OT Mosquitos

Re: OT Mosquitos

johnv

eat lots of garlic. Works for vampires. any way an old folk remedy

Re: OT Mosquitos

Don Stephan

Here in Cincinnati a business, perhaps a franchise, called Mosquito Joe advertises treating your urban yard to be rid of mosquitos. Hard to believe treating a quarter acre yard with surrounding properties of similar size will be effective - mosquitos can't or won't fly a couple hundred yards for a meal?

Re: OT Mosquitos

Chuck Hans

put up a Purple Martin House , they will control throttle buggers.

Re: OT Mosquitos

Barry Irby

The insect repellents that contain DEET seem to work well. The problem is I hate them. I hate putting anything on my skin, especially something oily and anything with a smell to it. I don't want to have an aroma or a stench. I like smelling like nothing.

I noticed, back in the day, if my wife was in the yard, mosquitos ate her and left me alone. If she left, they settled for eating me.

Re: OT Mosquitos ---attraction

Tom Dunlap

Blue clothes

CO2..don't talk so much

Still water for breeding

Clean bodies from scented soaps and lotions....until they are sweated off.

Re: OT Mosquitos

Sam Force

Mosquitos require water to complete their life cycle, they can survive in very little water. Even a coke can or beer bottle can produce mosquitoes. There is a product call All Clear that works really well, as does Suspend Polyzone. Such a little pest is the deadliest creature on earth.

All by myself

Mike L

I was sitting out side all by myself, I live on a lake so there is a lot of water around me.

As for sweating I worked in the heat all day on replacing a tie rod end on a tractor so I was not smelling good, even to me.

I had a pair a shorts on and my white legs where shining.

Thanks

My wife

Mike L

won't go out with me at night until I get them. I never had an issue with them until she stayed inside. Hum

They are in the plans

Mike L

I have plans to build a few of these, I just might have to move up the order of my plans, along with a bat house or three.

I will

Mike L

try to eat more garlic. Now to figure out what to put it on.

Re: OT Mosquitos

Bill Howatt

Problem is that it only takes one to make things miserable - especially in a bedroom at night.

Avoid dark colored clothing or brightly colored clothing; wear things like beige or pastels.

Use a fan, mosquitos can't fly in moving air.

Do not wash your hair or have a bath/shower before going outside.

DEET works well but I don't like it either but then again you haven't had your shower yet.

Avon Skin-So-Soft, citronella, etc are supposed to work but I don't think they are that great especially compared to DEET.

Get rid of standing water where you can. They don't like moving water.

Convince all your neighbors how well propane mosquito traps so they buy and use them (and buy the propane). This will keep them away from your property.

Bill

Re: OT Mosquitos

ebd

Take vitamin B complex. Get some insect repellant with 20% picradin (not like Deet - it doesn't disolve plastics, it smells good, it is non greasy, it drys and lasts a long time). Treat your clothes with permithrin, burn citrennella candles or other product. (Not sure about the last - but the first 3 definitely work for me).

Re: OT Mosquitos

Joe in a Cleveland suburb

I hate mosquitos. I'm a walking mosquito magnet. Have been all my life. I can be in a group of people and the only getting bit.

For a few years now we have been using Wondercide products in our back yard and on the dogs (on me too). We don't put pesticides on our dogs for tick and flea control.

We don't have grass in our backyard. The grass was completely replaced with K9Grass several years ago. Once or twice a week during summer it get sprayed with Wondercide.

Seems to help.

Re: OT Mosquitos

johnv

Yoo late this year for purple martins. Houses need to be in place and ready by middle spring.

Mosquito Bites and/or Dunks

C Pearson

One item not mentioned in Mosquito Bites. It is a bacterium, bacillus thuringiensis, that is toxic to all species of mosquito larvae but not to other living things. Works great to keep breeding sites down on your property. Rather than making sure all my gutter drains etc are properly drained I just sprinkle MBs around wherever I see standing water.

I use the "bites" rather than "dunks" since I am only trying to control little bits of water here and there. If I had a small stagnant pond I would use a dunk.

Re: OT Mosquitos  *LINK*

John McGaw

What you need is dozens of dragonflies.


Mosquitos For Dinner

Re: All by myself

John K Jordan

>>>

I was sitting out side all by myself, I live on a lake so there is a lot of water around me.

We often patrol our area for standing water. It's especially important here on the farm to check livestock and bird watering things for developing mosquitoes. If I don't we are overrun but I don't think I've had a bite for months.

If living on a lake, especially with some still water marshy areas nearby or neighbors that might have standing water that can't be controled, I think I'd put in a screened porch! We finally screened in one of our porches a couple of years ago an it is wonderful when the temperature is right. My wife is out there reading nearly every morning and evening when it's hot in the summer.

