Taking The Bait

PCOs have a new weapon in their battle against carpenter ants – Maxforce Carpenter Ant Bait Gel. The product, featuring the
state-of-the-art active ingredient fipronil, hit the streets in late April and is already creating a "buzz" in the pest control industry.

Fipronil belongs to a new class of insecticides that provides long-lasting control of pests at extremely low rates. It is also non-repellent, making it particularly attractive for ant control work in and around structures.

The product provides a new way of controlling carpenter ants — through a bait gel. Traditionally, PCOs have performed "drill and treat" pesticide applications when attempting to control carpenter ants, whereby holes are drilled into voids and infested wood and either a dust or aerosol insecticide is injected into these locations.

"The conventional way of controlling carpenter ants is a labor-intensive treatment. A carpenter ant job could easily take a couple of guys a few hours," said Gordon Morrison, Maxforce’s national sales and marketing manager. "This will take less time and less pesticide and reach colonies that are difficult to reach with contact insecticides." Carpenter ants are particularly attracted to the high-moisture characteristics of the bait, as well as the food ingredients.

But there’s something else that’s new about Maxforce Carpenter Ant Bait Gel, besides its ability to change the way pest control operators perform carpenter ant work. What’s also different about the new product is its delivery system. Its overnight delivery system.

The new bait may make its way to PCOs through an unusual route: via either FedEx or United Parcel Service overnight delivery. Why the rush? The Clorox Company, which manufactures the Maxforce product line, is concerned about heat sensitivity issues relating to the new gel formulation. In particular, the company is wary of possible product spoilage during shipment because the bait begins to degrade when exposed to high temperatures for extended periods of time (see chart on page 117).

"While product degradation isn’t a problem in most situations, when being shipped cross-country – or carried in a service vehicle where temperatures can routinely top 120°F during the summer months – the potential for problems with this product exists," Morrison says.

Originally, Clorox had intended to address the heat-sensitivity issue by rolling out the product regionally. The company originally planned to introduce the new bait in the Northeast and Pacific Northwest this spring, where temperatures are typically cooler and carpenter ant pressure is high. At a later date, perhaps after developing a more heat-tolerant formulation, Maxforce planned to introduce the product to its customers in the South.

But carpenter ants have become such a control problem for PCOs throughout the country that Clorox’s customers in the South didn’t like the proposed managed rollout. "Customers said, ‘Don’t make it so that I can’t get this product. Get the product to me and I’ll take care of the heat-sensitivity issue,’" Morrison said. The result is Clorox’s overnight distribution plan.

PCOs will order the carpenter ant bait through their existing distributor network, just as they do their current products. The individual distributor will decide whether they want to keep the product in cool storage and supply customers as usual, or ship product directly to their customers from Clorox’s Jackson, Miss., manufacturing facility.

"We didn’t want to tell distributors or PCOs that they couldn’t get this product," Morrison said, "so we decided on overnight delivery to distributors plus an option for distributors to drop ship product overnight to PCOs." In either case, customers will receive the product immediately, thereby avoiding any problems with product degradation during transit.

THE DISTRIBUTOR’S ROLE. Not surprisingly, the decision to overnight Maxforce Carpenter Ant Bait Gel to customers has some distributors scratching their heads, but most are supportive of the idea. "I don’t think it’s a big deal," Roland Rhodes, president of Rhodes Chemical Co., Kansas City, Kan., said. "If the product is equal to or better than their current bait product — which has proven very popular — and they need this change in distributor logistics, we’ll be more than happy to cooperate with them."

Others aren’t so sure. "It’s a great just-in-time concept, but it’s laying the foundation for the introduction of a superior product to come into the market later," said another distributor who asked not to be identified. "I would prefer them to wait and develop a formulation that didn’t degrade under extreme heat."

That’s not going to happen. Clorox is so confident the product will perform well under a wide range of field conditions – and demand for carpenter ant products is so high – that it’s not going to hold up production. Instead, the company hopes to educate the marketplace through the distributor community and the industry trade press while it continues to conduct research to create a more stable formulation. "We are really relying on authorized distributors to get the word out about the special care the product requires," Morrison said. "This is a good example of value-added service provided by distributors. No one is in a better position to provide care and application advice to end-users than your local distributor at the point of sale."

