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As the European Union moves to ban a popular type of pesticide, researchers struggle to assess exactly how dangerous the chemicals are to honey bees and other pollinators.
The temporary dip in temperatures gave farmers in Pennsylvania a scare during a spring that experts have otherwise described as pleasantly devoid of big problems. Most farmers aren't fans of deviations from the norm. Schedules are typically set by following patterns that follow long-term trends.
Invasive species such as Asian longhorned beetles and emerald ash borers, which often arrive as infestations in wooden packing crates, are a growing problem in the United States. A Penn State collaboration is developing a new heat treatment program for solid wood packaging materials to help prevent these kinds of destructive pests from reaching our shores.
Bees are back in the news this spring, if not back in fields pollinating this summer's crops. The European Union (EU) has announced that it will ban, for two years, the use of neonicotinoids, the much-maligned pesticide group often fingered in honeybee declines.
If you are looking for one of the world's most mysterious insects to return en masse to the Altoona area, you are going to have to wait several more years. Residents of 17 Pennsylvania counties soon will see an emergence of periodical cicadas, commonly - but mistakenly - called 17-year locusts.
Pest problems have plagued South Asia’s vegetable production for many years, but thanks to a collaboration between Penn State and other researchers, an important vegetable pest has all but been eliminated from Bangladesh.
One of the world's most mysterious insects is about to invade the skies over wooded areas in eastern Pennsylvania and other states, but an expert in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences says it's not a cause for alarm.
Just beyond the front door of the Montessori School at Five Canyons, a square glass-walled foyer is brimming with verdant houseplants in clay pots. This lush tableau provides a fitting transition between the world outside and the carefully controlled atmosphere within, where child care director Meher Van Groenou has made environmental health one of her top priorities.
Bees do it -- pollinate crops, that is -- but there are fewer and fewer buzzing around and doing that important agricultural work in Pennsylvania and the rest of the nation.
Scientists are sharing their cutting-edge knowledge in the battle against bed bugs in multifamily housing in a series of videos produced by Rutgers University.
There's a battle taking place at the Penn State Fruit Research Extension. On one side is the Brown-Marmorated Stink Bug, on the other, Penn State researchers hoping to stop it.
If the early returns from veterinary hospitals are any indication, it’s shaping up to be another big year for ticks in Centre County. And when the eight-legged pests are thriving, it’s bad news for just about everyone else.
With populations of wild and domesticated pollinators, such as honeybees, in decline, some of the world's foremost scientists in the field will converge on Penn State this summer to discuss the latest research aimed at understanding and overcoming challenges to pollinator health.
You've been craving more sunlight and warmer temperatures for months, right? And now that spring-like weather finally has arrived, you feel your energy returning? Well, so do the stink bugs. And while we got a bit of a break last spring from emerging hordes of the brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys, bug experts say that 2013 just might be the Year of the Stink Bug.
Duane Charles knelt to study a clump of earth and compare it with soil in his field at home. “Mine’s drier,” said Charles, of East Donegal Township, Lancaster County, Pa. Charles was at a recent cover crop field walk put on by Penn State Extension in Lancaster County.
In urban areas of Pennsylvania, asthma rates are rising, affecting one out of every ten people. Asthma is a chronic lung disease that, for many individuals, can be controlled by avoiding “triggers” such as cockroaches, mice, certain pesticides and other lung irritants and allergens.
If you haven't seen them crawling around your house, consider yourself lucky. But for those that have Scutigera coleoptrata, or house centipedes, inside of their homes, they can be a big (literally)—and creepy—nuisance.
The genus Magicicada contains the periodical cicadas, known for their 17- or 13-year synchronized life cycles and dense choruses. In 2013, Magicicada Brood II will emerge along the US Eastern Seaboard. This map shows the area of expected emergence.
Springtime means bug time. Michael Raupp, professor of entomology at the University of Maryland, has the story of a big brood of cicadas that is set to emerge up and down the East Coast. We can also expect the largest infestation of stink bugs this year. USDA entomologist Tracy Leskey talks about the bugs with guest host Jacki Lyden.
