I am in mosquito HELL

[denim deb]

To decrease your mosquito population, throw out everything you've ever been told to do to control it. I did, and have very few mosquitoes. This is in spite of the fact that I have a lake 1/4 of a mile away from me, and a cedar swamp in the woods behind my house. It used to be that I could not go out in my yard at certain times because the mosquitoes were so bad. This is what I do, and it seems to be working.

1. Every one always says not to leave standing water around. The theory is, that if there's no standing water, then the mosquitoes won't lay their eggs. Well, someone forgot to tell that to the mosquitoes. They will find water that you don't know about. And, for some species, they only need about 1 tablespoon of water. So, instead of dumping your standing water, put water out in different sized containers and in different places in your yard. Check them daily. If you see any wigglers in the water, dump it. You can either refill it, or let the rain do it for you.

2. Build houses for bats, purple martins and blue birds. Don't get rid of barn swallow nest, but leave them from year to year. All 4 of these are bug eaters. This year has been a bad year for flies in this area, but I've noticed that there's not nearly as many flies where I have my horses as there are on other farms. The reason? There are at least 30 swallows that fly around the farm when the sun starts to set. And, there's also a number of bats.

3. Build a shallow pond. It does not need to be deep, in fact if you have it too deep, this will not work. You can have some plants in it, but don't put any fish in it. And, you don't need to have the water circulating in it. This will make an ideal breeding ground for various amphibians, as well as both dragon flies and damsel flies. The larval stage of most will eat mosquito larvae, and the adults will eat bugs.

 

[featherbaby]

GOT BATS?


I live in Florida where we saddle up those mosquitos and ride 'em to Winn Dixie! HA! I have found that they leave my chickens alone if I put a fan in one end of the coop and make a steady cross-draft through it. When the wind blows the mosquitos can't fly against it very long so they move on. This has effectively solved the problem for the chickens, but I must have "FREE BUFFET" written on my legs because they can find me within seconds!

 

[Debbi]

I have a friend in Ohio that swears that spraying Listerine, straight from a spray bottle kills mosquitoes dead. Welll, not here in MO! The garlic eating thing is also a crock too, I eat LOTS of garlic, and the skeeters eat me like an all you can eat buffet! What has helped me, is planting pyrethrine plants around the deck and house, like Marigolds, Zinnias, and Chrysanthymums. Fans also work, as the skeeters can't fly in the wind. Free standing water such as bird baths and puddles, add a few drops of bleach to them. The bigger puddles around here attract frogs and toads. Good birds are as a few have stated, Barn Swallows, Blue Birds, and Phoebes (sp?). Around here, the Phoebes do the best job, you can hear them literally smack the buggers up right in front of you! We've had a staggered skeeter year here in MO., not the worst year for us by far! Cold snap is coming, hopefully, it will take care of them all!

 

[aprophet]

Catnip

http://www.ag.iastate.edu/aginfo/news/catnip.html

 

[DawnM]

Living in Tacoma we don't have major mosquito problems but we are by a huge wetland just across the street. If this helps, we keep mosquitoes away by giving them lots of standing water. We keep goldfish, guppies, and mollies in the water. They will eat both the mosquitoes that land and the larvae. If they have larger pools of water they tend to use them instead of searching out any puddle they can. Feeder fish are great because they only cost a few cents a piece and are pretty hardy outside. Small areas we use feeder guppies and larger areas we use feeder goldfish. Learned this trick from a horse person when I was a kid, they always kept a few goldfish in the horse troughs.