IPM is not just for varroa

[jenkinsbrynmair]

A salutary tale for all.
Been a bit slack with rodent control around Brynmair this winter - not helped by next door totally abandoning her garden (her dead husband's pride and joy) totally so that it's now virtually inaccessible and a haven for anything that creeps in the undergrowth. Constant monitoring in the winter didn't highlight any concerns but then with Covid and office workload I dropped the ball during the spring rat migration. I should have (or should it be of? ) heard the alarm bells a few weeks ago when the bees took a totally over the top interest in one corner of the super stores.
Now that I'm moving stuff around in preparation for the flow I saw the signs which made my stomach drop - buggers had gnawed through one of the straps holding the stack together, piles of shredded wax, rat turds and teeth marks on many side rails. Worse, the buggers had virtually trashed a square of plywood (they seemed to struggle with the WBP) at the base of one stack and caused chaos inside.
Luckily (!) it seems that only one stack has succumbed so 120 shallow frames for the bonfire, doubly gutting as most were nice clean fresh frames as I'd sorted them to ensure plenty of choice to get decent exhibits for this year's shows.
Needless to say a shopping list of industrial strength 3G rat bait is being written

 

[gmonag]

That's back luck.

 

[mbc]

A salutary tale for all.
Been a bit slack with rodent control around Brynmair this winter - not helped by next door totally abandoning her garden (her dead husband's pride and joy) totally so that it's now virtually inaccessible and a haven for anything that creeps in the undergrowth. Constant monitoring in the winter didn't highlight any concerns but then with Covid and office workload I dropped the ball during the spring rat migration. I should have (or should it be of? ) heard the alarm bells a few weeks ago when the bees took a totally over the top interest in one corner of the super stores.
Now that I'm moving stuff around in preparation for the flow I saw the signs which made my stomach drop - buggers had gnawed through one of the straps holding the stack together, piles of shredded wax, rat turds and teeth marks on many side rails. Worse, the buggers had virtually trashed a square of plywood (they seemed to struggle with the WBP) at the base of one stack and caused chaos inside.
Luckily (!) it seems that only one stack has succumbed so 120 shallow frames for the bonfire, doubly gutting as most were nice clean fresh frames as I'd sorted them to ensure plenty of choice to get decent exhibits for this year's shows.
Needless to say a shopping list of industrial strength 3G rat bait is being written

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I feel for you Jenkins, at various times over the years pests to cause no. 1 damage to my beekeeping enterprise have been mice, rats, wax moth, varroa (mostly varroa!) and one year high winds caused the most damage.
Never be complacent as the next disaster is only round the corner.

 

[drex]

Sorry to hear that JBM. It is easy to take your eye off the ball when life gets in the way. I let things go in the six months before my wife died. Took another six months to get it all sorted afterwards, but it did make me appreciate some of the bad habits I had slipped into over the last few years and to mend my ways. My beekeeping etc has only but improved as a result.

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

Definitely "have" not "of". My pet hate.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Definitely "have" not "of". My pet hate.

 

[ericbeaumont]

Sorry to hear the bad news, JBM. We heard a noise in a stack of nucboxes in the yard this week and found a young rat inside one, chomping on comb.

Used to have little battery-powered electronic boxes set up that sent out high-pitched noise; kept rats away from boxes for a couple of years. Batteries must be flat.

 

[For want of a better word]

All this not helped by townies living in the country and baking little badger kakes and putting out pussy cat food for the starving Miss Tiggiewinkles.

Plus it is impossible to buy decent rat poison in case we knock off the odd non target species!

Have had to get out the old finger snappers.... and bought a few more ... sure I did not pay £15 a pop for the last ones!!!

Told my new townie neighbor that she is never more than one meter away from a rat in the countryside... and less than that in the rat infested city of Plymouth!!

Chons da

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Plus it is impossible to buy decent rat poison in case we knock off the odd non target species!

Can if you have a rodenticide handling ticket

 

[pargyle]

That's not good, so annoying having to burn decent kit .. We don't have a rat problem at present as we have stopped feeding the birds after I shot about 10 last year and trapped as many, the bird feeders were a rat magnet. It doesn't matter how tidy or not your garden is - the buggers will find somewhere to live and the destruction they heap in the process has to be seen to be believed .. They multiply at an unbelievable rate - disgusting creatures.

