Post- Harvey Aerial Spraying

[MetalMan2004]

http://kxan.com/2017/09/06/aerial-mosquito-spraying-to-start-after-harvey/amp/

This worries me. I can't help but think there is a good possibility this will effect my T collection, not to mention all the beneficial assassin bugs and spiders in my yard. I hope those that own bee hives in the area were properly notified, though I'm guessing they weren't...

 

[Rittdk01]

They spray in Indiana periodically and if it rains a lot. I know in the Fort Wayne area they drive trucks that spray the stuff at night. Never did anything but limit the Mosquitos as far as I know.

 

[Ungoliant]

http://kxan.com/2017/09/06/aerial-mosquito-spraying-to-start-after-harvey/amp/

This worries me. I can't help but think there is a good possibility this will effect my T collection, not to mention all the beneficial assassin bugs and spiders in my yard. I hope those that own bee hives in the area were properly notified, though I'm guessing they weren't...

Last August, during the Zika panic, they carpetbombed our entire county with naled. They forgot to notify the registered beekeepers. They also sprayed early in the morning instead of at night, which increased the bee casualties. Millions of domestic and wild bees were killed; many beekeepers were wiped out. Anecdotally, it seemed to devastate our local spider population as well.

The only announcement was posted on the town’s Facebook page. It was posted on a Friday afternoon after business hours, so no one was available to respond to questions. We only found out because my husband happened to log in that day. I didn’t have much notice, so I sealed each of my tarantula enclosures in large plastic bags with their own air supply (from our air compressor) and left them in the bags for 36 hours.

The original notice did not state which insecticide they were using. We found out days later that they had used naled. Naled is nasty stuff, and its effects aren’t limited to mosquitoes.

Look up the mosquito abatement schedule in your area so that you can take appropriate precautions. There is usually a process for beekeepers to register. I registered this year so that I would get notifications on nights when they planned to spray from trucks. (I explained that even though I don’t keep bees, I keep pet tarantulas, which, like other invertebrates, are potentially susceptible to insecticides.)

Find out what they are spraying, especially from planes (aerial spraying). If it’s naled, I would try to evacuate your tarantulas if at all possible. If not, seal them up.

They spray in Indiana periodically and if it rains a lot. I know in the Fort Wayne area they drive trucks that spray the stuff at night. Never did anything but limit the Mosquitos as far as I know.

The permethrin they are spraying from trucks targets adult mosquitoes, but it doesn’t seem to be very effective here. The next day, the mosquitoes are a little better, but after that, they seem to be back in full force due to their short life cycles.

Meanwhile, I am noticing a lot fewer Nephila clavipes around here than during previous years. (I do an informal survey of the neighborhood’s golden silk orbweavers once every week or two.) I’m wondering if the mosquito spraying is reducing their numbers.

 

[MetalMan2004]

They do the truck spraying around here regularly. The truck makes a weird noise so you know its coming so you can go inside. That seamingly has not effected my collection yet.

The official letter on the .gov website doesn't say what it is, but it says that they are spraying at night after the bees would be back in the hive so it doesn't effect them. I take that to mean that it would indeed do harm to other bugs should they get into contact with it. It does say though that the pesticide breaks down quickly in light and water so it doesn't stick around for long. Also, apparently they are only spraying south of me which is good.

 

[keks]

I feel sad, that they spray something that harms other animals, even when I can understand this procedure.
Where I lived before we had billions of gnats every year, because of high water of the river beside us. You even couldn't go outside during daylight, at evening not at all. You were black from head to the toes in seconds.
But they were spraying biological things that only harms the larvae of the gnats. I think it were bacteria or something else, I'm not sure now. This was great, we had almost no gnats, but it didn't harm any other animal outside.

 

[Mila]

America really didn't learn anything at all from the fire ants disaster

 

[MetalMan2004]

America really didn't learn anything at all from the fire ants disaster

I don't know what the fire ants disaster is/ was. Care to enlighten me?

 

[Mila]

I don't know what the fire ants disaster is/ was. Care to enlighten me?

RIFA aka red imported fire ants aka those ants that sting you if you go anywhere barefoot in the south first arrived just after the war in very small controlled populations that arrived in shipping containers.

At first there was only 2-3 super colonies in the entire US (a super colony is where unlike most ant species the queens get along and don't try to murder each other) this essentially allows solonopsis invicta to be friendly to any other solonopsis invicta ant. Instead of fighting each other they join together and form super colonies sometimes with 100 million+ ants.

