Skip to content
Author
PUBLISHED: | UPDATED:

April showers bring May flowers, but May showers, well, they often bring mosquitoes.

May marks the start of mosquito season in Virginia.

With the seemingly unending amounts of rain, now is the time to start thinking of mosquito prevention, if you haven’t already.

“This is the classic example,” said John Horne, James City County’s General Services director. “After every rain, you should be going out there and looking for anything that you’ve got that’s holding water.”

This is because all mosquitoes breed in water, according to the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA), and neighborhood mosquito problems often start with standing water that residents can prevent.

Individual prevention

As Horne said, one of the most important steps for prevention is to carefully inspect your yard, emptying anything that has collected water, no matter how small: bottles, pots, children’s toys. Even a hole in a tree – “you need to try and get that water out of there,” Horne said.

Leah Henretta, superintendent of York County Mosquito Control, agreed. “The best thing that they can do is to remove sources of standing water from their yard,” she said. “That’s what we as a county are trying to push, particularly with the Zika virus.”

Here are other tips to keep in mind:

*Change – For bird baths, wading pools and other ornamental fixtures, change the water at least once a week. Horne said a mosquito’s life cycle takes 10 days. For items such as saucers or pet dishes, the AMCA advises not to let water accumulate for more than two days.

*Clean – Clear debris out of gutters and drains. Keep roofs clear to allow drainage.

*Cover – For things that can’t be emptied, like rain barrels or trash cans, make sure they’re sealed tightly. Turn baby pools, boats and similar items over to prevent rain collection.

*Dispose – Toss any unused yard items that collect water, old tires for example. One water-filled tire could yield tens of thousands of mosquitoes over the course of a season, according to the City of Williamsburg’s Mosquito Prevention Program website.

*Repair – Keep an eye out for faucets, hoses, air conditioners, anything that might be leaking. Fill or drain any puddles or ditches.

Public prevention

The city’s Mosquito Control Program is responsible for spraying the city on a weekly basis from June through September. The program also targets areas of standing water, and can conduct on-site yard inspections if requested.

Even so, “We’re just getting parts of the city,” said Dan Clayton, the city’s Public Works director. “It’s important that everybody chip in and do their part.”

Horne said James City County used to have a mosquito control program. One reason for cutting the program, he said, was finding that the county’s most aggressive types of mosquitoes largely breed in small sources of water and thus are not as susceptible to large-scale spraying.

“They are very localized,” he said. “They’re a backyard type of mosquito.”

York County Mosquito Control targets mosquitoes in a number of ways – the county contains 43,000 acres of water – including ground and aerial spraying, drainage maintenance, larvicide, surveillance, mosquito fish and other biological forms of control. “We are the only locality in the state that does that,” Henretta said of utilizing fish.

Why prevent

According to York County’s website, mosquito-borne diseases most commonly found in eastern Virginia include West Nile virus. St. Louis encephalitis, Eastern Equine encephalitis and Dog Heartworm.

There’s also the chance of imported mosquito-borne diseases. The York County site stated Virginia might report a few imported cases each year, and these cases are usually the result of travel. Diseases could include malaria, dengue, chikungunya or Zika.

Bridges can be reached by phone at 757-345-2342.

For more information

American Mosquito Control Association: mosquito.org.

City of Williamsburg Public Works: 220-6140

James City County General Services: 259-4080

York County Mosquito Control: 890-3790

Zika awareness

Heightened awareness of Zika virus is a push this mosquito season. As of Thursday, the Virginia Department of Health has reported 15 cases of Zika, including one in the eastern region. Ahead of season’s start, Gov. Terry McAuliffe has announced the importance of preventing Zika’s spread. Protecting oneself from mosquito bites and helping stunt mosquito populations, through some of the ways listed above, can help. For more information, visit www.vdh.virginia.gov/epidemiology/zika-virus-update.