These are the most common pests found in Excelsior Minnesota

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Ants

Mice

Wasps

Spiders

Boxelder/Stink Bugs

Emerald Ash Borer

To protect your home from all these insects and more our Insect Protection Plan or IPP is the most effective option

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If you have any questions or concerns or would like to schedule an appointment call or send us an email

Call Us Today! 952-404-BOGO (2646)

Winged carpenter ants are commonly misidentified as winged termites. Termites are rare to find in Minnesota. A termite colony will also cause a lot more structural damage than a carpenter ant colony. Their body’s shape is one key difference between a carpenter ant. Termites have rectangular-shaped bodies and carpenter ants have uneven edges like an “8”. Their antennas are another difference that is easy to identify. Carpenter ants have elbowed antennas that are at 90-degree angles. Termite antennas are much shorter and straight. Carpenter ants do not eat entire wooden structures like termites. They only chew wood. They make small tunnels and galleries inside the wood. They also only chew already damaged wood that is rotted or water damaged.

Pavement ants are very common ants to find roaming around inside homes in Minnesota. They can stay active in the winter if their nest is located inside. They commonly build nests inside in areas that are temperature-controlled and have a good amount of moisture. Some examples would include, underneath home appliances, vents, heated floors, cement slabs, and insulated foundations. During the warmer months pavements ants will forage up to 100 yards away for their nest. The foraging ants leave the nest to look for foods with protein and sugar. Some of the foods that draw them inside include; dog/cat food, meat, sugary liquids, insects, and sweets. In the summer any foods or drinks that fall on the floor are fair game to a pavement ant.

Our professional service is more effective than any ant killer products, that are sold at department stores. These products are marketed to kill the ants instantly and fix the ant problem instantly. If you use these products you will see dead ants all over your floor. This is only killing the ants that leave the nest. The rest of the colony including the reproductive queen will still be alive. Only 10% of an ant colony leaves the nest the rest stay in the ground. As fewer ants return to their nest the colony will send out more ants to offset the ones that were lost. Our product is not meant to solve the problem instantly. There will be ants walking around inside after our product is applied. The ants are crossing over our product and bringing it back to the rest of the colony underground. This allows the product to spread to the queen ant and kill the entire colony. There shouldn’t be any more ants inside after 30 days.

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Mice live in groups that can contain over 10 mice. Their groups are made up of 1 or 2 male mice, multiple females, and their babies. Each mouse in the group works towards benefiting the entire group and not just themselves. Meaning they forage for food and hoard food for the entire group. Their territories on average cover 30 feet away from their nest. As they move out of their nesting areas to find food the mice secrete urine to create a scent trail to help the mice in their group find their way back to the nest at night and also to mark their territory to keep other mice away. These scent trails over time can become visible on the foundation, siding, and pipes going into the home. These are called rub marks and mixed with their urine the grease and mud on their bodies also rubs off on the entry points.

Homes that are susceptible to having mice are usually homes close to a body of water, forests, or open land. These areas provide the mice with fresh water and an abundance of some of their favorite foods such as; seeds, nuts, grains, fruits, and a variety of insects. Mice do not hibernate so many mice that were living outside in the spring and summer start to look for buildings and homes to move into for the winter. Even in the winter they will still stay active and move in and out of the home. Even though there may be less mouse activity inside homes in the warmer months they can still be bringing and storing food away in the home for next winter.

Our mouse service starts with an inspection around the outside of the home. Our inspections are extremely thorough and honest. We take photos showing our customers exactly where the mice are getting in. The photos also show how bad the problem is. We will not pretend the mouse problem is worse than it is like other companies do to complete a sale. Our inspections are science-based instead of sales based. After the inspection, it is the customer’s decision whether they want to mouse-proof their home. On the second appointment, we seal the home. We do not rush through it and always seal more entry points than were first found during the inspection. We seal entry points with long-lasting and mouse-proof material that most other pest control companies do not use.

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Yellow jacket nests can be found in various locations. They build spherical aerial nests, underground nests, inside hollowed-out trees, and nests inside cracks in the foundation, siding, or other manmade structures. Their nests can grow to become very large totaling between 1,000-4,000 workers. As their nests grow the wasps become increasingly more aggressive. The main reason for this is that when nests reach these sizes it is at the start of the fall season. As temperatures drop there is a decrease in food for them to eat while there are also more wasps looking for food. Their diets include surgery foods, fruits, nectar from flowers, and insects.

Baldfaced hornets are wasps that specifically only build aerial nests. These nests are teardrop shaped. They are larger on the top and then narrow at the bottom where the entry hole is located. Each nest is built at least 3 feet off the ground but can sometimes be over 50 feet off the ground. When these nests are above 20-30 feet high there is an increasingly less chance of these wasps being aggressive towards people and are better off to be left alone. Their nests do not grow to be as large as yellow jackets but still can house between 400-700 workers by the end of the summer.

