Palm Beach County spends $1.8 million on mosquito control each year, and the most that money buys is to keep a "cap" on the population, said Gary Goode of the county's mosquito control division.

"We're practicing birth control. If we stopped spraying, next year it would be pretty bad. The year after that it would be geometrically worse, and the year after that worse still," Goode predicted.

With a field staff of eight, the mosquito control division collects mosquitoes twice a week, from 16 sites. Mosquitoes are sorted out by species and counted. Part of the classification process involves checking the bugs' genitalia through a microscope. At five sites, the testing is even more exacting. 

Mosquitoes caught at Heritage Farms, Fox Trail, Belle Glade, Pahokee and The Acreage are checked for viruses by examining the RNA in their blood.

The humble chicken acts as our coal-mine canary against mosquito invasions. Young birds are pre-bled, to make sure they've not been bitten before and haven't developed any antibodies. Then the "sentinel chickens" are placed out in cages, where they serve science without pay. The chickens don't die of the diseases mosquitoes can carry -- malaria, dengue fever, West Nile virus and two types of encephalitis. But they do develop antibodies within 10 days of being bitten by an infected mosquito. By checking for antibodies in their blood, technicians can tell if there are any disease-carrying mosquitoes on the wing.

People can squawk even louder than chickens, and often do. Phone calls to the mosquito control district can be loud, anguished affairs.

"It's truly amazing to see the lengths people will go to, to get us to come out and spray. You hear things like, 'They're carrying my house away!' They'll say anything to get sprayed," Goode remarked.

But the district has to watch out for the dangerous species, the ones that carry disease, and prioritize them: Bugs like Culex nigripalpus and Anopheles quadrimaculatus, the disease-vector mosquitoes. Salt-marsh mosquitoes may drive you crazy, but they won't make you sick. They aren't disease-vectors.

Palm Beach County is in an odd position. Thanks to development along the coast, mosquitoes have been pushed back inland, where they thrive in aquatic preserves that cannot be sprayed, as they are the source of much of the county's drinking water. The farther west you go, the more mosquitoes you encounter.

To suffocate mosquito larvae in water, the county used to spray a mist of diesel fuel, which covered standing water with a fine layer of oil, through which the larvae couldn't breathe. But because diesel fuel pollutes water, it is no longer used. Instead, the larvae get a dose of a bacterial agent, harmless to humans, called Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, so-called because it was discovered in Israel. The stuff clogs up their guts, so they starve.

"It's like swallowing razor blades," Goode said cheerfully. Adult mosquitoes are controlled with Dibrom, an organophosphate pesticide sprayed by air, or with Aqua-Reslin, another poison. In olden days fogger trucks sprayed diesel fuel mixed with malathion, dripped on a hot pipe and dispersed in a cloud from the back of the truck.

Childrens loved to run through the noxious clouds as recently as the 1970s.

Unfortunately, if the truck were involved in a traffic accident, it could explode in a huge fireball. Some have. Actress Jayne Mansfield was killed in a highway accident on her way to New Orleans in 1967, when her limousine rear-ended a semi-truck that had slowed because the driver could not see through the smoke from a mosquito-fogger.

Still, people miss the old foggers. "They accuse us of doing nothing," Goode said. "They say they can't see anything coming out of the back of the truck." 

High temperatures and humidity led to the death of over 8,000 chickens at a local farm last weekend.

On the morning of Saturday, July 26, Kevin Peltz - who raises chickens for Gold'n Plump on his Zion Township farm - went to his barn to do chores and found that almost 700 birds had died overnight. Through the course of the day, another 7,800 died from the heat, he said, many of them before noon. 

Peltz receives chickens from Gold'n Plump as hatchlings and raises them for 44 to 48 days when they are returned to the company for processing. His 24,000 sq. ft. barn holds 50,000 chickens. 

Chickens are prone to heat stress, especially during the last week they are in the barn, said Peltz. The chickens that died on the Peltz farm were almost finished and were due to be shipped out the next week.

According to Bill Lanners of Gold'n Plump, heat loss is not unusual, but the large number of chickens lost last weekend is. Although the exact number of heat casualties is unavailable, Peltz estimates that as many as 100,000 chickens were lost in barns from Paynesville to Freeport. 

Chickens are in danger when temperatures reach the 90s and the dew point is over 70. Last Saturday saw temperatures reach 91 degrees with a 76-degree dew point, said Lanners.

Producers take precautions to minimize heat loss, said Lanners. Barns are ventilated and when temperatures rise, farmers encourage the birds to move about so air can circulate around them and to drink plenty of water with electrolytes. 

Even though Peltz was running barn fans and was walking the birds, his efforts weren't enough to save all of the birds.  In the end, the only thing he could do was remove the dead chickens to and compost them. 

Peltz started raising chickens for Gold'n Plump in 1989. He's lost birds to heat before, but he's never lost so many at one time and he's never had them die from the heat so early in the day. According to Lanners, during a typical summer, growers lose an average of 500 to 1,000 chickens to heat. 

Gold'n Plump is in the process of improving the ventilation systems in all of its barns, said Lanners. Evaporative cooling systems that can cool the air seven to ten degrees are being installed in the barns, but because it is a costly project, it could be some time until the units are installed in all barns. 

Peltz will continue to raise chickens for Gold'n Plump. He should get the next shipment of chicks sometime this week. Although he didn't suffer a direct financial hit from the the lost chickens, he will lose a production bonus because of the dead birds.