Anyway. America essentially freaked the hell out (maybe due to them having red in the name and the fight against communism) and they started carpet bombing the entire south with millions of tonnes of pesticides indiscriminately on the entire south. The failure was that fire ants burrow underground so you'd just kill a few hundred of the surface workers which is nothing compared to 100mil+ workers. Essentially they killed millions of insects including the native ants that burrowed a lot shallower. This now created a vacuum for the fire ants to fill and if you live anywhere in the south today you know they filled it

 

[Trenor]

RIFA aka red imported fire ants aka those ants that sting you if you go anywhere barefoot in the south first arrived just after the war in very small controlled populations that arrived in shipping containers.

At first there was only 2-3 super colonies in the entire US (a super colony is where unlike most ant species the queens get along and don't try to murder each other) this essentially allows solonopsis invicta to be friendly to any other solonopsis invicta ant. Instead of fighting each other they join together and form super colonies sometimes with 100 million+ ants.

Anyway. America essentially freaked the hell out (maybe due to them having red in the name and the fight against communism) and they started carpet bombing the entire south with millions of tonnes of pesticides indiscriminately on the entire south. The failure was that fire ants burrow underground so you'd just kill a few hundred of the surface workers which is nothing compared to 100mil+ workers. Essentially they killed millions of insects including the native ants that burrowed a lot shallower. This now created a vacuum for the fire ants to fill and if you live anywhere in the south today you know they filled it

I grew up in the south and my family has been truck farming all over it since the beginning of the 20th century. I've never heard anything about mass spraying for fire ants. They did try to contain them when they were fist brought in around the late 1930s or so but nothing like what you are describing. The truth is they are more hardy, produce faster and are stronger than any of the indigenous ant species we have here so they can take over land and spread quickly. They also have less animals willing to try to eat them so that makes their spread easier. Once introduced it was almost impossible to halt them or stop their spread. They have been moving out from Alabama ever since and are pretty much everywhere. You don't often see them up north only because of the cold. If the temps are good for them they will likely take over any place they are introduced into without any need of help.

Spraying for misquotes after a water based natural disaster is pretty common in lots of countries. It prevents a lot of sickness outbreaks as flooding will leave a lot of standing water for them to breed in. I'm not a big fan of air spraying but it does make a big impact when you can get into enough places to treat the standing water directly which is often the case after a hurricane or mass flood.

 

[Mila]

you can read about it here http://www.nytimes.com/1970/12/13/a...aying-plan-on-fire-ants-in-south.html?mcubz=3 from the 1970's. they planned to target 130million acres of land but some estimates say way way more was sprayed. it was also a total disaster that did the exact opposite of what it was supposed to. solonopsis invicta aka fire ants are not hardy at all. they have very specific requirements for heat and humidity (i have a colony). the only reason they dominate the ant world in southern US is because of the pesticide bombing

 

[MetalMan2004]

I grew up in the south and my family has been truck farming all over it since the beginning of the 20th century. I've never heard anything about mass spraying for fire ants. They did try to contain them when they were fist brought in around the late 1930s or so but nothing like what you are describing. The truth is they are more hardy, produce faster and are stronger than any of the indigenous ant species we have here so they can take over land and spread quickly. They also have less animals willing to try to eat them so that makes their spread easier. Once introduced it was almost impossible to halt them or stop their spread. They have been moving out from Alabama ever since and are pretty much everywhere. You don't often see them up north only because of the cold. If the temps are good for them they will likely take over any place they are introduced into without any need of help.

Spraying for misquotes after a water based natural disaster is pretty common in lots of countries. It prevents a lot of sickness outbreaks as flooding will leave a lot of standing water for them to breed in. I'm not a big fan of air spraying but it does make a big impact when you can get into enough places to treat the standing water directly which is often the case after a hurricane or mass flood.

Interestigly enough the articles I've read say that the post-flood mosquitos generally don't spread disease and are mostly just a nuisance. If it doesn't hurt anything besides the mosquitos then its all good I suppose. There just seems to be a lot of stuff rammed down the public's throats as safe that turn out not to be.

you can read about it here http://www.nytimes.com/1970/12/13/a...aying-plan-on-fire-ants-in-south.html?mcubz=3 from the 1970's. they planned to target 130million acres of land but some estimates say way way more was sprayed. it was also a total disaster that did the exact opposite of what it was supposed to. solonopsis invicta aka fire ants are not hardy at all. they have very specific requirements for heat and humidity (i have a colony). the only reason they dominate the ant world in southern US is because of the pesticide bombing

@Mila your article requires a NYT subscription to read it. Perhaps I'll do some looking into this later. I don't know which of you is right or if it is somewhere in between. I'd say its pretty clear that the climate is great in the southern states for the fire ant and they were enough of a nuisance before spraying was done. The spraying may have certainly exacerbated the issue but to say that its the only reason they dominate the south is a bit far I think.

 

[Mila]

Interestigly enough the articles I've read say that the post-flood mosquitos generally don't spread disease and are mostly just a nuisance. If it doesn't hurt anything besides the mosquitos then its all good I suppose. There just seems to be a lot of stuff rammed down the public's throats as safe that turn out not to be.



