Don't get your hopes up

By Charles Sowell  

JANUARY 22, 2010 9:33 a.m. (0)

Extreme cold weather doesn’t bring a sure drop in bug populations, although that particular urban legend is one of the most enduring in the South, experts say.

“I’d rank it right up there with the one about using soda water to kill fire ants,” said Eric Benson, professor of entomology at Clemson University.

All you get is wet ants.

Fact of the matter is insects of all sorts have been around for millions of years. They’ve endured ice ages and come through quite well.

“So why would we assume a cold snap lasting a few weeks or days is going to do much to quell their numbers?” Benson asked.

Insect survival mechanisms to deal with cold weather have been perfected over eons of evolution, Benson said.

“The adults may well die when it gets extremely cold,” he said. “But you’d be surprised just how cold it has to get to kill some insects.”

Particularly the larger ones like bumble bees and some beetles.

Benson’s students at Clemson use cold (freezers) to kill insects for their studies. “With the larger insects you have to get down near zero for some time to kill them,” Benson said. “Slapping them in a refrigerator for a few minutes just won’t do it.”

Homeowners who are feeling particularly venturesome can nose around flower beds on the coldest of days and will find some species of garden pests over wintering in perfect comfort a few inches down in the mulch.

“Most insects over winter as eggs, larva, or pupae,” Benson said.

These stages of insect life are much more resistant to the effects of cold weather than most adults, he said.

Bream fishermen have used yellow jacket larva as bait for generations in the South and in modern times store the paper nests in freezers to preserve the larval bait through the winter.

Inexperienced fishermen have found to their painful regret that those “frozen” larva and pupae quickly morph into fully functional yellow jackets after thawing out.

Then there’s the fecundity of the insect world to contend with, Benson said.

The most common example is a pair of flies that successfully mate. If none of those offspring die and then also successfully mate through several cycles, in short order the planet would be hip deep in flies, Benson said.

“Fact is, no matter how severe the winter, insects quickly recoup lost numbers because they are such proliferate breeders. Drought seems to have far more of an effect on insect populations than temperature,” Benson said.

Water dependent species, like mosquitoes, quickly recovered from the decade-long drought that hit the region, Benson said.

Some species, like roaches, seem to thrive no matter what the conditions are, Benson said.

“Species like the German cockroach live right with us in our homes,” Benson said. “They just keep right on going because they have one of the toughest egg cases in the insect world and things like temperature and moisture are not factors.”

Consider the arctic regions where some of the greatest concentrations of mosquitoes and flies are found, Benson said.

“The cold doesn’t seem to have much effect on their numbers,” he said.

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