Category Archives: Child Care Centers

Of concern to parents and staff of child care facilities

4 red and black insects on a brick wall

For some pests, your school is their winter getaway

smiling women dressed for autumn in front of a outdoor fall scene

Joellen Lampman, School & Turfgrass IPM Extension Support Specialist

I recently presented at the New York State School Facilities Association Conference & Expo and was asked multiple times, “What can I do about boxelder bugs?”. That provided the opportunity to talk about them and other fall invaders. The good news is that most fall invaders are just looking for a warm place to wait out the cold winter. The bad news is that usually we have had our first frost by now, and the lack of frost is  extending the period of time that intruders are attempting to break into our buildings. But there are still steps we can take to prevent more from coming in.

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Disinfectants Safety

Here’s an update on disinfectant use in schools from our colleagues over at the Cornell Pesticide Management Education Program (PMEP). Thank you to Mary Centrella, PMEP Director and Educator, for putting it together.

As more people become vaccinated and things begin to open again, it is essential that we continue to use disinfectants correctly.Man wearing a mask, goggles, and rubber gloves wiping a table with a white cloth

Before using a disinfectant:

Assess whether it is necessary. Could soap and water be just as effective? Is the surface you are disinfectant high risk (i.e., used frequently by many people)? Be aware that recent information from the CDC shows that the risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) on surfaces is considered low.

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Stranger Things on the Playground

A cement walkway in front of a child care center that leads to a fence and gate

Walkway in front of the child care center

On a warm Long Island day in November (a warm week, to be accurate) I received a call from a BOCES* Health and Safety officer, who told me a local child care center was alarmed about a number of large black insects on the playground. The property manager and his staff had identified the bugs as oil beetles, also known as blister beetles, for a toxin they emit. Child care staff were worried about the hazard to their children, as kids can be curious and compelled to capture such a thing. I offered to visit after seeing a photograph of the bug in question: an oil beetle for sure. But why would they be on a playground?

A mulched playground with swingset and toy balls on the ground

A mulched playground and swing set

 

A shiny black oil beetle, dead, in mulch

Oil beetle found in the mulch 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oil beetles belong to a broad group called blister beetles, so named for the secretion of a defensive toxin (cantharidin) that causes blisters. They are stout, flightless, dark-colored beetles that have a rather strange life cycle. Adult beetles awaken from winter and females lay large numbers of eggs in soil burrows. The eggs hatch into tiny larvae called triungulins, which move quickly and aggregate on the tips of grass and plant stems. From there the triungulins produce pheromones that attract male solitary bees. The male bees arrive, hoping for the reward of mating, and become a vehicle for the larvae who hitch a ride and travel with the male to find a female bee. He passes the larvae to the female bee who inadvertently brings them back to her burrow, where larvae and their provisions are located. Triungulins then feed on the larval food (pollen), then the larvae themselves. In the Northeast, the adult beetles emerge from bee burrows in late-summer and early-fall to mate.

A black Meloe oil beetle with an orange droplet of hemolymph at a leg joint

A droplet of hemolymph on a Meloe oil beetle, Peter Coffey (petercoffey.com)

A black male oil beetle clings to a brown dry leaf.

A male oil beetle (Meloe sp.), by Peter Coffey (petercoffey.com)

 

So what does this have to do with a child care playground? My suspicion is as follows: Playgrounds, ball fields, office park grounds and college campuses are all places that end up with exposed sandy soils due to foot traffic and neglect. Many of the solitary bee species in the Northeast prefer nesting in dry, sandy soils like we find in these kinds of places. I have inspected a number of playgrounds with sand wasps (Bembix sp.), cellophane and digger bees – all of which are basically harmless. This playground with oil beetles had no sign of ground-nesting wasps or bees, but it is autumn and those insects are long gone, having completed their life cycle during the summer.  My guess is that the oil beetles emerged from ground-nesting bee burrows on the property and are mating and preparing for winter.

Bare soil on a playground near a small plastic slide

Bare soil on the playground attracts ground nesting bees.

If true, then how do we protect the kids from encountering blister-inducing beetles? New York State restricts the use of pesticides on school and child care playgrounds for good reason. So, non-toxic solutions are needed. The best approach is to create and maintain a barrier between the bees and exposed soil through the use of mulch and/or landscape cloth. In most places the mulch on this playground is deep enough to be spongy. However, there were bumps of exposed soil, especially around a small slide, on which a number of beetles were actually found! Digging up the soil, laying a piece of landscape fabric and replacing the soil to four inches deep can prevent bee nesting, and hopefully, oil beetle congregations.

To confirm my suspicions about this scenario, I plan to visit the child care center next spring to note spring bee activity and to make recommendations if needed.  Is there risk to the children from any of these insects? Yes, we don’t want little ones picking up toxic beetles. Ground-nesting bees have stingers, even if they are not known to use them. So there’s always a little risk when it comes to being outdoors. But being outdoors is necessary for children’s health. An integrated pest management approach, in this case reducing nesting habitat for the host species, will minimize risks from these insects.