Don't know if they are in your area, but a local ScreenMobile franchise installed our screen. The guy came and measured, went away and got everything ready, then installed it in a few hours.

JKJ

Re: OT Mosquitos

Larry Edinger

Here where I live California(Central, on the Coast) they will come and Spay for Free,

Re: OT Mosquitos

David Weaver

DEET was all that ever did it for us (rural area - lots of mosquitoes). We had gaggles of bats -always appreciated watching them work as I knew what they were doing. Even if I was in the pool and they were skimming by. Swim at dusk and you'd get a bat show in the pool -close up.

To your point about not being bit and then getting throttled, dad had something about him when I was a kid where he could sit next to me, get no bites and I'd get 20. He never had to wear spray. If the mosquitoes landed on him, they sat for a second and didn't bite.

Never found out what would cause that - he said that he "had sour blood". He doesn't get poison ivy, either (but neither do I - the skeeters still bite me).

Almost cost him a marriage before it started. First date he went on with my mom was a drive in. He was working two jobs in college, one outside in the heat. He fell asleep and my mother was too meek to say anything. She got eaten alive and pointed it out to him where they worked (Ho Jos) the next time they saw each other and he was "smart" enough to say "well, I didn't get bit at all".

Lengthy begging for the next week or two got him a second date, and eventually a marriage (the "meekness" didn't last, either!)

Martins & Mosquitos is not what ive read

1 Keith Newton

Mosquitos ar a little too small to be on their diet. They may actually lead to more mosquitoes because they do feed on dragonflies which do actually feed on mosquitos both during their larval stage as aquatic insects then during their adult cycle in flight.

Re: OT Mosquitos

Larry Clinton At Frankfort, (Central) Indiana

I have never had much of a problem with these pests. Only remember one time when the really bothered me as a teenager picking blueberry's in a really wet woods. Even when they do bite I have zero reaction, no bumps etc.

Been pretty fortunate all my life as I am not allergic to any plants like poison Ivy, Oak, or Sumac, no food allergies. Did have a minor reaction to one Antibiotic (Micro something). It caused a layer of skin on my hands and feet to "Peel". No pain but the Doctor listed it as an Allergy.

Don't know if Martins do eat Mosquitos, but neighbor had a quite large Martin house and in the evenings you could watch them darting around, catching something to small to see from 10 foot away.

Re: OT Mosquitos

TomD

I spend the summer in the north woods, and they are usually pretty bad for a while. Last 3 years, hardly a one. Environment is the big factor. On the one occasion when I was in the arctic north of Sask., and the bugs were orders of magnitude worse than anything I have ever seen, they would carpet you, I had a citronella jacket. A cheese cloth jacket one kept in a bag with citronella. That was amazingly good. The guides wore DEET like aftershave.

We passed a camp with 4 indigenous people lying around a campfire, in a small clearing. The smoke would at best protect one of them, and it wasn't really evident anyway. This was a similar spot to where we were portaging, and getting swarmed. Don't know what the trick was.

I took Vitamin B leading up to that trip, that did not seem to be a game changer.

Of course a physical barrier, bug netting, is the best bet. Apparently there are bug proof clothes that can lie on your body, and they can't bite through them. I have never seen such a thing. Head nets work.

Bear Hunters up north are out at the wrong time of year, and are just sitting around, and they are in the wilderness. They wear full suits, and/or use a Thermacell device.

I have tried the electronic mosquito devices that mimic dragonflies, and they didn't seem to work at all. One problem being that the good quality one I had didn't really let you know it was on, or still worked.

One thing that works well indoors are the rackets that have 3 contact surfaces that will light up a mosquito. I have a new one that recharges by USB, and it has a lot of power, moreso than the D cell one I had. Both will make a m. explode with pyrotechnic and audible effects. I had a lower powered unit, that disabled them and did not use as much juice. They really don't help much if you are doing something that requires hands. Though you can get someone to stand over you and kill them off while you work on something like an emergency repair. Say you are fixing a tire, your guard could use a racket to protect you and themselves.

When in northern camps with huge populations of bugs, they would fog the foliage that was just at the perimeter of the camp. We would be surrounded by a humming swarming, wilderness, yet just treating the perimeter would keep the camp pleasant all day. I have noticed a possibly similar effect that if you simply mow and limit vegetation around a building, something gardeners resit, it makes a huge difference. Prior to these experiences I thought bugs would come from hundreds of yards.

what we use.

Lee Schierer in McKean, PA

When we go camping, we use the green mosquito coils. We place them up wind from us and rarely have a mosquito. My wife is mosquito magnet and the coils keep her safe as well.