Red spider mites

Mark Aronson <mark.aronson [at] yale__edu> writes

>We have a situation in our ancient art gallery involving an annual
>summer invasion of red spider mites.

We have these red spider mites in our lab. They climb up the walls
and in cracks around the windows. The best non-toxic solution for us
has been to power spray the exterior walls of the building (which
they slowly ascend as colonies). The spray kills some of the mites
and disrupts their webbing, forcing them to start their climb all
over from the ground up. Repeat every week or two. Our little red
visitors like dry, hot weather in general (some mites like cool
weather) and I believe power spraying the sidewalks and lawn around
the building would also benefit us more than them. A Google search
of "red spider mites" yields a number of helpful sites for
identifying and treating the problem. (Take care with pesticides as
many are ineffective on mites, and others are good at also killing
the mites' natural predators.)

Jim Hinz
Library Conservator
Hagley Museum and Library


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 16:1
                   Distributed: Friday, June 14, 2002
                        Message Id: cdl-16-1-007
                                  ***