Hes Pest Management Specialists

Today’s post.... rats
Had a call this week from a customer who was hearing loud scratching in the attic. When I attended and checked the attic and advised her that it was rats she said ‘ could it be the same rat that has been visiting our bird table and eating the spillage from the bird table?
... It would appear that the rat was climbing up the clematis that was was growing up to the roof and gaining access to the attic under the tiles. I trapped the rat this morning and upon removing the rat from the trap I heard faint squeaking from inside a box of Christmas decorations... looking inside I found that the doe rat had a nest which contained 7 young rats 🐀.
This post isn’t intended to offend anyone by showing dead rats, it’s intended to highlight the problem of excessive bird feeding can lead to problems with rats that will eventually try and gain access to properties especially at this time of year when the temperature drops. Also, if this rat wasn’t dealt with it would have resulted in 8 rats running about the attic/House causing a very real public health risk.... 8 rats would soon increase to double figures!
Look closely at the close up of the female rat, you can see bird feed in her mouth that she was carrying at the time of being caught. Top tip- clean up spillage underneath bird tables and cut back climbing plants to well below the roof line 🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀
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Finally not a wasp post!!
I received a call last week from a customer who advised that she had been travelling abroad and had suspected she had brought cockroaches back with her in her luggage. She had been trying to control the cockroaches herselffor over a month by using over the counter products.... ( over the counter treatments/ products very rarely work) I attended last week and laid these sticky traps with a special food attractant used to entice the cockroaches onto th...e trap. Revisited today and discovered these... they a German Cockroaches ( blatella germanica). These are a serious public health pest that once established in a property they can breed very quickly. The female carries an egg case called an ‘ootheca’ which can contain up to 50 eggs! She carries this egg case up until a couple of days before they are due to hatch. Once they hatch the young nymphs go through various ‘instar’ stages where the moult their skin before turning into adults. The video contains cockroaches of all stages of lifecycle. Not an easy pest to get rid of, luckily it’s not a pest that I deal with on a daily basis 😳 My advice to anyone who finds these insects in their property is to contact a professional pest controller as soon as possible 👍
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Apologies for another wasp post but it is the time of year for them... Received a call this morning from a lady who was unaware that she had a wasp nest in her shed. The nest was attached to the shed wall and a wall paper pasting table, when she opened the shed door the table fell out and ripped the nest resulting in numerous stings to her arms and legs😳. The video is obviously after they have calmed down after having their home ripped apart. The wasps in the video are crawling over the capped pupae cells... this is the final stage in their life cycle before they develop into adult wasps.

Got a call to this wasp nest today, these wasps are German Wasps, (vespula germanica)that have decided to nest inside a motorcycle helmet that was inside a garden shed. German wasp and Common wasp are the two most common wasps that you are likely to encounter. If you look at my previous post you will see the wasp nest of a Common wasp and you will easily be able to tell the difference between the two species nests.

This the nest from the previous post .... look closely at the different colours, I think the red comes from the shed in the garden.... love them or loathe them you can’t help but admire their nests... real works of art 👍

Today’s post... wasps
Ever wondered how wasps make their nests? The wasps in this video are chewing wood on this outdoor table, they then mix it with their saliva , which they then add to the nest. If you look closely at a wasps nest you will see loads of different colours- these are usually Cuprinol or paint from a shed, fence or garden furniture! Look closely at the table in this video and you will see that the wasps have damaged the surface of this table.

