Insects Limited’s Work on the Red-Legged Ham Beetle
About 3 years ago if you were a pest control professional or food manufacturing sanitarian, and you identified an insect as a Red-Legged Ham Beetle, you were probably squinting your eyes and scratching your head in disbelief. Fast forward to 2023, and you probably wonder why they have taken a foothold in some of your locations.
Red-Legged Ham Beetles on the Rise
You are not alone. The Insects Limited website page outlining information on the Red-Legged Ham Beetle ranks number 4 on our most viewed pages in 2023. In the years prior, it did not even show up in the top 10. One of our Board Certified Entomologists, James Feston, wrote a newsletter article in Issue 171 that has been viewed 872 times. At our booth, the Red-Legged Ham Beetle product was the one I detailed PestWorld 2023 attendees the most. A quick search through my email found that we started getting customers inquiring about this insect pest in early 2015.
The good news is that Insects Limited picked up on this trend quickly, and we created a great monitoring device based on our product development protocol. In short, the literature was studied, the attraction iterations were created and tested (including your good old piece of pepperoni), and the insects told us what they liked best. Our attractant that the Red-Legged Ham Beetles picked was third-party tested in the field, and our product was launched. I realize I skipped over a lot of details, but this is a blog post, and the point is to give you quick and easy notes to help you decide what you would like to do to monitor this pest.
Monitoring Device for Red-Legged Ham Beetles
At the current time, I am only aware of one other professional Red-Legged Ham Beetle monitor on the market, and we are very proud of how our product performed in a comparison study, as well as getting feedback from those using it in the industry. The reason our attractant is working so well is because it is a combination of sex pheromone and kairomone lure which not only attracts the adult Red-Legged Ham Beetles, but it is also attracting larvae.
I would be remiss if I did not remind you, that these devices are strictly for monitoring for this insect, and they cannot be used as a control device as one customer had mistaken. We received a complaint on the product from a pet food retailer that “the product wasn’t working, and he was still having insect issues.” We asked that the devices be returned so we could troubleshoot the issue, and when received, we found 127 Red-Legged Ham Beetle adults and larvae on 5 traps. The attraction was working great. He had misunderstood the purpose of pheromone devices and took them as a control device.
Features of this monitoring device include a sex pheromone and kairomone mix lure which will attract male and female adults and larvae and an Insects Limited Flat Trap with enhanced glue for these particularly strong crawlers. As a side note, although not tested and not its intended target pest, the All Beetle Trap with Gel is catching a great number of Red-Legged Ham Beetles as well. More to come on that.
If you would like more information on the Insects Limited Red-Legged Ham Beetle monitor (IL-660-10) please contact Tom Mueller or order online at www.insectslimited.com/store/p/red-legged-ham-beetle-kit-il-660
Insects Limited, an Insect Pheromone Company
Insects Limited, Inc. researches, tests, develops, manufactures and distributes pheromones and trapping systems for insects in a global marketplace. The highly qualified staff also can assist with consultation, areas of expert witness, training presentations and grant writing.
Insects Limited, Inc. specializes in a unique niche of pest control that provides mainstream products and services to protect stored food, grain, museum collections, tobacco, timber and fiber worldwide. Please take some time to view these products and services in our web store.