 

[Hedgerow Honey]

My relation will not accept that feeding birds will encourage rats.
Yesterday I put a ten kilo of wild bird food five mile away in a field, second time in a week.
she might get the hint one day.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Bird feeders I can cope with, always feed our spuggies and Finches and keep the air rifle ready in the dining room for the jackdaws. We live in what is basically a heavily populated rural area, river 300 yards to the South and a stream 200 yards to the East which runs down the back gardens of a long street of 1910's miners houses, people are pigs so all sorts get dumped in there so rats are just something we have to live with we also have a large garden which means there are always rat havens, I check regularly as part of my IPM and haven't had to bait for ages as it's been a pleasantly (sort of)rodent free winter.
This was just a sudden spring influx - spotted a pregnant rat just a few days before so I was thinking it was about time to get the catalogue out and select which goodies to stock up on.

 

[For want of a better word]

Can if you have a rodenticide handling ticket

That's just another ruse of our Nanny State to make a few bucks from the already poor farmers!

​

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

That's just another ruse of our Nanny State to make a few bucks from the already poor farmers!

Who, with their cavalier attitude to poisons and the fact they were spreading it about like confetti has brought us to a pont where we are verging on a total ban on rodenticides.

So either stop wingeing or - for a hundred quid or so you get a day's tuition, knowledge and understanding of how rats work and a ticket at the end which gives you access to a cornucopia of lethal treatments.

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

Had a rat in my loft this Winter and had to put up with the noise of it scuttling around dragging a metal trap behind it for three nights. Someone on here suggested the traps should be nailed down - they were right.
Best thing for rats is an air rifle.

 

[roche]

Had a couple of cats dumped near us a few years ago. We fed them, they took up residence. Now one of them is permanent staff, no rodents seen since. (The other one disappeared after a few months, never to be seen again). I am correct in thinking there was a tendency for misuse of rodenticides to lead to immunity?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I am correct in thinking there was a tendency for misuse of rodenticides to lead to immunity?

it was, although the new first and second generation anticoagulants on the market now are much better - does pay to swap your choice of 1G type every once in a while though

 

[For want of a better word]

Who, with their cavalier attitude to poisons and the fact they were spreading it about like confetti has brought us to a pont where we are verging on a total ban on rodenticides.

So either stop wingeing or - for a hundred quid or so you get a day's tuition, knowledge and understanding of how rats work and a ticket at the end which gives you access to a cornucopia of lethal treatments.

AND once upon a time all you had to do was to phone the local council pest control hotline and a fully qualified council employee would attend and deal with the little bastards... sometimes he would kill off a few rats too... all sponsored by the ratepayer... before the Tory cutbacks and years of austerity forced upon the poor.... to be continued

( To tumultuous singing of the red flag... or the yellow one (Q) to reflect todays sad times)


Chons da

 

[Murox]

AND once upon a time all you had to do was to phone the local council pest control hotline and a fully qualified council employee would attend and deal with the little bastards... sometimes he would kill off a few rats too... all sponsored by the ratepayer... before the Tory cutbacks and years of austerity forced upon the poor.... to be continued:

( To tumultuous singing of the red flag... or the yellow one (Q) to reflect todays sad times) Chons da

- I reckon Cornwall and no doubt other areas will all be sporting the Yellow Jack in a few weeks time. Reports of Police being called as people crowd beaches at Newquay despite lockdown - a surge of incidents in the past couple of days as out-of-control parties and violence have been reported all across the region. - Whats the incubation period ?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The Q flag actually denotes the vessel is clean of disease
"My vessel is healthy and requires free pratique" (traditionally flown when entering port to ask for customs clearance and stuck when we came on board.
If the ship is suspect - either been a case of sickness on board the last five days, or an unusually high incidence of rat mortality the two flag signal is is QQ (Quebec flag over first substitute flag)

Flags Quebec Lima signals that there is a quarantineable infection on board.