations where we will have more generations per year,” he said.

This increase in the number of generations of insects alive at one time means homeowners, business owners and farmers will have to take additional steps to keep the pests under control, Pszczolkowski said.

“Now, with larger numbers of generations you would have to use so many sprays, or control measures, to control different generations of the pests,” he said.

Another factor that plays into the increase of the insect population is human migration in times of climate change, Pszczolkowski said.

“Climate warming means migration of people from areas that are affected by drought and climate change to areas that are more appealing in terms of climate and economy,” he said. “These people will transfer medical and urban pests.”

A prime example is the rise in bedbugs across the U.S. – a phenomenon almost unheard of in the states 20 years ago, Pszczolkowski said. “Now, it’s a common household pest in populations which are dominated by immigrant populations,” he said.

Last year, Shane launched his Priority Heat Inc. division, adding a $20,000 thermal pest management unit to kill bedbugs with 130-degree heat.

Another unpopular insect on the rise in the Ozarks this summer is the brown recluse spider, according to Brown Recluse Xperts Inc. co-founder Joe Sweeney-Legore.

In this case, the spiders are venturing out of their normal habitats – such as basements and attics – to find food to store for winter.

“They know this is the time of year to go out and find as much food as possible,” Sweeney-Legore said. “That’s why you’re going to see more of them.”

Branson-based exterminators Brown Recluse Xperts fields about 25 calls per week from clients with brown recluse infestations in the southwest Missouri and Kansas City areas, Sweeney-Legore said.

“We’re usually booked up about a month in advance,” he said. “I hate to make it sound bad, but it does get pretty bad this time of year.”

Woodring said the number of calls for pest control services isn’t expected to slow anytime soon.

“We start to decline in October, middle October, but again it’s going to depend on if we get some cool weather or if we get some frost at night,” he said.

To help keep pests out of homes and businesses, Woodring suggests property owners tightly caulk and seal any openings to buildings – such as entrances for power lines and plumbing lines.

He also recommends keeping plant growth away from buildings to prevent fostering an environment that will attract pests.

“You want to try to maintain a vegetation-free zone as best you can around your house because when you get a lot of mulch and plants and shrubbery and you keep that watered well, that just becomes an ideal area for pests close to the home,” Woodring said.[[In-content Ad]]