Today’s post.....Tree Bees 🐝
I’ve been trying to get a decent video of these guys for a while, the reason that it’s been difficult is that these bees differ from other bumble bees in that the often nest up in high places such as roof spaces and wall cavities etc but as you can see these ones have nested in a bird nesting box. Tree bees arrived in the UK approximately 10 years ago from Europe and have gradually spread through the UK, I would suggest that it’s now one of our m...ost popular bees... I’ve received loads of calls regarding these bees this year, the main concern people seem to have is that they see ‘loads of bees swarming aggressively at the entrance of the nest’.... this behaviour is not aggression - it’s usually male bees hovering outside the nest awaiting for females to emerge so that they can try and mate with them. Admittedly it does at times look concerning but as long as they are up high, and there flight path is away from people and pets they should cause no harm or nuisance. Also they are quite short lived and generally die out before the end of summer.... if possible live and let live with these guys as they are great pollinators 🐝🐝🐝
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Today’s post...found this today whilst attending a call for rats in a garden shed... it’s a queen wasp building her nest. All ‘social’ wasps nests start off like this - once last years queens wake up from there hibernation in April/ May they then look for a suitable nest site. Once found she begins to build her nest by chewing wood and mixing it with her saliva, once it reaches the stage in the video she will lay approximately 12 eggs in the cells within the nest, she nurtures them until they reach the adult stage, after which she will remain in the nest and lay eggs all summer. The worker wasps then take over the building of the nest, which by the end of summer are often bigger than a basketball 🏀🐝🐝🐝

Had an interesting call this is week from a woman who advised that she’d been experiencing terrible problems with rats in her house for ‘years’. She also advised that over the years she’s had numerous pest control companies attempt to resolve her rat problem but unfortunately all of them have been unsuccessful..... Upon arriving at her house I noticed that it was a detached property and that there weren’t any obvious faults that would allow rats access from the outside...straight away I advised that I suspected that she had a drain fault....a hatch was created under the floor and this is what I found. Poor workmanship - putting a 2inch pipe for the kitchen waste into a 4inch pipe. As you can see from the picture, the gap around the pipe allows rats direct access from the drain into the house...case solved after one visit 🐀🐀🐀👍

No posts all year and now 3 posts in one day....It’s been an unbelievably busy start to the year and I could have posted stuff every other day but I only like to put up posts that are slightly different and posts that show pests in different situations that most people wont see on a daily basis....this is one from today when I was got a call from a farmer in the Scottish Borders regarding rats...the pictures are of a large rat nest built on top of a large box of potatoes. These potato boxes are stacked on top of each other and judging by the amount of damage to the potatoes this rat had been living in this shed undetected for quite a while....🐀🐀🐀

Same pest but different site and different day....a call this week from an Engineering company regarding Mice in there electrical control panels...when I pulled them out they were charred after being electrocuted...mice gnawing cables etc in this situation, pose a genuine fire risk 🔥🐭🐭🐭

First post for a while...I opened this tamper proof mouse box this week whilst carrying out a routine visit to a farm and this is what I found...it’s a House Mouse nest within the box and unbelievably she had managed to build the nest on top of the trap without setting off the trap!!...cheeky 🐭🐭🐭

H.E.S Pest Management Specialists would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I’d like to thank everyone who has taking the time to read my posts throughout the year.

Today’s post... grain weevil
Working this afternoon ( yip on a Saturday 🙁)..and got a call for ‘small beetles all over the kitchen’ These insects are called grain weevil, they infest, as the name suggests, grain and other stored products. The adult lays it’s eggs inside the grain and the larvae will spend its life cycle within the grain until it reaches the adult stage. It then eats a hole in the grain and exits the grain. These are a huge pest to grain/ allied industry and ...cause major damage to grain and other cereals. In this case, the customer had purchased a large sack of mixed bird seed, once opened the weevils spread throughout the kitchen. Judging by the amount of adult weevils and that the customer had only received the bird seed a few days ago, I would definitely say that this seed was infested before it reached the customer. In order to control these insects it’s important to find the food source and discard, so check your cupboards for dry stored foods that may have been at the back of the cupboard for a long time... you never know what may be living inside 😳
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Rats...always the opportunist 🐀🐀🐀

Fridays post..... 🐀🐀🐀
It’s often said rats and chickens go hand in hand.... not so, I believe it’s rats and the way people feed chickens that go hand in hand. When scatter feeding chickens like this you have no control over what picks it up, better to feed them in a feed hopper and remove the feed at night.
... The scenario in this video provides the perfect conditions for rats to thrive... food, water and harbourage = rats, rats and more rats 🐀🐀🐀🐔🐔🐔
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