The common bed bug has reemerged as a major pest in the United States. Pest management professionals need reliable up-to-date information on how to manage bed bug infestations. My study was intended to evaluate the efficacy of several insecticides currently labeled for bed bug control. In product efficacy tests, field strain bed bugs were found to be 99-450 times less susceptible than laboratory strain bed bugs to several pyrethroid products. The non-pyrethroid products tested, chlorfenapyr and a non-toxic desiccant dust, killed laboratory strain bed bugs, but were extremely slow acting taking greater than 9 days to kill 50%. None of the insecticides tested, including the pyrethroids, were repellent to laboratory or field strain bed bugs. A field test was conducted comparing 2 pesticide treatments regimens (traditional and novel) for bed bug control in low income apartments. Both the traditional and novel combinations caused significant reductions in bed bug populations. Both treatments reduced the number of bed bugs by the end of the test period, but neither treatment combination completely eliminated the bed bug infestations, even after an average of 1.3 gallons of product was applied in each apartment. Laboratory assays were conducted to determine the effect of hydroprene exposure on bed bug development. Although hydroprene did not appear to interfere with nymphal development, fifty percent of the bed bugs died during the final molt. The bed bugs which survived to adulthood showed no reduction in fecundity when compared to control groups. / Master of Science in Life Sciences

Master of Science / Department of Entomology / Frank Arthur / The control of Indianmeal moth [Plodia interpunctella (Hübner)], a commonly found serious stored product pest around the world, relies mainly upon chemical control methods. Because of recent changes in the laws and regulations governing pesticide usage in the United States, there is an increasing need for finding safer chemicals to control insect pests. Hydroprene, an insect growth regulator, is considered to be a safe alternative. In this study, I quantified the effects of hydroprene on two critical life stages of Indianmeal moth, the eggs and 5th instar wandering phase larvae. Maximum development time in the untreated controls was 13.6 ± 0.6 d at 16°C and minimum development time was 2.3 ± 0.4 d at 32°C. At 20°C and 24°C, the effect of hydroprene on egg development became more evident; development time generally increased with exposure interval, with some variability in the data. The mean egg mortality among all temperatures was 7.3 ± 4.6%. Among the treatments, mortality of eggs increased as the exposure periods increased within any given temperature, with a dramatic increase in mortality with increase in temperature. Egg mortality was lowest at 16°C when exposed for 1 h (0 ± 3%), but mortality gradually increased up to 32 ± 3% when exposed for 18 h. Within each exposure interval, there was a direct increase in mortality as the temperatures increased. For the 5th instar wandering phase larvae, the longest development time among the treatments of 47.2 ± 1.3 d occurred at 16ºC when the larvae were exposed for 30 h, whereas the shortest development time of 7.0 ± 0.5 d occurred when the larvae were exposed for 1 h at 32ºC. Among treatments, the greatest larval mortality (82.0 ± 0.1%) occurred when larvae were exposed for 30 h at 28ºC, while the minimum mortality of 0.0 ± 0.5% occurred at 16ºC when larvae were exposed for 1 h. Response-surface models derived from this study can be used in simulation models to estimate the potential consequences of hydroprene on Indianmeal moth population dynamics.