TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP) - Pest control is a constant balancing act.
Technicians try to get rid of mosquitoes and black flies without harming anything else.
At least that is how Kirk Tubbs, manager of the Twin Falls County Pest Abatement District, sees it, and those views are driving his most recent experiment.
As a bee enthusiast and owner of a berry farm, Tubbs knows how important insects are to the local economy. When a new toxic sugar bait used to kill mosquitoes was placed on the market, Tubbs decided it was his responsibility to make sure it wouldn’t have unforeseen consequences for bees while they search for sugar to take to their hive.
“Bees will harvest more than just nectar, they will seek out sugar wherever they can,” Tubbs said. “They’re like my kids.”
Tubbs mostly targets black flies and mosquitoes when they’re in the larva stage. Mosquitoes stay contained to 1,000 acres of wetland while in the larva stage but can fly across 72,000 acres when they mature.
Technicians like Andria Perez have to cover 1.2 million acres across Twin Falls County. They treat all the standing water near canals, troughs and buckets and adult mosquitoes can slip through so products like Terminix’s ALL Clear are needed.
“You walk around all day and never think of all these things that hold water,” Tubbs said. “You miss one stinking mosquito and that’s 200 laid eggs.”
When Terminix first heard Tubbs was doing his test on its product last year, the company was nervous because it knew he would publish his results, he said. But after positive feedback and changing the formula this year, the company asked Tubbs to do the experiment again to make sure the product was still safe.
“You have so much affecting (bees),” Tubbs said. “You have mites, deformed wing syndrome and one more thing could be their collapse. I don’t want to be that one more thing.”
Tubbs’ experiment takes a couple of months. He took one of his personal hives that can house 50,000 and divided it into a smaller hive, a quarter of the size, to better measure effects.
The hive was then connected to a cage with different plants placed along the bottom and older bees used to flying up to 5 miles were set free.
“Older bees don’t do well in the cage,” Tubbs said.
A sugar solution was given to the bees and they were given one week to acclimate to the world he created. Then the toxic sugar bait was sprayed onto half the plants.
When the bees still wouldn’t eat it, he took away the sugar solution to see if bees would eat the sugar bait during a dearth.
His study showed the bait is safe for pollinators.
“If I can’t get them to eat it in these conditions, I’m confident they won’t eat it in the wild,” Tubbs said.
Tubbs measured his results by weighing the hive periodically. Because the bees wouldn’t eat the bait, they were blowing through their winter food storage in the hive. If the experiment was continued for a few more days, the bees would have starved.
“They lost over 10 pounds,” Tubbs said.
Tubbs’ trial hive was set up next to the pest abatement building so Tubbs could keep an eye on it and technicians could watch if interested.
On Thursday they were released.
“I came back here to work just to see it,” Perez said.
When the lid of the cage was lifted, bees outside the hive immediately flew around Tubbs’ head as they oriented themselves. Within 10 minutes the first bits of nectar and pollen were being brought back in.
“You know this is just fun for me,” Tubbs said. “I really love bees.”
___
Information from: The Times-News, https://www.magicvalley.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.