RESCUE! BugBlog

Still catchin' after all these weeks

A happy customer sent us this video last week of her Yellowjacket Trap. Notice how high the "body count" is -- almost to the top of the cone -- yet it's still catching live yellowjackets!

Loving the Disposable Yellowjacket Trap

We heard from two customers last week who were so happy with the RESCUE! Disposable Yellowjacket Trap that they just had to share photos and video!

Mike in Capitola, California showed us how the yellowjackets were going crazy over the trap:

And Cheryl-Lynn here in Spokane Valley, Washington sent us photos illustrating how well the traps were working on a family camping trip to Downs Lake, where they found this yellowjacket nest in the ground:

 

Hanging up several of our traps helped reduce the population dramatically, as they got quite full -- literally teeming with yellowjackets:

  

 

Here's a closeup. Note the paper wasp (to the right of the yellow cone -- the one with longer wings) trying to get in!

Trapping flies in Belgium

A customer of ours in Belgium created this video to promote our RESCUE! Disposable Fly Trap. It's nicely done, with great closeups of flies. Check it out!

Videos of the Week: A single yellowjacket sting can kill

Today's featured videos are actually two TV spots we created for the RESCUE! Yellowjacket Trap, featuring a testimonial told from both a husband's and wife's perspective. Greg Romey was working in the front yard when a single yellowjacket stung him on the ankle. He started feeling dizzy, his breathing became labored, and after a panicked ten-minute ride to the hospital, his heart stopped.

Our company president met Greg by chance at a youth basketball game. When Greg learned that the guy sitting next to him in the bleachers created the RESCUE! Yellowjacket Trap, he exclaimed, "Those things saved my life!" He proceeded to describe how that single yellowjacket sting had nearly killed him, and how the allergist who treated him afterwards recommended our product to keep them away from Greg.

We decided Greg's story had to be told, and that's what you'll see here in these two videos.

Video of the Week: Insect Smackdown!

To end the week, we have a series of videos of wasps, hornets and yellowjackets attacking other insects and a spider!

Here's a hornet attacking a cicada:

Here's the carnage after a yellowjacket mauled some sort of black wasp or fly:

And watch as this wasp attacks a large spider and drags it away:

The insect world is brutal, ain't it?

Video of the Week: How to treat a wasp/hornet/yellowjacket sting

I'll be heading out with the rest of our office to our annual Company Picnic in about half an hour. Thankfully, this has always been a sting-free event, thanks to our R&D folks who hang copious amounts of our RESCUE! Yellowjacket Traps -- and now our W*H*Y Trap -- all around the Liberty Lake County Park and the pavillion where we enjoy the potluck meal.

But even with traps in use, there is still a danger of getting stung, and that's why it's good to know the tips contained in this video where a Registered Nurse explains what to do if that happens:

You can also read more "what-to-do-if-you're-stung" info here, and here are some DOs and DON'Ts around wasps, hornets and yellowjackets to lessen the chance of a sting happening.

Video: Mobile home for wasps

So last week, our Marketing Assistant Jonathan noticed a paper wasp buzzing around our Customer Service Rep Susan's car, then going in the crevice of the passenger-side door. Turns out there was an small egg-shaped paper wasp nest in the door that was only visible when opening it. Upon checking out this nest, we found a second one in the car -- behind the rear-view mirror!

In this video, I attempt to show both nests in the car. Adding to the excitement, I get buzzed by a paper wasp about 50 seconds in... she wasn't too happy that I was poking around her house.

Shortly thereafter, our R&D scientists evicted these wasps from their "mobile home".

Wasp sting claims man's life

So sad... a single wasp sting claimed this man's life five years ago. Neither he nor his family knew he was allergic.

The man in a previous post got 200 stings and survived. This man was stung once and died. Being allergic to wasps made all the difference.

Video of the Week: Japanese Beetle swarm

July 4 is usually high time for Japanese Beetles to be problematic in the eastern United States. This week's featured video shows a Japanese Beetle trap that's just swarming with beetles.

Since I can't embed videos today for some reason, click here to see it.

