Selective Mosquito Control Techniques Every Homeowner Should Know
How does one reconcile the need to control disease-spreading mosquitoes and ticks while also protecting honey bees, native pollinators, and beneficial insects? Most homeowners assume the two goals are mutually exclusive. They will logically sacrifice an abstract, long-term goal to reduce a concrete, near-term threat. However, these two things are not mutually exclusive. The attached PDF article details what every homeowner needs to know in order to effectively control mosquito populations, minimize the likelihood of mosquito bites, and protect honey bees and other beneficial insects from harm. I hope you will read it and share it with as many homeowners as possible.
Click here to download the Selective Mosquito Control article.
Mosquito control is like vaccination in two ways. There is a lot of misinformation about it and it is most effective when everybody does it. The misinformation comes from self-serving mosquito control companies that tout “safe and natural” pesticides that come from chrysanthemums. Their non-selective technique of fogging an area with fine mist pesticide has become the standard practice for controlling mosquitoes. The attached document provides a more effective, less costly, and more selective approach to mosquito control. The article is provided as a PDF document so that you can distribute it as widely as possible in either paper or electronic form.
Are you an organization with a charter to protect the environment and educate the public? Then you should consider copying this article, reformatting it, and publishing it in your newsletter, website, or brochure under your organization’s logo or imprint. You can publish it in a commercial newspaper or magazine. Per the creative commons license, you must provide attribution to the author and indicate any changes made to the content. To make publishing easier, you may download a Microsoft Word document version of this article (click here). If you do re-publish it – and I hope you do – please post a message below letting us know that word is getting out.
July 1, 2020 at 1:02 pm
I’m going to use this information for our next wildlife habitat team meeting. A member requested the topic of killing mosquitos without harming beneficial bugs. Thank you!
May 23, 2020 at 2:42 pm
I’m not taking the word of a “master beekeeper” over extensive tests done at LSU and Clemson showing how easily many if not most pesticides can be sprayed without harming bee populations. How ironic that you say “self-serving mosquito control companies” and then post (and ask us to distribute) something just as self-serving. I have no dog (or bee or skeeter) in this fight — I’m just for objective scientific research. The very title of this piece is biased (and wrong).