Mosquito control. What works? What doesn’t work?

[DeadheadNM]

Curious what has worked or not worked for mosquito control around your yard/porch/garage/barn. Tiki torches? Citronella candles? CO2 emitting propane traps? Plain old bug spray? There is no shortage of mosquitos on my open front porch or garage with the doors open. I’ve got no standing water on my property.

[Sheepdip]

I use Malathion spray on all my lawns and bushes, stinks to high heaven for a couple of days but it works. I put it one of those sprayers that you hook to your hose and water the lawn.

[special-K]

Bats. Or do you have purple martins there? Put up a martin house

EDIT: Now that Not Solo posted... DOH! There ya go. I never used one but when I was in FL they were used and they worked. Those only work at night, right?

[notsolo]

Bug zappers work best for me...40 watt Flowton, hang from a pole 20 ft out in the yard. Takes a week or more to draw in the popultion, and kill them off. Needs to be blown out if it gets loaded, air hose or leaf blower 2x a week.

[Steeveedee]

Originally Posted by notsolo

Bug zappers work best for me...40 watt Flowton, hang from a pole 20 ft out in the yard. Takes a week or more to draw in the popultion, and kill them off. Needs to be blown out if it gets loaded, air hose or leaf blower 2x a week.

Cool! Sit in the darkened house and watch the light show until the zot! frequency drops down.

[richard2717]

I have 1000's of dragon flies that come out around the edge of dark that seem to be doing the trick this year. My issue is ticks, my place is flooded with them this year

[shifty]

For the sake of not killing off bees, fish, crustaceans or impacting people, here's the things to avoid: temephos, malathion, permethrin, chlorpyrifos, sumithrin and it's arguable, maybe methoprene too.

Of course, if you like killing honeybees and potentially anything that eats them, or introducing pesticides into our food (which - tinfoil hat time - gut bacteria is directly tied to disease and human development, probably what's actually causing autism these days), go for it, use one of those. I don't think a lot of people are putting 2 + 2 together on our rise in health problems and how that coincides with increased use of pesticides. There's a reason many other 1st-world countried have banned a lot of the pesticides out there.

We are 99% mosquito free in our yard and garden. We have a friend who fogs our yard once every 3-4 weeks with BTI (Bacillus Thuringiensis aka "Bti mosquito control") which is about as safe as it gets for bees and butterflies for how effective it is. We spend around $100/year on the gallon jug of Bti liquid.

Only thing safer out there is BSP, but I don't know much about it because we don't use it in our yard.

I probably sound a little antsy about all this, sorry if so. I have one friend and two different family members with bees as their livelihood. I didn't believe the "organic" stuff would work, but wasn't willing to take the grief I'd get from them if they caught me using something like Permethrin or malathion in the yard. I was very surprised to find BTI worked just as good if not better than that stuff. Prior, we'd been using the 'Bug Free Backyard' spray bottles, which worked, but not as well as BTI, and with how often you needed to respray, it sucked. Oh, and BTI doesn't stink like other harsher stuff.

[shifty]

Originally Posted by richard2717

My issue is ticks, my place is flooded with them this year

Sucks to hear, sorry. Was reading an article on father's day showing cases of Lyme disease have doubled on the east coast over the last decade, and it's not necessarily clear why.

While in Ireland recently, was talking to one of the locals because they had lots of numbered traps in the trees of Killarney, asked about it. He mentioned Lyme disease rates have tripled, and they don't understand why, tick populations haven't tripled, so they're not entirely sure why things are changing so badly.

[The Rocknrod]

Originally Posted by shifty

...rant...We are 99% mosquito free in our yard and garden. We have a friend who fogs our yard once every 3-4 weeks with BTI (Bacillus Thuringiensis aka "Bti mosquito control")...rant...

BTI got it.

[weq92f]

.
I am a lucky dude. They don't like me most days. Once in a while I'll get a bite down low on the leg or foot.

I've read about the CO2 traps in various media. Those seem kinda neat. I was at a friends house a few nights ago and he had tiki torches up with citrinella burning in them all around his outdoor area. They weren't working as I could see them flying all around!

Best defense is probably to stay within a stream of air from a big fan or swamp cooler!

Also deet.

-klb

[shifty]

Originally Posted by The Rocknrod

BTI got it.

Promise I'm not one of these types I see in town sometimes with the "spraying kills pollinators!" signs all over their yard, blanket stereotyping all insect control like it's evil. It's not.

Topic just sorta hit home after the kids went last week to stay with my parents out in the country where I grew up, hence the rant. Had to warn them they can't just pick tomatoes and beans out of a row and start eating them like they do at home. Totally confusing for the kids and I love my folks to death, but they still insist on using Sevin on all their rows despite the fact non-toxic and totally effective alternatives like BTI and Neem exist and aren't outrageously expensive at their half-acre-garden scale. "It's what we've always done" and "it still works". Have to remind them I'm growing on 1/4 the scale, but get with cleaner methods and none of the collateral, ecological or health risks.

At the end of the day, there's a right or wrong and an ideal or crappy way to do just about everything in life. Sometimes the right and ideal way happen to be the same thing. Mosquito control is one example, you can get great control using new options out there without the gnarly side effects. Hell, bug control in general is a great example. You can absolutely control bugs effectively without bringing a nuke to a knife fight, without creating unnecessary collateral damage, and without screwing over the planet for everyone who'll be around after we're all back in the Earth again.

[truckster]

What works for me is having friends and family members who are tastier than I am. Kinda sucks for them, though.

[davischevy]

Dang Pete, you inherited all kinds of natural nuisances when you moved up north, didn't you?

[Getter-Done]

These are working for me.
Link below:

Link: https://spartanmosquito.com/mosquito-control/

I check the traps last night it still has water
and is full of dead Mo Ske Toes.



.

[DeadheadNM]

Thanks for all the great ideas!

Tim - we crisscrossed the USA again now in WI and within range of Purple Martins. Coincidentally I was already researching what was needed to establish a population and I hope to have a house ready for next season.

I think twice about what chemicals to use on the lawn in large part because we are on a well. Should any chemical not break down it could percolate into our groundwater and end up in my coffee.

Larry - we also had a bear ambling through our property two weeks ago that my neighbor caught sight of. It’s fun up here. On rare occasion I get the whiff of country air drifting in from a neighboring dairy farm

[special-K]

That's it... bears!! They eat mosquitos don't they?

[Ol Blue K20]

Originally Posted by special-K

That's it... bears!! They eat mosquitos don't they?

No mosquitoes but the bears at my cabin came out of the bushes when I was eating pbj sammichs

[richard2717]

or you could try this...

.

[CG]

I have a built in mosquito control device for myself, my wife. They just love her and they leave me alone =)

Honey bees ... As a kid there were tons. Mowing the lawn they were fair game. Last weekend I was mowing the lawn, and our abundant clover patches. There were a few honey bees doing their thing in the clover. I just waited for em to fly off and mowed where they were after they buzzed away.

[rharris]

Guinea fowl and chickens. And as a bonus they will poop you breakfast.

[CG]

...

[yuccales]

Using a proper trap will work every time!

[DeadheadNM]

Good stuff! Chickens would help keep tick populations knocked back too.

[68C15]

I have a formula to make napalm. I suppose that would get rid of them.

[The Rocknrod]

Natural mosquito repellent: 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp orange oil ( horticulture or essential) and 1 cup of water in a spray bottle. Smells good, not sticky and actually works.
I use this all the time.