When I looked at the video closely, I could see that someone had taken our RESCUE! Beetle Trap and replaced the bag with a gallon Ziploc bag -- presumably to reuse it. Good news: that is no longer necessary, as our new Japanese/Oriental Beetle Trap released this year has a slide-lock bottom so the trap can be emptied and reused!

We'll leave you with our TV commercial from several years back. "Rose" thinks she has found the best way to rescue her roses from Japanese Beetles... Ninjas!

Click here to see the commercial.

Video of the Week: The Wasp Woman

We're back with the weekly featured video, and this one is a bit of campy fun. It's an excerpt from the 1959 horror movie "The Wasp Woman".

Here's a short description from imdb.com : "A cosmetics queen develops a 'youth formula' from jelly taken from queen wasps. She fails to anticipate the hoary side effects."

We're Emmy Award winners!

Sterling International: pest control innovators, insect behavior experts, Emmy Award winners.

That's right, we're Emmy winners... for our TV spot entitled "Break Room", which advertises the W*H*Y Trap for Wasps, Hornets & Yellowjackets. Jones Advertising, the agency behind this funny spot, picked up the award last Saturday night in the Commercial, Single Spot category.

David Edgerton, Jones Advertising Vice President, accepted the award at the 46th Annual Northwest Emmy Awards ceremony:

 

And here's the award-winning spot:

First monster yellowjacket nest sighting of the season

A couple in Pasco County, Florida recently found a monster yellowjacket nest on the outside of a tree while hiking through the woods. They called in the experts, who suited up before destroying the nest with soapy foam and a shovel.

The nest likely contained multiple queens and thousands of yellowjackets. Yikes!

Video of the Week: Yellowjackets, Hornets & Wasps... Oh my!

Our featured video this week comes courtesy of Hal Coleman, entomologist in Atlanta. Hal talks about the differences between wasps, hornets and yellowjackets. The highlight of the video occurs halfway in, when he hoists an extremely large bald-faced hornet nest up near his head.

Video of the Week: European Hornet attacks a fly

Being about an inch long with a plump body shape, the European Hornet can be rather intimidating.

I'm sure this fly thought so:

Wasp weather... and we're catching them!

If the Northwest could string together more than two 70+ degree days in a row, we'd all be very happy. But this week, those two warm spring days were enough to capture a bunch of paper wasp (and some yellowjacket) queens in the WHY Trap. The photos and video below were taken on president Rod Schneidmiller's property.

 

 

Last night, three days after those photos and video were taken, it snowed. Many of the wasps were still alive today, and they huddled together for warmth near the top of the trap:

Video of the Week: A queen at rest

Here's a good closeup of a queen yellowjacket. (And no, she doesn't have a tiny crown on her head.)

If you're experiencing warm spring weather where you live, this lady is coming out of hibernation to start building her kingdom. Make sure you have a trap to stop her!

Talkin' about Twitter

Local web developer and social media strategist Mark Simonds is embarking on a "Twitter Road Trip" to interview individuals and organizations using Twitter effectively. We were honored to be Mark's first interview for this project.

You can see the interview here (be sure to turn up the sound; the Flip camera didn't pick my voice up very well).

Mark's Twitter handle is @simonds, Twitter Road Trip's handle is @route140, and ours is @rescue. Please follow us!

Video of the Week: Nests in unusual places

This week's video installment features several examples of how yellowjackets like to nest in unusual places, such as:

An old lawnmower...

A pile of discarded newspapers...

Under a kitchen sink...

Have you ever encountered a yellowjacket nest in an unusual location?

Video of the Week: Rockin' the hornets' nest

The music of Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" doesn't quite match the foreboding feeling of watching a very active Bald-faced Hornet nest up close... and then seeing it smashed with a long stick.

Look for the angry hornets hitting the camera lens about a third of the way through.

Video of the Week: The Hornet Hunter

The subject of this week's featured video is our kind of guy: entomologist Dr. Masato Ono of Tamagawa University in Japan.

As a child, he was attacked by a nest of Japanese Giant Hornets... the species with the 3-inch wingspan and the 1/4-inch stinger. Rather than being frightened, he developed a desire to study hornets, wasps and bees (and eat them as well, as you'll see later in the video). He's now on a mission to find the key to diffusing the giant hornet's painful sting.