In addition, Morrison has been meeting with individual distributors in recent weeks and the company has distributed a memo to industry product suppliers explaining the need to proactively educate customers about the new carpenter ant bait. The memo states: "Cool storage for Maxforce Carpenter Ant Gel is required. This product cannot be stored at temperatures above 100°F and should not be stored at 100°F for more than one week. We need your help communicating the need for cool storage to your customers and within your own organization. Maxforce guarantees the product will be delivered in good shape."

In addition, the memo states, "Storage after delivery is out of our hands so please expect a return policy with teeth." The return policy is designed to "share" responsibility if the product spoils when it’s out of Clorox’s control, Morrison says. "The formula is special and we want everyone to know up front that it contains attractive food ingredients that can’t be protected with preservatives. Imagine buying an apple and making the mistake of leaving it in the car for two weeks in August. Can you take it back for a refund? Of course not. Make the same mistake with Maxforce Gel and the Clorox Company will replace it for about one-third the list price. One advantage is, like an apple, you can tell by looking if it’s bad," Morrison says. "Maxforce Carpenter Ant Gel turns from light yellow and translucent to dark yellow or brown and opaque if it spoils."

Regardless of the drop ship option, customers will still be billed through their distributors. The additional cost of overnight shipping will be built into the price of the product. If the distributor chooses to drop ship the product, PCOs must pur-chase at least one case of the gel bait, which contains a dozen 27-gram reservoirs.

ANT PRODUCTS IN DEMAND. Clorox’s just-in-time delivery system shows to what lengths the pest control industry will go to control carpenter ants, one of the country’s most destructive and hard-to-control pests. Given the profit potential of carpenter ant work, not to mention the growing popularity of baits, it’s not too surprising that PCOs are eager to try the new carpenter ant gel from Maxforce.

What about PCOs in the South who are concerned about applying the bait outdoors in July when temperatures frequently hover near 100°F? Will the product spoil then? Over time, yes. "If it is exposed to temperatures in excess of 100°F for more than five to six days, then one of the feeding components starts to degrade," Joe Barile, national technical manager for Clorox, said, but that’s not likely to happen if the bait is placed in the proper location(s). Because carpenter ants are active foragers, the product won’t be around long enough to degrade, according to Morrison. Carpenter ants will feed on the bait long before it spoils.

And if PCOs bait for carpenter ants at night, when they’re most likely to be foraging, bait acceptance will be higher still. Purdue University research has shown that carpenter ants are most active at night and that daytime activity is limited (see April 1999 PCT, page 68). Carpenter ants are nocturnal for a variety of reasons, including to avoid predators, to avoid competing with other ant species for limited resources and to avoid foraging during the day (a water conservation strategy). Also, if PCOs put out the bait later in the day, fewer non-carpenter ants will be attracted to the bait. In addition, if the bait is placed at night when the temperatures are cooler, the bait will last longer as well.

The yellow gel starts to lose moisture as soon as it is applied, according to Barile, but that’s what makes the bait is so attractive to ants — the moisture content of the bait in combination with a palatable, non-repellent formulation. The special inert food ingredients, several of which are found in honeydew, make the bait attractive to ants. "It’s designed look and taste like honeydew," he said, which is a key component of the diet of ants.

After four days, the Maxforce product may begin to dry out and skin over, "but that doesn’t mean the ants aren’t going to still try and get at the product," Barile said. "Ants will dig into it and suck out the moisture below the hardened surface. Or they’ll break it off and take it back to the nest and feed it to the larvae," resulting in secondary kill. The active ingredient (fipronil) is lethal to the ants simply by them touching it — even if they don’t ingest it.

Foraging worker ants can’t ingest the hardened, solid bait because they can’t eat any solid foods. But they will take the bait back to the nest and through trophallaxis, the entire nest will be exposed to the toxicant.

To accommodate the rapidly changing tastes of carpenter ants, Clorox recommends using their granular bait – a protein-rich product – in conjunction with their new gel bait – a carbohydrate- and sugar-based product.

In this way, the baits will attract as many ants as possible, resulting in more effective control. "Like all ants, the feeding of carpenter ants tends to change," said Barile. "Early in the season they prefer proteins, and then carbohydrates later in the season. Eating habits also change from day-to-day depending upon alternative food sources."

CONCLUSION. "This is a business model that is different than PCOs are used to," Morrison said. Baiting for carpenter ants is something new and Morrison thinks it’s good for the industry. "The bait gel goes right along with IPM," he said. "And anytime you use less chemical, it’s good for everyone."

The author is assistant editor of PCT magazine.