Are MOSQUITO DUNKS Safe, or Dangerous?

Hey is this a chemical? In a recent video I put out last year that right now is getting about 35,000 views a day, a lot of you have been commenting that I lied. In that video I said I'm going to show you a chemical-free way to get rid of hundreds of thousands or a whole bunch of mosquitoes around your property with no chemicals. A lot of you are saying this is a chemical. Let's dive into that. Maybe I'm wrong. If I am I owe you an apology. Okay so like I said I put out that video about about a year ago or less and the reason I put it out is I used to live out in the country on farmland on 20 acres. All around us was farmland. We get a lot of mosquitoes and they will drive you nuts as a lot of you know. Now if you live in a big city maybe you get by and you get lucky and don't have them. Like right now we live in a little part of this city. Our city's not very big but we moved into the city for a while and I haven't been bitten in years. I think they do a really good job of mosquito control around here but for those of you that are still fighting it you're probably looking for a way to do it safely and in that video a lot of you said this is not as as I said. So I want to get into that. Now if you haven't seen that video yet I'm not going to explain everything I did in that video. I'll put a link right at the very end of this video. You'll better click on the link to watch that video too. And guys and gals I built my channel on honesty. I honestly didn't get to a hundred thousand subscribers and now we're almost at two hundred thousand by misleading you. I believe in honesty. I'm going to give you the best most honest answer I can on everything I do. Does that mean I can't make mistakes? Does that mean I can't be wrong about this? No it doesn't. I could be wrong but we're going to dive into that right now. So what are mosquito dunks? Well you can buy these in I think a two pack or in this case a six pack and they're not beer so don't try and drink them. No seriously they're very cheap. They're like seven dollars for this whole pack and they are meant to be put into water and they last for like 30 days and they kill mosquitoes. Now that makes it sound like it's got to be a chemical. Everything that kills something's got to be a chemical. So what is the active ingredient on here? I'm going to show you a picture of what I'm reading and I'll probably pronounce it slightly wrong because I'm not a chemist but I like to try and think scientifically because I believe in science. So what it is is bacillus thuringiensis subspecies of israelensis solids spores and insecticidal toxins. That's 10 percent of it then the inert ingredients are basically the rest. So let me read you some of the things they say about it. Right here as you'll see on the screen it says can be used in fish habitats. You can use it in flower pots, tree holes, bird baths, rain barrels, old tires, unused swimming pools and animal watering troughs. So it's saying that it's safe for animals. Now some of you have pointed out yeah but it says not safe for human consumption. Why would I put that in my pet's water? Well first of all you got to realize that animals have different digestive systems and the way they react to things than humans do. I mean I'm going to give you a gross example but can you lick your butt? Animals can. Cats, dogs they do it all the time. If we did something like that of course it'd make us really sick. So they can do different things. They can handle different substances in their body and so that we really can't always use that comparison of hazard to humans but safe for animals. Well sometime it just is. So one of the things it says on here is do not apply directly to treated finished drinking water. Basically where anything where the water is intended for human consumption. So now that I've read to you what the primary ingredient is which is the bacillus thuringiensis. Let's talk about what it is. Now here I pulled this off the internet. This I don't even think is off the company's website. This is just a description of what bt is. That's a short term for those big words I just said. So bt is a bacterium that is found naturally in soils throughout the world. To reproduce the bt makes spores that grow into new bacteria and the spores have proteins that are toxic to insect larvae when eaten. Because bt comes from a natural source it is called a biopesticide. In general biopesticides tend to pose fewer risk than typical human-made pesticides. Now there's many types of bt. There's different types of strains and they affect different insect groups. For example targets insects include the beetle family, the fly family including mosquitoes. It is used to kill beetles in the larvae of mosquitoes, black flies, and moss. It's also toxic to nematodes. But let's get further into this. Spores made by bt damage the gut of insect larvae after the larvae eat them. The insect gut must have a ph of 9.0 to 10.5 which is a really high ph in order to activate the toxin. This is different from the human gut which has a low ph and is more acidic. The activated toxin breaks down the insect's gut lining. The insect larvae dies of infection and starvation and that occurs within one to five days. Young insect larvae are most effective. Well that's that's the best time to get them to me. They have had no chance to develop into a full-grown mosquito and go out and bite someone and get a blood meal. Each type of bt toxin is specific to the target insect family. The bt israelensis, it controls immature mosquitoes, flies, and gnats. I won't read the rest because we're only talking about that one in this product. Okay bt toxins are not activated when the spores are eaten by people and no harm occurs. The toxins are destroyed by acidic conditions such as those in the human stomach. People and other mammals do not have the specific enzymes that break down the spore proteins to release the toxins. Mammals also do not have the necessary receptors that insect guts have. In human stomachs the toxin proteins are easily digested. So right there you're seeing that this is a bacterium and it's not necessarily a chemical. That's why they say here in this post that mosquito dunks can be used around animals and pets. It says mosquito dunks will kill all mosquito larvae. They are labeled for use in animal watering troughs, ponds, bird baths, and other areas in which animals and pets will drink and bathe. They're also completely harmless to plants, fish, frogs, turtles, and beneficial insects. So they're safe for bees if you're a lot of you have wondered that. Now a lot of you have said that yeah but this is a chemical. You said no chemicals. This is a chemical. I don't think so. Let me read the definition from Merriam-Webster of a chemical. Definition of chemical of relating to used in or produced by chemistry. This isn't produced by chemistry. It's a naturally occurring product. So it's not a chemical. So guys the bottom line is maybe if you've got a scientist out there in the group watching this maybe you can steer me differently. But my interpretation of this product is it is not a chemical and it's very safe. That's I think it's a great idea. If you go watch this other video you'll see what my idea is and if you use them in the way I showed I think they can do a lot of good in getting rid of the mosquito population in your area. Now I'm not advocating or saying against getting rid of mosquitoes entirely. I know some of you say they're pollinators and they're necessary for other animals to eat and maybe that's so. I haven't studied that and I'm and what we're talking about doing here might make a one percent dent if a lot of people did it. So we're not going to eradicate the mosquito population by doing this. All the mosquitoes need is a blood meal and some water to lay their eggs and they're going to reproduce. So I don't think we're ever going to get rid of mosquitoes entirely even with the genetic modifications. You know a lot of you know that mosquitoes can be incredibly annoying but they're also dangerous. So I do believe that around people we need to get rid of them. There's plenty of other beneficial insects that bats and other things can eat and they will always chase down the food source. I'm going to put out some other videos for you on other ideas I have tried thought of and and looked into and I'll do that in a separate video if you want to follow that and I try and use methods that are mostly very safe. Once in a while we have to spray chemicals it's just kind of the way it is. But for now see this other thumbnail right here that's the video you need to go watch. That'll show you what my other idea was and be sure and comment let me know what you think and what your ideas are. Thanks a lot everybody.