Video of the Week: This could end badly

That's what I think whenever I see videos on YouTube that likely originated from a conversation along the lines of: "Hey, look! A wasp nest! Let's see what happens when we shoot it with a BB gun/hit it with a baseball bat/pour gasoline on it and light a match!"

Here's one that uses the latter approach, entitled "Fire -- All-purpose pest control". A method used on a wasp nest under a wood deck.

And yes, file this under "Pest Control Hall of Shame".

Video of the Week: Putting traps to the test

This week's video comes from some camping enthusiasts in California. They tested four different yellowjacket traps at a campground in the San Bernardino mountains: Raid, Pic, homemade, and RESCUE!.

Looks like we have a winner:

Video of the Week: How to set up the W*H*Y Trap

We recorded a short video this week as a demo on how to set up the W*H*Y Trap for Wasps, Hornets & Yellowjackets. It's a simple process and you don't need to raid your refrigerator to bait the trap!

Once the snow melts here in Washington, we'll amend the video to show where to hang the W*H*Y Trap outside.

Video of the Week: Hulking Hornets

European Hornets are huge! Here's a video of an active hornet nest that helps confirm that. Something stirs them up shortly into the video...

Video of the Week: Bill Gates releases live mosquitoes on stage

This story sounds like something we joke about here at RESCUE! headquarters: "Hey, let's release live yellowjackets at the trade show -- that'll get attention!" 

The joking never goes any further because, well, we recognize that it's dangerous... and just absurd.

But those concerns didn't deter Bill Gates. Speaking yesterday Wednesday at the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Conference in Long Beach, California, Gates got lots of "buzz" when he released mosquitoes into a packed auditorium to highlight the dangers of malaria.

He let the shocked audience sweat for about 20 seconds before assuring them that the insects were malaria-free. You can see the moment about 5 minutes into this video:

The stunt notwithstanding, Gates makes some good points about devoting resources to preventing the spread of preventable diseases. He pointed out that more money is spent on developing a cure for baldness than stopping malaria.

Sounds like we need to hurry up and develop this personal mosquito repellent device, as it's badly needed by many people... including those in Gates' audience!

W*H*Y goes live at 5!

Our company founder and president, Rod Schneidmiller, was interviewed live on-air for the 5 p.m. newscast of our local ABC affiliate, KXLY4, two days ago. Rod talked with anchor Robyn Nance about the new W*H*Y Trap for Wasps, Hornets & Yellowjackets.

Video of the Week: Sticking it to a Bald-faced Hornet nest

I'm adding this week's featured video to our "Pest Control Hall of Shame".

I can see kids thinking it would be cool to attack a Bald-faced Hornet nest with a stick, but two grown men? They could have been candidates for a Darwin Award, but amazingly, they survived.

Help! Get this bug off me!

Our Video of the Week is a hidden-camera gag featuring a plastic bug, two "pest control" guys, and some unsuspecting passers-by. Enjoy.

Videos of the Week: Oddball Pest Control Commercials

Last week I shared one of the TV commercials, called "Break Room", we produced for the new W*H*Y Trap for Wasps, Hornets & Yellowjackets. We're entering that and several other projects in our local Addy Awards competition today.

This week, I dug up three pest control service commercials that are silly, quirky, and... well, downright disturbing. Probably safe to say they're not award-winning. But I do wonder if they made the phone ring for these exterminating services. What do you think?

Hunting yellowjackets with Johnny Rotten

Punk rocker Johnny Rotten, television host? Yes! We recently learned that John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) had a 10-episode series on the Discovery Channel in 2005 called "Megabugs", and his engaging personality and fascination with insects make it an entertaining show.

Our new friend Richard Martyniak of All Florida Bee Removal (@AFBR on Twitter) joined up with Johnny for an episode about wasps and yellowjackets. They took apart a Vespula squamosa (Southern Yellowjacket) nest growing on the side of a building.

You can read Richard's recap of the experience and see a video clip here. Fun stuff!