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Mosquitoes

Lucille

Lucille

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Why is this happening? There has not been a lot of rain here lately, although there has been a heat wave of sorts. There aren't any nearby ponds but just in this last 3 or 4 days there have been a gazillion mosquitoes. They descend on me and the poor dogs when we try to go out in the back yard for a while.
Maybe it is the budget, the city does have mosquito trucks that go around in the morning and spray, I wonder if the trips they make have been curtailed?
 
Got one of those hose end sprayers?
Get a big bottle of lemon dish soap,
fill the sprayer with soap hook up the hose and
spray everything top to bottom.
House,trees,shrubs etc, citrus oil will run the bug out.
 
I'm expecting the mosquito population around here to explode shortly from all the rain we got from TS Debby. LOTS of standing water everywhere. And there have been more of those pests here the last couple of days than before the storm. So I'm cranking up all the mosquito magnets I have that are still in working order. Those things DO the job, but they don't last more than a couple of years.

Several years ago we had a really bad infestation of mosquitos, and those mosquito magnets were getting filled every few days. By the time it was over with, I had a 5 gallon bucket that was three quarters filled with dead mosquitos.
 
They've been pretty vicious out here too. Even wearing commercial repellents, they've been coming in pretty thick. Have been out birding and catching insects the last few days, and it's kind of taken some of the fun out of it. :/
 
Now that it has rained they are even worse. My boys are coming over on the 4th and we were going to bbq, but there are just too many skeeters.
I decided to stay indoors and make my lasagna which they love, and try making an eggplant lasagna as well.
 
I'm all for any means to reduce mosquitoes, insecticides or whatever. One method that i've been planning on trying but just haven't gotten around to doing is putting up some bat houses.
All the artificial means of killing them are time limited and must be renewed periodically, having natural predators living in the area though is a persistent means of keeping them controlled even when we lapse in our diligence to renew artificial methods.

I remember watching something on TV once about the tremendous bat colony that lives under a bridge in Houston. They filmed the colony leaving at sunset to feed and were talking about them.
I forget the numbers in tonnage that that colony of several million consumed every night but I remember the comment that if not for that bat colony the city would have a nearly unbearable problem with mosquitoes and other insects.

I like bats myself and while we do have some that live around the house I would enjoy increasing that number by as much as the insects pest population would support.
After a good rainy spell in the summer the mosquitoes literally rise up from the forest floor here when walking in the woods.

While it may not be a final solution, I think encouraging a bat population in the area would still be a good part of the overall battle.
I really need to get on to building those bat houses.
 
Clay Davenport said:
I'm all for any means to reduce mosquitoes, insecticides or whatever. One method that i've been planning on trying but just haven't gotten around to doing is putting up some bat houses.
All the artificial means of killing them are time limited and must be renewed periodically, having natural predators living in the area though is a persistent means of keeping them controlled even when we lapse in our diligence to renew artificial methods.

I remember watching something on TV once about the tremendous bat colony that lives under a bridge in Houston. They filmed the colony leaving at sunset to feed and were talking about them.
I forget the numbers in tonnage that that colony of several million consumed every night but I remember the comment that if not for that bat colony the city would have a nearly unbearable problem with mosquitoes and other insects.

I like bats myself and while we do have some that live around the house I would enjoy increasing that number by as much as the insects pest population would support.
After a good rainy spell in the summer the mosquitoes literally rise up from the forest floor here when walking in the woods.

While it may not be a final solution, I think encouraging a bat population in the area would still be a good part of the overall battle.
I really need to get on to building those bat houses.
Click to expand...

We actually bought a bat house a long while ago, but never put it up. We do have bats flying around here, so I guess there already is a small colony. One reason we never put it up was because I just figured it would get taken over by hornets, just like the bird houses we have put up. So how do you keep that from happening?
 
Bat houses are a neat idea, but really only little brown bats or Brazilian free-tailed bats use them. Most other bat species are solitary. I don't think the bat houses would be very effective at reducing the mosquito population.

There are really only three methods to reduce the mosquito population, and only two of which are legal by private citizens. The most effective method bar-none is widespread use of insecticides. These were used in the early 1900s to eliminate malaria in the Southeast (yes, we used to have malaria here). Obviously, this method is no longer being employed on a wide scale now that we know the consequences of using broadcast, fat-soluble poisons.

Secondly, you can use mosquitofish. This is an invasive fish that can wreak havoc in areas where is hasn't been introduced, so this fish should only be transported by state and/or Federal permittees who know what they're doing.

Thirdly, you can simply patrol your own property and do what you can to eliminate standing pools of water. Any little bit counts.

I haven't noticed any big mosquito outbreak in Athens this year, just the same old number. Those Asian tiger mosquitos are fricken piranhas with wings though, I hate them.
 
Rich says the mosquito magnets work. I think at one time I was looking into them and then the season changed and they weren't a problem.
I haven't heard the mosquito trucks which is why I wonder if these are budgetary mosquitoes. I absolutely knew that if given a choice, governments seem to cut something which actually provides real help to real people.
 
snowgyre said:
The most effective method bar-none is widespread use of insecticides. These were used in the early 1900s to eliminate malaria in the Southeast (yes, we used to have malaria here). Obviously, this method is no longer being employed on a wide scale now that we know the consequences of using broadcast, fat-soluble poisons.
Click to expand...

Yes, I believe that malaria was the reason the CDC was located in Atlanta, because it was such a problem in that area.

