Mosquitoes - The Pesky Plague

 Ouch!  Slap, slap, slap...

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As summertime winds down slowly in South Louisiana, the heat and humidity is gradually getting bearable with morning temperatures in the upper 60's and highs only getting to around 90 degrees.  We welcome that!  One of the problems we still have is mosquitoes.  With the lack of rainfall we've had around here, you would think the population would drop off, since they need water to lay eggs but surprisingly they haven't.

There are several reasons for this, in my estimation.  We are surrounded by rice fields and crawfish ponds that are kept flooded by deep water wells.  The mosquitoes, despite the drought, still have plenty of places to lay their eggs.  Another reason is our water catchment project.  On the back side of the house for aesthetic reason, we have water barrels situated underneath the drip line of the roof and especially underneath the eaves.  With a minimal rainfall we can harvest hundreds of gallons of rainwater that we use to keep the animal's water troughs full.  Some of this is used to irrigate the garden and fruit trees and some of it the honeybees locate and line the barrels to drink water and bring it back to the hives.  They use a form of evaporative cooling to keep the temperature regulated in the hives.

In our parish, part of our property taxes go to fund the mosquito abatement project.  It is a two-phased approach to keeping the mosquito population in check.  First, they have mosquito trucks with a fogger on the back that drive on every road and back up down people's driveways and spray the chemical fog across the landscape.  They are supposed to do this only after nightfall.  Since honeybees don't fly at night, the thinking is that they are all in the hive and safe from the chemicals.  The problem is, the mosquito truck drivers want to get back home early, so many of them start fogging BEFORE its dark.  We've had to chase them off the property several times.  For that reason, we've gone to their offices and put our address on a NO SPRAY list.  Good in theory, but the drivers, covering miles every night aren't always diligent in checking addresses.  As you would assume, we don't want our honeybees killed by the chemicals and we don't want it getting into our honey either!

The second phase of this project is mosquito planes that fly overhead at night spraying over hundreds of acres with chemicals to kill the pesky pests.  They always fly at night and there is no real way to stop them from spraying overhead.  The mosquitoes are still really bad and one wonders how many there would be if they weren't spraying.  I often think about how difficult it was for the early settlers in Louisiana and how they dealt with the mosquitoes.  I guess they just slapped a lot as the pesky insects sucked their blood.  Screened in porches were a necessity.

People always say, "I can't wait for the cold weather to come in and kill these mosquitoes!"  I'm sure there is some truth to this, but I've been to Alaska and remember being in Anchorage and was surprised at how bad the mosquitoes were up there.  Cold weather must slow them down, but it doesn't stop them.  People sometimes say that hurricanes will blow all the mosquitoes away, but we've learned firsthand that this is simply not true.  Some of the worst times for mosquitoes are after hurricanes.  You're trying to clean up debris in your yard and those pesky critters just don't give you a break.

I'll be thankful for mosquito season to be over when it will be peaceful and relaxing to sit outside or work in the garden.