Grab a fan and put down the beer, the mosquitoes are coming. After so much recent rain, mosquitoes have had ample standing water in which to lay eggs.
Grab a fan and put down the beer, the mosquitoes are coming.
After so much recent rain, mosquitoes have had ample standing water in which to lay eggs.
“This is going to be, if it isn’t already, a pretty good year for mosquitoes and a bad year for us,” said Woody Foster, an Ohio State University professor emeritus and mosquito expert.
“We have high temperatures, high humidity and lots of standing water.”There have been positive tests for mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus in Columbus and Franklin County, both of which are spraying parks and neighborhoods.
City officials trap mosquitoes throughout the summer to keep tabs on the number of the pests, the types of mosquitoes and whether any test positive for West Nile.
A typical city trap ensnares about 300 mosquitoes, but one trap collected on Tuesday had about 1,400, said Jose Rodriguez, spokesman for Columbus Public Health.
“It’s a significant increase,” he said.
So far this year, there have been no cases of West Nile in humans in Columbus, said Lucas Jacobs, section chief for environmental health.
There are ways to reduce mosquito bites. The most obvious is to stay indoors, especially at dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are most active.Also, long sleeves and pants decrease the amount of skin available for the pests to feed.
Mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide — in fact, the gas often is used to attract them to traps — so physical exertion can increase your risk, Foster said.
Drinking alcohol also might increase the odds of mosquito bites. A Japanese study several years ago found that mosquitoes were more likely to land on volunteers who had consumed at least 12 ounces of beer.
Electric fans also might keep mosquitoes away. A recent study published in the Journal of Medical Entomology found that a fan-generated wind strongly reduced the number of mosquito caught in traps. It’s not clear whether the fans blew away the chemicals that attract mosquitoes or that the insects are not strong fliers and cannot land in blowing air.
Otherwise, experts recommend repellants with DEET.
Despite our best precautions, there is no foolproof way to keep the blood-suckers from biting.“ Mosquitoes are pretty crafty creatures,” Jacobs said.