@Mila your article requires a NYT subscription to read it. Perhaps I'll do some looking into this later. I don't know which of you is right or if it is somewhere in between. I'd say its pretty clear that the climate is great in the southern states for the fire ant and they were enough of a nuisance before spraying was done. The spraying may have certainly exacerbated the issue but to say that its the only reason they dominate the south is a bit far I think.

Hmmm weird it worked for me and I don't have one.

It's definitely not the only reason but the pesticide bombing created a vacuum that the fire ants filled.

 

[Trenor]

you can read about it here http://www.nytimes.com/1970/12/13/a...aying-plan-on-fire-ants-in-south.html?mcubz=3 from the 1970's. they planned to target 130million acres of land but some estimates say way way more was sprayed.

Interesting, I'd not seen that article before. Most of the stuff I've seen from that era was targeted towards mosquitoes. I'd like to see the records and what they actually sprayed and where. I'll poke about the FL aquaculture website and see what I can find.

solonopsis invicta aka fire ants are not hardy at all. they have very specific requirements for heat and humidity (i have a colony).

I imagine this has more to do with you keeping them in captivity and not due to them being less hardy. Moisture, temp and humidity are much easier to regulate in tunnels that can go 10 feet or more under the ground as opposed to the amount of substrate that you are providing in captivity. I've been around them in the wild and they have no trouble thriving (Dad has acres full of all the colonies you could ever want). We have subsoilded (down past 3 feet) them and they have mounds built back within weeks. They have no problem thriving in the southern US climate temp or humidity or any other requirement they may have. If they did they would have never reached the invasive level were action was needed to start with. We have a lot of bugs that accidentally got imported in over the years and very few reach the level these things have or anywhere even close.

I agree that the spraying didn't likely help (depending on how much was actually sprayed) but they were thriving and had expanded out over a big portion of the south long before the 60-70s. So, I don't think it's fair to say that is the main reason we have the infestation we do is because of spraying that occurred then. The main reason we have the infestation we have is because they are well suited to our climate.

We didn't have them at Dad's place when I was a kid. We had golden, black and a big red ant (that was pretty docile and only lived in the sand side of the farm). When the fire ants showed up they had no problem killing or driving out most of the other ants as they took over.

 

[MetalMan2004]

Last August, during the Zika panic, they carpetbombed our entire county with naled. They forgot to notify the registered beekeepers. They also sprayed early in the morning instead of at night, which increased the bee casualties. Millions of domestic and wild bees were killed; many beekeepers were wiped out. Anecdotally, it seemed to devastate our local spider population as well.

The only announcement was posted on the town’s Facebook page. It was posted on a Friday afternoon after business hours, so no one was available to respond to questions. We only found out because my husband happened to log in that day. I didn’t have much notice, so I sealed each of my tarantula enclosures in large plastic bags with their own air supply (from our air compressor) and left them in the bags for 36 hours.

The original notice did not state which insecticide they were using. We found out days later that they had used naled. Naled is nasty stuff, and its effects aren’t limited to mosquitoes.

Look up the mosquito abatement schedule in your area so that you can take appropriate precautions. There is usually a process for beekeepers to register. I registered this year so that I would get notifications on nights when they planned to spray from trucks. (I explained that even though I don’t keep bees, I keep pet tarantulas, which, like other invertebrates, are potentially susceptible to insecticides.)

Find out what they are spraying, especially from planes (aerial spraying). If it’s naled, I would try to evacuate your tarantulas if at all possible. If not, seal them up.


The permethrin they are spraying from trucks targets adult mosquitoes, but it doesn’t seem to be very effective here. The next day, the mosquitoes are a little better, but after that, they seem to be back in full force due to their short life cycles.

Meanwhile, I am noticing a lot fewer Nephila clavipes around here than during previous years. (I do an informal survey of the neighborhood’s golden silk orbweavers once every week or two.) I’m wondering if the mosquito spraying is reducing their numbers.

Update, they originally said they would only be spraying south of me, but the news today says they'll begin spraying most of my county tonight. I am pretty mich in the middle of the spray area. The pesticide is Dibrom, the active ingredient of which is Naled... the news report warned that it is indeed known to kill bees but they will be spraying in the evening when hopefully the bees are back at their colony.

Ugh.

 

[Trenor]

Bag your Ts by putting your enclosures in large trash bags. Pump them up with as much air as you can and tie them off. They should be fine for a few days/a week till the spraying is done.

Best of luck.

 

[Mila]

Naled decomposes almost immediately in sunlight so the night they are going to spray put all your inverts in a big room, lock the windows, put a towel under the door and put as many jugs of water as possible on your window ledge and you'll be fine