April 12: I just came across an online conversation, which included this resource from Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conversation. I found their answers to questions about the safety of organic oils and mosquito sprays helpful and succinct so I am sharing them here.
April 17: The webinar, whose recording is available here, was fantastic, as expected. Aaron Anderson talked about the research study in 2023, completed in three cities where mosquito sprays, are prevalent, including Decatur.
He called Decatur a “rockstar” Bee City USA community, and acknowledged our “really wonderful work to reduce mosquito spraying in [our] district.” Congratulations, Beecatur and Peter Helfrich!
The study was able to gather data about types and levels of insecticides in sprayed yards that spray as well as in neighboring yards. They found high risk to pollinators in sprayed yards and some risk in others (up to 24 to 34 times, in two separate yards, the lethal dose of concentration for honey bees).
He also addressed mosquito buckets and said that he would rather everyone dump water every 7-10 days to disrupt the eggs since it takes about a week for mosquito eggs/lavrvae to hatch. Bti, according to Aaron, kills several species of small flies so there is some risk to target insects/pollinators beyond mosquitos, but much less toxic to sprays, which harm all the pollinators in the yard, especially when companies include synergists, which I had never heard of, that help the chemical sprays persist and make them more harmful!
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