More than a half million mosquitos are set to be dropped into the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area this summer. But don’t worry, they’re on our side. For the first time ever, the Maryland-based company Bee Safe Mosquito Control is deploying male mosquitoes infected with a particular strain of Wolbachia bacteria into the region. These infected, non-biting males are expected to mate with uninfected females and sterilize them, leading to declining population numbers. Similar programs have already been used in other countries to help curb mosquitoes and the diseases they can spread. “The introduction of males in order to control the population is a technique that has been tried time and time again. And it’s worked really well against many species,” Todd Montgomery, owner of Bee Safe, told local media outlet WTOP News Monday. A bacterial ally Wolbachia are a group of bacteria widely found in a majority of insects, mosquitoes included. These bacteria have complex relationships with the hosts they naturally infect; some species seem to be harmless passengers, yet others might provide benefits, such as helping produce nutrients the insect doesn’t get from its food. With some insects like mosquitoes, Wolbachia can even influence their reproduction through a phenomenon known as cytoplasmic incompatibility.