*Board of Cooperative Educational Services.

graphic shows photo of Dr. Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, and her contact information

Ticks and Schoolyard Edges

The time of the falling leaves has come again. Once more in our morning walk we tread upon carpets of gold and crimson, of brown and bronze, woven by the winds or the rains out of these delicate textures while we slept. – John Burroughs, The Falling Leaves

image of a man in long pants and sleeves, a baseball cap, and ear coverings using a leaf blower. In front of himn leaves are being blown towards the camera.

Leaf blowing leaves is a common practice, but does it cause a risk for more ticks?

A recent study, Artificial Accumulation of Leaf Litter in Forest Edges on Residential Properties via Leaf Blowing Is Associated with Increased Numbers of Host-Seeking Ixodes scapularis Nymphs published in the Journal of Medical Entomology, showed that areas where leaves were raked or blown into forest margins tripled the number of blacklegged tick nymphs compared to areas where leaves were not artificially accumulated. (There was no observed impact on lone star ticks.)

chart showing that 14 ticks were found within the woods, 51 along the wood edge, 12 3 meters into the field,1 found 6 m into the field, and 3 on the technician.

Most ticks were found along the woodland edge.

Combine this with the findings of a Cornell study, Active surveillance of pathogens from ticks collected in New York State suburban parks and schoolyards, and it is clear that woodland edges are the areas of highest risk for students to encounter ticks. Fortunately, most students don’t spend much time in these areas. Unfortunately, students will chase stray balls into these areas when ticks are furthest from their minds.

What can you do to protect students from these tick risky areas? Step one would be to monitor your school grounds for ticks. This low tech monitoring technique can easily be accomplished by a coach, playground monitor, or even students. Knowing that ticks are active can allow for some adjustment of play, like putting up cones to let students know areas are off limits.

Is there an area with consistently high tick activity? Installing fences or netting can prevent stray balls from entering wooded edges. Think of it as reverse exclusion – in this case, we’re keeping the students out of the pest areas.

Keep in mind that blacklegged ticks prefer high humidity, so look to reduce shady and damp areas where students spend time. We can modify parts of the school grounds to make them less hospitable to ticks by:

  • Removing leaf litter from wooded edges in high traffic areas
  • Removing trees shading play areas if monitoring shows those areas have tick activity
  • Replacing wood mulch, which can store moisture, if monitoring shows tick activity,  with a different, drier option
  • Widening trails to reduce the risk of students brushing against vegetation
  • Eradicating invasive plants, such as Japanese barberry, honeysuckle, and multiflora rose, that easily establish along wooded edges, and have been associated with higher concentrations of ticks carrying disease-causing pathogens

For more information on ticks and schools, check out our updated fact sheet Understanding and Managing Ticks – A Guide for Schools, Child Care and Camps. Additional information can be found on our website Don’t Get Ticked NY.

Back to School – Keeping the Rodents Outside

We should have little trouble with vermin if builders would hear and understand the ‘language’ of vermin and do a better job in eliminating their entrances and hiding place.” – Hugo Hartnak, 1939

photo of Bobby Corrigan wearing a hard hat, holding a clipboard in one hand and a flashlight in the other pointing out a rusted wall grid plate with a hole large enough for a rat to fit through.

For Bobby Corrigan, pest management is a passion. Called upon for his expertise across the country, we are honored to include him in our conference.

Pests enter school buildings in one of two ways: they are transported in by students, staff, or delivery truck or they make their way in from the outside. The School IPM 2020: Where We’ve Been and What’s Next virtual conference will focus on the first mode, but we will also include information on the second with tips, and a tool, to help with exclusion – or keeping pests out of buildings. Dr. Bobby Corrigan, co-founder of the first Scientific Coalition on Pest Exclusion, will join us to discuss rodent vulnerable areas.

All conference participants that complete the pre- and post-tests and evaluation will be mailed a Frye Inspection Tool (FIT tool). This simple probe can be used to demonstrate if a rodent can squeeze under a gap or through a round opening. By design, if the probe ‘FITs,’ so too can the specified rodent. This tool can be used to educate decision makers about rodent entry points and help justify pest exclusion.

picture of a F.I.T. tool, a probe with two different sized ends and demarcations to measure gnaw mark and dropping size.

A F.I.T. tool allows you to assess potential rodent entryways and identify whether gnaw marks and droppings were caused by rats or mice.

The measurement specs for the FIT are based on the size of adult rodent skulls. If a rodent can fit its head under a gap or through an opening, they are able to wiggle their body through (watch video Mouse Entry Points to see a mouse in action). The FIT can also be used to help differentiate rodent evidence (both gnaw marks and droppings) between rats and mice.

Signing up as a school district? We will mail enough FIT tools to cover all the participants from your district, so be sure to provide information for them all.A picture of a school with a banner that says "School is Open Humans Only" with a bedbug, cockroach, tick looking at the sign. The tick is holding a mouse pull toy and the cockroach is holding a coronavirus shaped balloon.

For the full agenda, registration, and pesticide recertification credit information, please visit https://nysipm.cornell.edu/resources/nys-ipm-conferences/school-ipm-2020-where-weve-been-and-whats-next/.