Southwest Virginia was hit with a blanket of snow, keeping people inside and making cars snowed in.
However, with the cold comes a question many people have: Are the bugs going away with it?
According to Doug Pfeiffer, an entomology professor at Virginia Tech, the snow and cold actually help insects like spotted lanternflies and ticks.
“Snow acts as an insulator, a blanket, and so that gives some protection,” Pfeiffer said. “But even just regarding the cold, you know, the lantern fly eggs are up on trees all the way along the whole heights of trees, so they won’t be getting much protection from snow.”
Meanwhile, the extra moisture from the snow can actually give ticks a boost.
“Now most ticks really get pretty quiet in the winter months,” Pfeiffer said. “The black-legged tick is more cold-tolerant and will become active in colder months, not deep cold, but in cooler months where other ticks don’t.”
Meanwhile, spotted lanternfly eggs can survive extremely cold conditions that other bugs cannot.
“For the eggs to have any effect from what I’ve read is -10 to -30 for an extended period of time, and that will reduce the hatch but not eliminate it,” Bug Man Exterminating General Manager Derek Keith said. “So it really won’t have any effect on the lanternflies at all.”
However, just because the cold doesn’t kill off the eggs doesn’t mean you can’t take care of them yourself.
“The best way to control these things is going around now and trying to destroy those egg sacs by any means necessary,” Keith said. “It would almost look like a spot where someone took a putty knife and smeared some mud on the side of the tree.”
Also, be sure to keep an eye out for stink bugs and box elders trying to find warmth, or ants that move inside when the ground gets wet.