Our wasp service is especially effective against nests where you are unable to see the number of wasps living inside the nest. These nests in particular will not be affected by over-the-counter wasp killers. It is marketed to kill the wasps instantly on contact. There is only a small percentage of wasps that leave the nest. These over-the-counter products only get on the wasps that fly in and out of the nest. The product will not reach the wasps inside including the queen. Our product doesn’t kill the wasps right away and allows them to carry it back inside the nest and spread it throughout the rest of the colony. If the nest itself is sprayed it should take around 2 weeks for the entire colony to be eradicated.

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Spiders find their food in two different ways. They are either hunting spiders or spiders that are web-building spiders. Hunting spiders search for their food by leaving their burrows or cracks and crevices to hunt for insects to eat. Web-building spiders are as the name suggests spiders that build cobwebs to catch insects that fly or crawl into them. Some common web-building spiders include; cellar spiders (top left), common house spiders (top right), and harvestmen spiders (aka. daddy longlegs). The most common hunting spiders in Minnesota are; the wolf spider (bottom left), the yellow sac spider (bottom right), and the jumping spider. These spiders’ diets consist of eating insects like mosquitos, ticks, caterpillars, moths, and others. Spiders keep insects from overpopulating ecosystems which helps stop them from spreading diseases to people and plants.

Since spiders eat insects to survive they are drawn to live in habitats that have large populations of insects. These habitats have many similarities. One of the main similarities is water. Most insects and almost all other living organisms including humans are drawn to water. Some of the most common insects that live near bodies of water include; mosquitos, ticks, flies, and beetles. Spiders that get inside homes are attracted to moisture. Basements, bathrooms, and unfinished furnace rooms. These rooms, like the habitats outdoors, also attract other insects or moisture pests. Houses with a large spider population living inside usually mean there’s another insect infestation.

The spider service that we provide is focused on the exterior of the home. When we spray the exterior of the home the product we use sticks to the siding and stays effective for 2 months. For homes that are near forests or bodies of water, there will most likely be an increase in spider activity. These homes will need to be treated multiple times during the warmer months to keep the spider population in check. We offer this service with our insect protection plan. Spraying the outside of the home will also kill 90-95% of spiders before they get inside. We can never promise 100% of the spiders will all die after we treat the home.

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Boxelder bugs are really common insects to see in the spring and fall seasons. At the start of spring lots of boxelder bugs start to move around inside. They do this to search for areas to get outside after overwintering. In the summer the boxelder bugs spend most of their time living in and near female boxelder trees. This is where they mate, lay eggs, and hatch out new bugs. When they hatch the small nymphs feed on the helicopter seeds that trees produce. As they grow and learn how to fly they eat a variety of fruits and grass. In fall when temperatures start to go down the boxelder bugs fly and land on buildings and homes to search for places to overwinter.

Stink bugs have just recently become a very common pest in Minnesota and especially in the twin cities. They are an invasive species in the United States. They were first seen in Pennsylvania 1990s. People speculate that they hitchhiked inside shipping containers. They were first spotted in Minnesota in 2010. Since they have been here it doesn’t appear that will be leaving any time soon. They mate and lay eggs in the spring and summer inside agricultural fields and various plants. They then damage crops such as; sweet corn, tomatoes, apples, and grapes. When temperatures start to drop you can find them swarming towards homes and buildings to overwinter inside. Stink bugs have been noted to enter into homes through places that are high off the ground. For example chimneys, metal flues and soffits.

The boxelder bug and stink bug service is applied at the same time and applied in the fall. This service is done exclusively on the exterior of the home. When we spray the exterior we attempt to cover the entire home with our product. We avoid windows to the best of our ability. The house needs to be covered because both insects fly and stink bugs in particular prefer entering into attics and chimneys. The time the service should be applied is before the swarms of these bugs become visible. Once the insects are seen on the exterior of the home there is most likely already a population of insects living inside. Once the insects are seen inside none of them are mating or laying eggs and spraying in the interior is not effective in killing them. The best way to get rid of them is by vacuuming them up.

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The emerald ash borer was first spotted in Minnesota in 2009. They use ash trees as host plants to lay their eggs and raise their larvae. One adult female lays between 60-90 eggs on the bark of the tree. When they hatch their larvae chew through the bark and enter into the cambium layer. The cambium layer is the outermost ring of the tree. It marks the new growth of the tree and when it’s damaged can be very detrimental to the health of the tree. This is what their larvae feed on and when they become adults they will chew through the bark to mate and fly to another ash tree.

Our ash tree service has been perfected and tweaked to be the most effective treatment in the industry. Some of the benefits of our service include how we inject the product into the tree. Most other ash tree treatments make it impossible to know how much product is taken up by the tree. It can also be difficult to tell what part of the tree took up the product more than another area. With our service, we inject the tree with the product individually. This way each injection point receives the same amount of product. It also allows us to make sure that the tree takes up the product with each injection.

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To protect your home from all these insects and more our Insect Protection Plan or IPP is the most effective option

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(Click on the cities to learn about what pests to watch out for in your area)

If you have any questions or concerns or would like to schedule an appointment call or send us an email

Call Us Today! 952-404-BOGO (2646)