Observations from an Entomologist.

[Matttoadman]

I had the opportunity to listen to a talk from the New Entomologist at the University of Ky. This will give you an idea of just how tough German cockroaches are. They went into several low income apartments and collected roaches. They separated out the males. Back in the apartments  Kitchen floor they placed two dishes, one with wild collected males and another with males of a lab strain. Between the dishes they set off insecticide “foggers” or “bug bombs”. As expected the lab strain all died. Very few of the wild collected died. This blows my mind. They also found that the kitchen counter tops and floors after a month had the same level of insecticide as Pre fogging. So these roaches appear to be living in an atmosphere completely contaminated with insecticide long after spraying. The study was actually to see how effective total release foggers actually were....useless as all us exterminators already knew

 

[Hisserdude]

Yeah the "wild" Blattella out there right now are getting increasingly resistant to current insecticides on the market, which is worrisome since you know those companies will just keep creating more and more toxic solutions to combat that... 

 

[varnon]

There is a study with, I think American cockroaches in new york city, showing that they evolved an aversion / lack of interest in certian sweet flavors that were commonly used in pesticides. Natural selection doesn't mess around.

 

[Matttoadman]

Well I don’t think it’s about creating something more toxic. They usually look for another family of chemicals or a new mode of action. The problem is the companies selling over the counter. The problem is untrained individuals use chemical incorrectly and lead to the resistance. It’s all about following the label and knowing where and what to do with it. In my own observations I have found that the tiniest amount of pesticide placed in a perfect spot can crash the population. Most people have a more is better approach and make it worse. I have a saying. You can take a machine gun squirrel hunting but you still end up with a dead squirrel. 

 

[Hisserdude]

Well I don’t think it’s about creating something more toxic. They usually look for another family of chemicals or a new mode of action. The problem is the companies selling over the counter. The problem is untrained individuals use chemical incorrectly and lead to the resistance.

Good to know, I suppose that makes sense, I always just assumed they just upped the potency or whatever when they created new pesticides, but I suppose looking for different types of chemicals is more efficient.

 

[Matttoadman]

Basically once a roach shows a resistance to a chemical, increasing the potency merely speeds up the resistance over time. The resistance begins because they get sublethal doses. It’s sort of like what we are seeing with antibiotics. Most chemicals on the market, especially over the counter are derived from a species of chrysanthemum. They contain a natural insecticide the plant uses for protection. The labs have just created their own version of them. Roaches are just about immune to it though. They have tried looking at other plant created insecticides. For example nicotine in tobacco. They however have been banned almost. They seemed to potent on bees.

 

[Hisserdude]

Basically once a roach shows a resistance to a chemical, increasing the potency merely speeds up the resistance over time. The resistance begins because they get sublethal doses. It’s sort of like what we are seeing with antibiotics. Most chemicals on the market, especially over the counter are derived from a species of chrysanthemum. They contain a natural insecticide the plant uses for protection. The labs have just created their own version of them. Roaches are just about immune to it though. They have tried looking at other plant created insecticides. For example nicotine in tobacco. They however have been banned almost. They seemed to potent on bees.

Ah OK, yeah that makes more sense than just upping the potency on the chemicals for sure.