Rose Pest Solutions On Air WJR - Summer Mosquitoes

Friday, July 10, 2015

Mosquitoes in Michigan are worse than ever this year in Michigan. Find out why and what you can do to protect yourself from these uninvited summer guests.

Transcript:

Paul:

It's been a hot summer. It's been a wet summer more than hot and because of all of the wet conditions the happiest, well, they're not people really, but the happiest among us are the bugs and the mosquitoes, skeeters. Mark Sheperdigian, Rose Pest Solutions entomologist on the other end of our line. Shep, it's not just my imagination. This is a heavy mosquito summer?

Mark S.:

Good morning Paul. It absolutely is. Once you get rains like that, we've had some heavy rains for a while. You wait a week or two and boom the mosquitoes are here.

Paul:

Is there anything you can do about that? There's certainly no shortage of contraptions that you see in the Sharper Image catalog or a Hammacher Schlemmer or out at the hardware stores. These things that you either plug-in or that run to supposedly eliminate mosquitoes. Are those things working?

Mark S.:

Most of them don't work or don't work well enough. Some of them don't work at all. The little electronic mosquito repeller ultrasonic kind of things that you see they are so ineffective. Last I knew they were not allowed to be sold in the state of Indiana where they don't allow you to sell stuff that doesn't work.

Paul:

Boy, that sounds like a good law.

Mark S.:

It is, but I don't think we have that at least not in general consumer goods.

Paul:

I love that. If it doesn't work, you're not allowed to sell it in our state. Good for them in Indiana.

Mark S.:

That's right. [crosstalk 00:01:33].

Paul:

And they're listening in Indiana. Yeah, that's a good one.

Mark S.:

So with the backyard bug zappers, the best thing to do with those is give them to your neighbor. They do call mosquitoes in but not nearly as many as you think, and most of the bugs they call in they don't really catch so it's a good thing to give those as gifts.

Paul:

One of the commercials I probably read for Rose Pest Solutions talks about being selective in taking out certain insects. You don't want to take out the pollinating honeybees. They've got enough problems. But what about mosquitoes? Is there any positive ... What do mosquitoes do on a positive note? Anything?

Mark S.:

Well, everything ... That's not true. In a deep philosophical conversation, there are a few things that we could just flat do without. Mosquitoes, on the other hand, are kind of a diverse crowd, and if it wasn't for the bloodsucking disease-transmitting aspect of things they would fit in a niche where they clean up the waters where the larvae live, and the male and the females feed on plant juices and nectars, and they may even pollinate plants which make them pollinators, but we have pollinator protection so now what? Well, the mosquitoes do that, but the female's habit of sucking blood is just so destructive that we really don't consider them as all that beneficial. Everything they do could be done by somebody else.

Paul:

Yeah, we have Rose Pest Solutions entomologist Mark Sherperdigian with us. We can find no good reason to have mosquitoes existing. I have to tell you Shep I know that you are a humanitarian. When I want to just want to kill a bug, a spider, a mosquito, you generally look for more humane ways to deal with them. I understand, and I appreciate that, but even you are having trouble coming up with good reasons for mosquitoes.

Mark S.:

I've got to admit most of [inaudible 00:03:31], but then again I'm not like one of those deep mosquito experts. Who knows there may be some obscure species that we just can't do without that nobody knows about, but I'm certainly not aware of them. I see them. I swat them.

Paul:

I had no idea that a mosquito can live as long as five months. That's pretty good for bugs.

Mark S.:

Actually, that's pretty good for mosquitoes. There are insects that can live a great deal longer than that. Termite queens, at least in some species, about 20 years or more.

Paul:

What?

Mark S.:

Oh yeah, 20 years or more.

Paul:

I had no idea.

Mark S.:

Tarantulas, in fact, my beloved tarantula [Esmeralda 00:04:07] should probably live 25 to 30 years.

Paul:

Wow. I forgot you have a beloved Esmeralda.

Mark S.:

She is beloved. Ah, she's a sweetheart.

Paul:

I'm sure she is. Yeah, I'm not big on spiders and snakes. I think there's a song there. But hey here's an observation again. My observation is it seems to be a very mosquitoey type summer, and it is because of all the water. My lovely Kim seems to be a mosquito magnet as opposed to me. If we're out, she's going, ooh, ah. Aren't you getting bitten? And I go, Well, no, and then I start to feel a little rejected even by mosquitoes.

Mark S.:

That happens, and everybody's a little different. It's amazing how they choose some people over others. There's a lot of subtle cues that they use to pick up on folks, and I'm not sure what all those are. You hear a lot of old wives tales about Brewer's yeast or garlic or something and the mosquitoes will leave you alone. Frequently it's people who the mosquitoes don't eat who do that, and they say, See it works for me," but that would work anyway so it's awful hard to say. As far as repelling mosquitoes, there's nothing like the repellents out there. They really do work, and you should wear them when you're out around mosquitoes because mosquitoes can transmit disease. I would say that in a summer like this here in ... Well, so far we've seen this wet weather. It doesn't take but a few more weeks of really dry weather to kind of change things again, so it'll go from week to week, and it changes from locality to locality. You may not be seeing mosquitoes where you live.

Paul:

Well, that'd be interesting. Mosquito repellent products containing federally approved active ingredients such as DEET or even oil of lemon eucalyptus are recommended, and as Shep says, Do put it on. I say it to the kids. I say it to all of us. When we're going out especially near dusk or out in fields or on golf courses or whatever put on the mosquito repellent because those bites, again as Shep points out you're talking Lyme Disease, you're talking about all kinds of problems. Thanks to Mark Sherperdigian and all the good folks at Rose Pest Solutions doing a nice job for us on

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