The Buzz in Mosquito Control

 

Why is this the case? There are a few reasons. First, the news media is reporting more frequently on the spread of mosquitoes and their public health effects. This translates into calls to PMPs. PMPs too are more aggressively promoting their mosquito control services, often cross selling to general pest or termite customers. And of course wet, warm weather plays a large role in how mosquitoes (and other pests) reproduce and spread. 

 

The National Pest Management Association (NPMA) in March released its bi-annual Bug Barometer, a seasonal forecast of pest pressure and activity Americans can expect to see in their respective regions of the country based on weather patterns and long-term predictions, as well as pest biological behaviors. According to NPMA’s entomologists, residual winter moisture coupled with wet forecasts ahead will cause pest populations to spike early in much of the continental U.S. this spring and summer.

 

“While regions across the country were either unseasonably cold or warm this past winter, there’s one factor that almost all of them had in common — excessive moisture,” said Jim Fredericks, Ph.D., chief entomologist for the NPMA. “From record-setting snow in parts of Texas and Arizona to excessive rain in the Southeast, continued precipitation predicted for most of the country this upcoming season will allow pest populations to continue to thrive and multiply.”

 

What follows are other trends PMPs are seeing in the field. 

 

“I would say that the biggest break has been the use of the backyard mister within pest control operations, where we have the ability now to target mosquitoes in our customers’ properties and not have to rely on the county or the state to be spraying,” says John Bell, B.C.E., regional technical manager/staff entomologist for TruGreen in Orlando, Fla. Prior to the widespread use of backpack misters, explains Bell, the public relied on mosquito district trucks or planes to knock down populations of mosquitoes. The products used by the districts, however, do not target the Aedes mosquito, a daytime biter, he explains. Consequently, utilizing backpack misting “has really allowed us to get extremely good control of mosquitoes for our customers in a very targeted manner,” says Bell. 

 

Clark Young, owner of Bite Back Mosquito Hunters in Maple Grove, Minn., finds backpack misters to be effective due to the reach of the fogging system. “I can get 30, 40 feet up to the tops of trees where all the leaves are,” says Young. “The tricky thing with mosquitoes, you have to get the underside of the leaf,” he says, “so having that powerful air,” is helpful.

 

“Over the last five years,” states Bell, backpack misters have “really been the biggest progression of mosquito control available out there.”

 

Claudio Salem, west market technical director of Rentokil North America, says he “believes very much” in utilizing mass trapping techniques in mosquito control. A concept used in pest control for other types of pests, mass trapping, where a PMP deploys more mosquito traps that normal in a particular area, “gives the mosquitoes so many options for laying their eggs, that you are going to have a reduction,” says Salem.

 

Customer challenges regarding mosquitoes sometimes differ based on the area. On one hand, says Bell in Florida, “The biggest challenge in discussing mosquitoes with customers is convincing them that the service works.” He explains that for many years, people moving to Florida assumed that learning to fight with and be annoyed by mosquitoes came with the territory. “Most customers say, ‘You can’t control mosquitoes.’ Now we’re telling them we can, and [that mosquito control today is] extremely effective,” says Bell.

 

On the other hand, Minnesota — the land of 10,000 lakes, plus swamps! — has a five-month summer and mosquito season that is especially hot. The state is infested with mosquitoes in July and August. “We’ve got the perfect environment for mosquitoes; they take their hold and can really ruin a day,” says Young. As a result, convincing customers that mosquito control works in his area is not a problem, as customers are willing to try anything to help ease the mosquito biting, he explains. 

 

Young’s issue, though, is explaining to customers that their mosquito problems might extend beyond their own backyard. Some customers have yards without trees or bushes, yet have acres of marshy wetlands behind their property lines. “There is a perception that mosquito companies create a big bubble that [extends] twenty feet in the air to keep mosquitoes out of the yard, and that technology doesn’t exist yet,” he says. 

 

Salem says this type of situation is “Challenging because people see it as ‘my problem in my backyard,’ when actually it is a problem of the whole county or the neighborhood.”

 

An additional challenge that Young faces with customers is “people and their fire pits,” which is a favorite for mosquitoes, he says. The mosquito is attracted to carbon dioxide, heat, light, sweat, and a fire pit is a perfect advertisement for the mosquito to visit that area.

 

“We cannot talk about mosquito control without talking about Wolbachia,” says Salem. Wolbachia is a naturally occurring genus of bacteria that infects and lives off of host insects. In the case of mosquitoes, Wolbachia “decreases the ability of mosquitoes to breed and spread disease,” says Salem. 

 

When male mosquitoes that are contaminated with Wolbachia are released into the wild and then mate with females, the “females are rendered infertile,” explains Craig A. Stoops, Ph.D., B.C.E., and chief science officer of Mosquito Authority in Jacksonville, Fla. As a result, populations of mosquitoes will begin to decrease in the areas where the infected mosquitoes are released. Click here (https://www.nea.gov.sg/corporate-functions/resources/research/wolbachia-aedes-mosquito-suppression-strategy) to see more.