Cockroaches !

[hellosailor]

"I have seen reports that there are some biting insects that will go through normal fly screen so even smaller mesh may be necessary in some places." Yes, the generic name for them is "no-see-ums" and the generic name for the finer mesh is "no-see-um-proof mesh". Regular screening will keep out the mosquitos, and AFAIK no one is complaining about disease from the no-see-ums, but the damned things can drive you crazy.

Given the debates about boric acid, and the pros and cons of scattering "stuff" around the boat, I'd rather use roach baits or sticky traps. A lot of people think the sticky traps don't work--but they DO. They MUST. They work on the same principle as boric acid, they contain food plus an "abrasive" that literally cuts into the critters and leaves them to quietly dessicate and die back in their nests. If you use the baits and still have roaches--you are getting a fresh supply of them from a neighbor, or from eggs. IIRC an entymologist explained to me that roaches have a 90-day cycle from hatching to mating, so if you get rid of all the roaches "now" you may find new ones in 90 days, when the eggs hatch. And there's nothing you can do in between, so you simply need to keep the traps for 4-5 months to catch and kill "just" one crop and their kiddies. That's the main trick, you have to pursue them over the long run--or the eggs hatch and you wind up saying "how'd I get new roaches??"

[Intentional Drifter]

Wow -- the things I've learned on this forum. Astounding. Another thread that will find itself in my personal archive.

Thanks.

ID

[hellosailor]

Louis-
"A piece of dry ice will be covered by frozen mosquitoes in short time."
Have you actually seen this? I ask because I know they are attracted to CO2 but I thought they were only atttracted to CO2 *plus* warmth. Sure would be great if simple CO2 blocks could get them!

Well, well well.... a subject we can all relate to! Hi guys.. I have been off the air while on the road, currently covering a big boat show on the gold coast.

Here in Queensland everything wild bites or crawls or both. The cockroaches are big, stupid and ugley... like the locals but I digress.. We have always been careful with cardboard and that isn't our problem, it's marina's. The crawlies live under the floating jetties and migrate from the one really grubby boat (every place has one or more eh!) and run up your lines at night. Open hatches near lines are not good but no matter what you do if you spend a lot of time in marinas here in the tropics.... you get em.

This has been so much fun I may take the time to lift the cockroach article off the paper and put on it's own page html.. check in a day or two www.thecoastalpassage.com

I've got worse problems though... I don't want to dive on my prop cause we now have a resident croc in the marina... Oh well, as long as he doesn't crawl aboard I guess...

Cheers

Bob

[hellosailor]

"a resident croc" Bob, that's just proof that the good lord built the universe in six days and walked off the job on the seventh, without time to install the little brass feet, the handle on the spine, and the zipper in the belly that all good luggage was supposed to be built with.
"Your honor, I was just doing the Lord's work, that croc wasn't complete yet!"

If the croc won't eat cockroaches, what good is he

[S/V Elusive]

Get a cockroach cat - Kai? Haven't you trained Shep yet?

Never said she was good for anything Entertainment value maybe. She still goes nuts whenever she can hear your voice on the phone.

I think the next edition of my paper I will introduce my readers to this forum and I might use this thread to do it!! What great fun! I get tired of doing the journalistic crap!

And to you "hello sailor" and scott... I couldn't agree more! (crocs) I have a problem with any critter that doesn't share my perspective of the food chain....

Thanks for the chuckle all of you comedians.

Cheers

Bob

[Wukong]

OK friends and neighbors it's time for a (real) roach story.

As a dye-in-the-wool, card carrying Citadel Graduate this is no schet.

There was this old dilapidated Ketch that had a massive horde of onboard roaches. The Captain decided to hire ten Aggies to rid his boat of these pests. The Aggies charged off down into the bilge with flame throwers, machine guns of various calibers and all sort of other weapons.

After a ten day battle the Aggies came limping back carrying 1 KIA, 2 wounded, one deserted to the enemy and 3 brought back War Brides.

[S/V Elusive]

Wu - Since they were aggies, we KNOW they didn't win .. what I'm amazed at is that the cockroaches allowed the aggies to take brides! Granted the aggies got a good deal (having personally seen "female" aggies before); I'm sure that they got a good deal - bribes maybe?

Oh ... and did you HAVE to use a Ketch as the vessel? :::sigh:::

OK.. I did it! to see the article that started this ... whatever it is ...you can go to http://www.thecoastalpassage.com/cockroaches.html

Cheers

Bob

[Alan Wheeler]

When I saw the word "cockroaches", I thought arrrr! we'll have no poiltical rantings here.

But I do have a seriouse question, what the heck are Aggies?????

[hellosailor]

Aggies, as every American school kid once knew, are the "agate" marbles that kids use when playing marbles.

Or, as ego-swollen elitist college students know, they are the dumb farmers who couldn't make it into a real college and went to an "Agricultural and Technical" school.

"Ag & Tech" schools once had very VERY little "science" beyond what was needed to grow crops and keep the milk buckets up to code. A lot of them have changed in the past 20 years and most probably are indistinguishable from any other college.

Obviously the story is apocryphal. REAL aggies, from any ag & tech, would have been able to bring those roaches to market! The damn hard part is getting enough roach milk to make wheels of cheese. Maybe you've seen those little "mini baby bonbel" wheels about 4cm. across? <G>

[Pblais]

"Ag & Tech" schools once had very VERY little "science" beyond what was needed to grow crops and keep the milk buckets up to code.

Having attened one more than 25 years ago I can say it was a deragatory remark used by people that didn't. Agriculture is the oldest science known to man. It predates the making of booze and no other exercise predates that other than getting a date on saturday night.

Even in centuries past it was more evolved and more precise than any other "science". Given they invented "beer" I think it deserves better recognition then "not real science".

Insects consume more of the worlds biomass than all other categories of life on the planet combined. In many thrid world countries, insects eat more crops grown by the population than the people that grow them. Bugs are serious stuff aboard ships.