Mosquito season is right around the corner, and the Lee County Mosquito Control District is making sure they have everything ready to go.
“In the summer, it's almost daily that we're out. We're just waiting for that first rain,” said Nick McCoy, a pilot for Lee County Mosquito Control District.
Jenifer McBride with Lee County Mosquito Control said it's all about putting their heads together.
“We have mosquito control from all over the state coming for this conference. It’s really important, especially because it's not your usual aerial. It's specific to mosquito control and flying at a certain altitude,” McBride said.
A crucial part of this conference is the flyover.
“We will set up our bins and fly over them, and we'll measure how many of the bins, what width of the bins are collecting a treatable amount of product,” said field validation biologist Constance Darrisaw.
Darrisaw said the key to getting rid of mosquitoes is knowing how much product they need to drop.
“So this would tell us how many times the helicopter needs to fly over an area. If we know exactly what amount of area they're treating at one time, then we know how many passes they need to make over that area to treat the whole area,” Darrisaw said.
Lee County Mosquito Control has to make sure there's not too much, and not too little.
“We have to make sure that we're putting out not too much product, that we are affecting the environment negatively, and we're following our regulations that the state of Florida gives us,” Darrisaw said.
If they don't put out enough product, Darrisaw said, mosquitoes can become immune to the chemicals.
“We want to make sure we're giving them the exact amount that will hit them and kill them immediately,” Darrisaw said.
Once they’ve got the perfect amount, it’s time for McCoy to fire up the engines.
“We're just waiting for that first rain. Once that starts, it will be all go from there,” McCoy said.
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