Treasure Beach Buzzing

Treasure Beach BUZZING !     After all the rain in late May we've had I guess that buzz you hear has arrived. What ? June ? More rain ? ,well we all know it will dry up sometime this month. But there's a new buzz in the air !. Lets face it, after all that rain it can only mean one thing. Mosquitoes ! Mosquitoes ! Mosquitoes!  Yes, the state birds are now out in numbers. That late night buzz your hear after retiring to bed is growing in alarming numbers. In the past week locals like Louie G have come by my house to complain about the little  swarms of mosquitoes on the rampage for more blood. Personally my own property has been bug free for years including mosquitoes or the more common pest, " no see'ems ". I called our local Mosquito control office, they reported about 600 calls are now coming in per day after all this rain we had. No real surprise to most anyone, but there are ways to help deal with the problem. Only a few years ago a study found that mosquitoes do not travel very far. The best thing we can all do is make sure there is no standing water left on our properties in Treasure Beach that offer a breeding haven for the pest. Simply walking around your own property like a CSI agent from TV you can discover small places that might be offering a safe harbor. From sitting garbage cans, old pails, bait buckets, even that old boat in the back yard is the fast track for mosquitoes. My favorite trick was the large plastic garbage cans I have. Each of my plastic garbage cans has a small hole punched into the bottom for drainage preventing them from building up with water. Mosquitoes can breed in less than 1/8th inch of water, so its really a hard find in some cases. The water best suited for Mosquitoes is standing water, and in a nice cool spot, so each property can offer some very odd places of discovery. My basic rule is to walk around, inspect anything that might be holding even a small amount of water for breeding, remove the debris, or empty the water. The second issue is more conflicting, but becomes the home owners taste VS mosquitoes. Some plants actually hold water by nature for their own use, but this also offers a great place for mosquitoes. Vermiliad plants is about the best mosquito breading plant I've ever seen in Treasure Beach. I'm sure there are other plants that do the same job for breeding, but you'll have to know your plants to personally figure out if its adding to your problem with bugs. I love sitting out on my back porch at night, and to counter this problem all my foliage was picked according to bugs. YES, some plants attract them and some drive the flying pest away. Bats will eat about 30,000 bugs per night on average, so its always a welcome sight at dusk to see the black wings fluttering nearby chewing up mosquitoes for us in Treasure Beach. Secondary to the bat is the common Dragon fly, this guy is a great bug to have a round for eating mosquitoes or most bugs in general. If you have have bushes, or tall grass, your offering a place for bugs to hide. Racing your car up and down the street at night will help to kill some bugs, but to date no study has produced any real figures on this "system" of randomized bug killing. I have noticed this practice in Treasure Beach, but I think with the gas prices going back up, we might have to retire that one for now. My message here is really to walk around this month after a rain and check your own property to see if mosquitoes are happy with your blood, and your property. Remove standing water areas, and clean up any debris. The mosquitoes only offers deceases we all do not want or need. The local mosquito control truck has already been in Treasure Beach this past first week of June, but we all need to do our part too. Early in June I saw them spraying the ditches out on A1A, so don't fret over all the standing water, just help us to keep Treasure Beach a safe fun area to live in. I do not recommend, a large bomb fire with beer, or high speed driving each street, or kicking over the neighbors garbage cans. Using loud music with sonic boom speakers has no effect, waving red hats, or just yelling will not get the bugs from Treasure Beach properties. The live concert held at Bill's place on Barco this past month didn't work, but the music was great. Lets all clean and check our properties, and I hope we can work together and reduce the mosquitoes numbers.   L.A. Panchuk ( Author: The Devil's Magnet ) X zone radio reporter ISD reporter     Released: I hearby release this article to Coastal Newspaper and community for its use and publication. LP