Hi Anne: I tried pheromone traps several years ago and they were useless. I don't have the vendor. They were supposedly for varied carpet beetles, but the beetles ignored them. Maybe they were all females, but I doubt it. As an alternative for monitoring, I would suggest sticky traps with bits of scale from a bird leg, feathers or mouse skin as bait. They really love dried mouse skin and it is amazing how fast they can reduce a cm square to dust in a few weeks. Also don't use mouse/rat bait which results in dead critters in places that will attract beetles.
As far as what they will eat, they like fresher material but can can eat and survive on about anything organic. I had a 15-year battle with them in our vertebrate collections and everything I tried failed to prevent the gradual expansion. The final solution was sealed cases and freezing. Once a population is established, or continually introduced from the outside as they are native to most areas, they will persist at low levels. Gary Shugart Collections Manager Slater Museum of Natural History University of Puget Sound Tacoma, WA 98416 253 879-3356 (museum) 206 463-2169 (home) [email protected], [email protected] http://www.ups.edu/slatermuseum.xml http://digitalcollections.ups.edu Subject: RE: [pestlist] Varied Carpet Beetle Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:52:37 -0500 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Anne, We purchase our pheromone traps from Insects Limited www.insectslimited.com .. We have always been very pleased with their products and service. If you are not on distribution for their newsletter, Fumigants and Pheromones, you should be. We used moth pheromones and traps to detect, pinpoint, and control an infestation in our storage area over the past few years. That being said, we have never caught many carpet beetles when we monitor, even though we know we have had low level infestations in the past, so I do question the effectiveness of that particular pheromone. It seems that some insect specific pheromones are more effective than others. I would appreciate feedback from others who have used the carpet beetle specific pheromone (black or varied).. My experience with carpet beetles is that they tend to eat what they like best and do not seem to spread to every possible food source in the storage area. When we have found them, they seem to be in one particular artifact feasting away and once we isolate, vacuum, and freeze that artifact, it seems to solve the problem. Of course they are capable of flying and crawling to other artifacts and I am sure they do, depending on how long they have infested an area and how large the population is and if they have to look for more food. But our experience has been that they have not spread very rapidly. Perhaps we are just on top of our IPM program, but the few infestations we have found seem to have been around for quite a while and were still relatively confined. One important point: we keep all of our textile storage areas very cold in the winter with essentially no heat and they cool down to around 10 degrees F. Therefore, any infestation progresses very slowly. Some bugs are undoubtedly there, but at a very low level. When we have experienced outbreaks is when we have permanently moved artifacts such as carriages from barns with no heat into a new "improved" storage area that is heated to around 55 degrees all winter and humidified. Two years after the move, the moths appeared in one of our vehicles. My theory is that they have been there for many years at a low level, but the cold weather has kept the active population very low.. After a few years of not being frozen every year, their population rose to a more active and detectable level. Discussion on these observations are also encouraged. Richard L. Kerschner Director of Preservation and Conservation Shelburne Museum PO Box 10, Route 7 Shelburne, VT 05482 (802) 985-3348 x3361 [email protected] From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Anne Lane Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 8:34 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [pestlist] Varied Carpet Beetle Help! I have just found a few adult varied carpet beetle larvae crawling over a cluster of old loom reeds I was about to rehouse. I understand there are pheromone traps for these guys. Does anyone have a vendor to recommend – price, alas, IS an object – or any advice as to best placement, how many, how best to detect where they might be coming from? I suspect our historic house, which had some larvae brought in on bits of raw wool used in our loom display. Are these critters likely to crawl into boxes, or fly up under muslin dust covers to get at wool or silk? Many thanks, Anne ANNE T LANE, COLLECTIONS MANAGER THE CHARLOTTE MUSEUM OF HISTORY WHERE HISTORY HAS A HOME 3500 Shamrock Drive Charlotte NC 28215 tel 704-568-1774, ext 110 fax 704-566-1817 [email protected] FEATURED EXHIBITS: Charlotte Neighborhoods - NoDa Charlotte Stories - Our Collections, Your Treasures