And here's the scary part: There is no reason whatsoever that malaria can't make a comeback in the USA. If people come into this country from areas infested with malaria, and have the parasites in their bloodstream, they can be picked up by mosquitoes that bite then and quite likely become established in native reservoirs here. Actually in thinking about this, I wonder how malaria was eliminated in the first place. Just killing off the major carriers of the parasite shouldn't have completely destroyed the parasites living in native hosts. Not unless that is the ONLY method of transmission and reproduction for those organisms. And once all those hosts died, so did malaria. :shrug01:
 
Lucille said:
Rich says the mosquito magnets work. I think at one time I was looking into them and then the season changed and they weren't a problem.
I haven't heard the mosquito trucks which is why I wonder if these are budgetary mosquitoes. I absolutely knew that if given a choice, governments seem to cut something which actually provides real help to real people.
Click to expand...
The spray truck must have come by because even after the rains a few days ago, there are about 90% fewer mosquitoes outside. They are not completely gone, but they are not an overwhelming scourge either, now.
 
Yeah, I figured all the rain from TS Debby would bring these little pests out in droves. So I cranked up three mosquito magnets to try to keep them in check. They are apparently working, as the mosquitoes are obviously attracted to them. Haven't checked the nets inside, but I'm sure they are catching a bunch of them.

Blow the video up to full screen and 1080 resolution. Turn on the speakers too.



Bet it makes you itch just to watch that.... :) If you turned your speakers on you probably were swatting at your ears, too. There were actually more mosquitoes there earlier, but it seemed that later in the day they must have gone in the deeper shadows in the bushes where it is cooler.

I walked down to the temporary pond to throw some of those mosquito dunks to help keep down the larvae, and man, I'm glad I covered up with long sleeves and long pants. When I walked down to the edge of the pond the mosquitoes were all over me. I threw the entire pack (6 of them) into various sections of that pond and high tailed it out of there. I may get some more of them, because the water level is dropping a lot slower than I thought it would, and obviously the skeeters are taking advantage of the breeding grounds.
 
Watched that video last night. Did make me itchy.

Might invest in a couple of those things for our place. Have you got a link for more info on them?
 
I wonder if those bug zappers disinfect the mosquitoes? I bet you could feed a bunch of tropical fish for a long time with the zapped bugs.
 
Lucille said:
I wonder if those bug zappers disinfect the mosquitoes? I bet you could feed a bunch of tropical fish for a long time with the zapped bugs.
Click to expand...

I once read something about the bug zappers that was quite eye opening. It mentioned that the bug zappers actually will explode the insects it kills, making any bacteria and virus material they carry in their system airborne. So they suggested to NOT stand nearby to the zappers when they were actively zapping the bugs.

I unplugged the one I had and have never used it since.

The mosquito magnets work by converting propane into CO2 and thereby attract insects that are attracted to CO2. Which are normally blood sucking varmints. They get drawn up into the device and trapped in a very fine mesh cloth bag until they die from dessication. No poisons or zapping involved. Just check the bag every now and again and empty it when needed. And replace the propane tank when it runs out. They also use octenol cartridges which is supposed to increase the catch by releasing odors that are also attracting to blood suckers.

Seems to do the job. The new units are MUCH better than the original design. With the original design, I had to hold the starter button for THREE minutes till the fan started running. Just think, the REASON you bought this thing was because you have a mosquito problem. So where do you put it? Right. Where the mosquitoes are. Three minutes doesn't sound like a real long time till you are standing their flailing your one free hand to try to swat at all those mosquitoes now interested in YOU. Luckily the new ones have a start and RUN! button now.
 
This is just ridiculous.......... Connie worked at the market yesterday, and I was over in the garage when she came home. I opened the door for her to drive her truck inside, and when she pulled in, a HUGE cloud of mosquitoes that were following her truck came in behind it. The damned things were chasing her truck!
 
Damn.... The propane tank on one of the mosquito magnets ran dry overnight, so I had to go out there today to replace it. Was NOT looking forward to that. So I put on long pants, long sleeve shirt, put rubber gloves on and wore a hat to reduce the skin surface area exposed. And I moved at twice (or better) a normal speed. Well, the capture bag was FULL of dead mosquitoes, so I had to replace that as well. I was literally MOBBED by mosquitoes! All flying at my face and back of my neck. I actually felt a little bit panicky as it was surreal. The buzzing filled my ears and it was had to see with the mosquitoes going at my eyes. It probably only took me a minute to do that but that was one LONG damned minute. I went and ordered some hats with built in mosquito nets from Amazon over the weekend, but they aren't here yet. I SURE could have used one today.

I noticed that the magnet in the path between the garage and the outbuildings has the capture bag filled as well, but I just was not ready to tackle that one too. It's tank is still partially filled, so when the magnet is still working, normally the bag will still have live mosquitoes in it that will swoop out of the bag to join their free buddies in the attack when you open it up to try to change out the bag.

Man, this is ridiculous. Connie and I are pretty much trapped in the house. I'm thinking this might be a good time to take a trip somewhere like the desert areas of the southwest where they aren't likely to have a mosquito problem.

Seriously, had the mosquitoes been like this when Connie and I looked at this property before buying it, NO WAY we would have bought it.

Aw hell.... the mosquito magnet didn't start up. That normally means the battery needs recharging. Great..... Time to go do battle again.....
 
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