Killing dust Louse

[joachim]

Hello, ist ist enough for Temperatur e below -0 Celsius ??

Thanks Joachim

[nomihoudai]

Psocidae are best cooled to -18C. Like any animal in Europe they can survive mild frost.

[vabrou]

I have written about this for over four decades. Simple solution 115 degrees F. for two days while on spreading boards. I have successively used this method for about a half century processing around 1,000,000+ specimens. 100% of psocids and dermestids and other pests including eggs of all pests. These pests are desiccated to death.

[Adam Cotton]

For information of much of the World, 115 Fahrenheit is only 46.111 Celsius so not exactly very high temperature, and will not damage specimens.

Adam.

[joachim]

Thanks but how can i keep a butterfly at this Temperature vor dass?i have Just a flat, not a Villa

[Deleted]

Vernon put me onto this method when I visited some years back. He uses a small oven if I remember correctly and I use a laboratory incubator to maintain the 115 degrees for two days. It does indeed work. I’ve never had pest issues using the incubator and it does not take up too much room. It does cost a bit, but has held up well.

Do…btw…..let the boards sit for a short while to come down to room temp after removing them from the incubator which will avoid any wing curling. Also….be sure all wing surfaces are covered w paper or glass slides while in unit to prevent curling.

[Adam Cotton]

Dec 25, 2021 18:24:48 GMT -8 joachim said:

Thanks but how can i keep a butterfly at this Temperature vor dass?i have Just a flat, not a Villa

Make a wooden cupboard with shelves inside and put a 1kw electric heater inside with a thermostat, and hey presto, a cheap drying cabinet.

Here's mine:





The copper piping is the down pipe from my rooftop solar panel water heater. I had the cabinet built on top of it, so the electric heating element on top only turns on if the temperature is too low. I also added a small computer fan pointing downwards to help move the air around inside the cabinet. The thermostat is on the left, and the sensor is near the top of the cabinet above it. It is just visible on the left of the top shelf in the first photo.

The cabinet has mesh shelves deep enough to hold my 60cm long spreading boards.

Adam.

[vabrou]

Drying oven (12-2021) Here is what you need to know about oven drying of insect specimens.
About 42 years ago, I designed a custom commercial laboratory drying oven to process (dry to a high degree) all of my insect specimens, both spread, and papered. For 12 years prior to that, I used my natural-gas kitchen oven which operated normally with an always lit pilot light as a heat source, I never actually turned on the oven.  The pilot flame kept the internal temperature of the oven at about 110-115 degrees F.   Here in Louisiana, we use abundantly available natural gas (methane) for cooking and heating in our homes. Additionally, this low temperature heat process has served as my sole method of pest control in my current research collection of about 450,000 spread mostly Lepidoptera (662 Cornell drawers of processed specimens), for these many decades. And, I used this same method of oven drying and pest control for more than another 600,000+ specimens I have sold, donated and exchanged across the world, over the decades. The common pests, psocids and dermestids (adults and ova) are permanently killed by dehydration (desiccation) usually over 48-72 hours of continuous low heat ~115°F. Entire boards of pinned specimens and boxes of papered specimens are treated in this manner; this is a foolproof method. The oven was custom designed for low temperature operation and has a factory installed controlling temperature thermostat. It is most important to also treat all of the spreading boards and all paper products and other equipment and supplies used in processing all specimens.
One very important step in using any oven to accelerate drying of soft bodied insects, including all Lepidoptera, is that freshly acquired/captured specimens cannot be placed immediately into the oven. If one does place specimens immediately into an accelerated drying environment, upon rapid dehydration, the exoskeleton will collapse and permanently deform. It is necessary to always allow Lepidoptera specimens and any soft-bodied insects to acclimate drying of their exoskeleton for a period of at least 48 hours before initially placing them into an oven. Certain specimens which have exceptionally soft exoskeletons e.g. orthoptera, etc., may require ambient drying for as much as 4-5 days before placing into an oven. Regardless, do not expose most insect specimens above (~115°F) 45-46°C, or for more than 4 continual days of oven exposure (there are exceptions to these parameters, more or less). Long times exposed to even low heat may cause the lipids to cover the outer surface of the specimens, and become greasy. There are other considerations for certain families or genera e.g. moth specimens of the Lepidoptera genus Papaipema which most all specimens normally becomes greasy regardless of ambient temperature drying, will find this situation to worsen. To obtain the best outcomes using oven drying also requires a non-traditional method of spreading. Nothing I do entomological-wise is like anyone else.
Paramount in this low-heat drying process, it is mandatory that all insects with spread wings, have at least 80-90% of the outer portion of all wings be firmly held down using medium stiff card stock using insect pins during the entire oven drying process.
I place into the oven batches of hundreds of papered specimens and some filled spreading boards and I add empty spreading boards too, when there is space. The primary location where live psocids reside is on and in the pin holes of the spreading boards. If your boards and equipment are contaminated, then you constantly re-infest your collection storage. Psocids and some other unwanted pests originate from the bodies of wild collected insect specimens. That is how they are introduced into collections. Sometimes I treat entire batches of empty spreading boards and paper products used in spreading in this same manner.
Most all kitchen ovens have very inaccurate thermostats, and are impossible to reproduce each time you turn it on. I also have attached a calibrated lab thermometer to the inside of the oven to verify accuracy. My methods were honed over many years of actual testing and use of multiple parameters of temperature and exposure time, and involving hundreds of thousands of insect specimens.