Mosquitoes and Farm

Spring is here and now is a good time as any to learn more about the biology of mosquitoes so you can be prepared to deal with them. Speaker2: A lot of people don’t r ealize that there are important differences in what kind of still standing water, different kinds of mosquitoes like. Entomologist J.B. Capco say different types of mosquitoes, he points out regarding mosquito species, it is state of Pennsylvania alone. Speaker2: The roughly 50 different species of mosquitoes also. Speaker1: Mentioned different mosquito species perhaps used different types of standing water as their nesting area to lay eggs. Speaker2: Some of them are all about a little pool of water that builds up in a clogged drain spout, or a discarded tire or trash on the side of the road, or something like that. They love these teeny tiny little water bodies. And then you have other types of mosquitoes that are like, give me a swamp. I want a swamp or a pond or something big. Speaker1: Another differentiator between mosquito species based on their biology, how far they can fly. Speaker2: Some species, especially the ones that kind of go for those real small breeding areas, they tend to stay close to home, so they might never travel more than 1 or 200 yards their entire life. So if you can find where they're breeding and clean that up, you might make a big difference on how many mosquitoes you've got where other species of mosquitoes will fly for miles, and especially if, like a storm system rolls through, the wind might blow them some. So you can be like, we're getting hit by all these mosquitoes all summer long and we can't find any breeding sites. But yeah, their breeding site might actually be a marshy area two miles upwind and they're all just blowing in. Speaker1: And Kopco says knowing when mosquitoes are active during a day part is important. Speaker2: If the mosquitoes that are causing you grief are mostly active in the evening. If you can just coordinate your outdoor time to be like, we're done with whatever we're doing outside before the mosquitoes come out, that's a really easy way to just avoid them versus if they're out during the day, then your evening campfire might be to