Anyone have any experience/recommendations for mosquito control? The suckers are bad this year with the 12 inches of rain we had last week. I have made sure there is no standing water but they are swarming like crazy. It is not the usual dawn and dusk problem but out in the middle of the day which is unusual.

My brother had a "mosquito deleto" made by coleman but it has been discontinued. It was one of the propane powered units. Anyone have any recommendations for products that work on an acre or less?

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Gary
1974 DeTomaso Pantera (done!!)
1969 MGB (almost finished!!)
1973 Cougar XR7 Ragtop (next project in line)

...burning tires....burning used motor oil,and a fine spray of fuel oil over the entire property.......off the top of my head.

A summer place in California wine country? Skeeters never a prob around here!

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"Not all who wander are lost." -J.R.R. Tolkien

The county sprays here. $100 a year on my property tax bill and no mosquitos. Cheap!

Yeah, or open some quarts of Castrol 20W50 and throw one each into every hole of standing water you see. It kills the wiggletails, (larvae).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2012 09:07PM by John D. Weimer.

Don't forget to check your gutters for standing water. Mosquitos don't like to travel far, so taking care of close problems is supposed to be the most effective. Spraying and bug zappers kill more benefitial insects than mosquitos, unfortunately.

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To the pure, all things are pure...

'63 MGB
'68 MGBGT
'80 VW Vanagon Kombi
'09 Mazda 3 with 5 speed manual

They don't spray DDT anymore? I remember the fogger trucks out every night at 11:00pm. We'd hear them and have to run indoors.

I was thinking of the Coleman unit too-too bad it was discontinued.

Substitute regular old Mineral Oil (Drug Store version) for Motor Oil, when treating standing water, as it isn't as harmful to the environment and is just as effective. Check the neighbourhood for spare tires not on rims and add a drop of oil to each. A drop or two of mineral oil in any pools of standing water will also do the trick (repeat each week). The simple film from the oil will block the breathing tube at the end of the larvae. The high water will be triggering eggs that were laid the last time you had high water (can be many years ago), so it's going to get worse before it gets better. All of the old eggs have to go three junior stages (instars), before they enter their pupal stage and finally emerge as Blood Sucking Female Adults (no comment).

Mosquitoes are pretty rare in the Vancouver area, but when I lived in Southern Ontario we used to make low voltage collectors out of 12 volt car lamps (finally a use for those old chunks of wiring harness you have saved forever), plexi tubes with fans, 12 volt batteries, old mesh mosquito head nets and when we had to, we used dry ice to produce CO, which is what attracts them.

On a good night we would collect 5 to 6 pounds of the little buggers per trap. Let me know if you would like a sketch of our old design.
Some Counties are introducing biological control in some low lying areas, by way of Umbra limi (Central Mud Minnows) which lay dormant in colder months and are first to the mosquito larae banquet in the spring ponds and provide an early strike.

Don't eat bananas as you will secrete a pheromone that attracts mosquitoes, tell the women to back off on the perfume and as nasty as it can be, dig out the old two stroke Lawn Boy and mix it heavy on the oil, before cutting the lawn.

As Rod said, Skip the bug zappers as they do more Harm than good and are really hurting some valuable insect populations.

Biting activity mid day means that they are really hungry (competition) for your blood to feed their eggs, as they don't like direct sunlight and have trouble flying in the wind. Usual peak biting times are 19:00, 21:30 and 23:00Hrs

Build some Bat and Purple Martin houses (local Boy Scouts usually have a Bat House Programme) and pray for a breeze to blow them away.

Best of Luck

I remember the fed gov't doing aerial spraying back in the 60s in this part of the country in an effort to eradicate the specific type of mosquito that carried yellow fever and a couple of other unpleasant maladies, the Aedes aegypti. The beekeepers stopped that, IIRC. Hire a professional to come and fog the area. If they are from surrounding properties, complain to your local health dept and see if they'll do general fogging/spraying. Otherwise, buy some mosquito repellent WITH DEET and spray all exposed skin before you go outdoors. It works wonders. And if you have a pet - ALWAYS give it heartworm protection, year round. I see mosquitos in my area in dead of winter, so I know you would have them year round.

JaclMG......"I see mosquitos in my area in dead of winter, so I know you would have them year round."

Haaaaaa........ain't no skeeters here..........

I still use one of the propane fired foggers on weekends with marginal success. Have an area under the carport that does not get much breeze so I mounted a periodic sprayer like is use in barns and stables that sprays for a second every ten minutes from a pressurized can. Got it at Tractor Supply. Been dreaming about a much larger version with multiple spray nozzles fed from a drum of repellant/poison but have not been able to afford something like that.

One of the big problems here is that the subdivision has covered ditches that hold water in the catch basins and culverts. Makes me want to go back to dumping used motor oil like the old days. Sadly, anything that is dumped in there will get washed away with the next rain, so I would have to dump weekly or daily sometimes. Mosquitoes seem to love open boxes and tall grass almost as well as standing water-anything that gives them protection from the breeze.

As bad as mosquitoes are, they are still better than the white crap you yanks get in the winter....have not had to shovel mosquitoes to get to work yet

Nuke 'em.

In 1972, I lived in Sarasota, FL and the trucks would come out at night and we used to ride our bikes to stay in front of the truck so you would not get sprayed, LOL. I wonder how many years of my life I wasted doing that ?

Patrick

Gerry, I like the way you think on this post - especially that last paragraph! Let me know if you figure out something on that bulk sprayer - I could use one for my yard...

Jack, take a look at this http://www.mistaway.com/index.html

I am sure there are others on the market. I am also sure that one could be built from scratch for a lot less that a factory made version

That's some heavy-duty stuff!

You need that stuff around here. The mosquito is the unofficial state bird - luckily though only for about three months out of the year. The mosquitos know they only have three months and make the best of it.

OK, it took me a day or so but I cannot resist usally stick and ruuddewr pedals work well.

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1979 Roadster (Big Red) daily driver.
unknown GT somewhere in the future.
09 Accent

Don't got to bed made - stay up all night plotting revenge

Or, if you prefer a bit more Star-Wars....laser the little buggers.

The machine spots the bug, identifies as a mosquito, identifies as a FEMALE mosquito, and burns the bugger right out of the air!

You kow if you make a high pitched noise similar to what male mosquitoes make, you will never get bitten. It seems it's only the females that bite and only after breeding. Also seems at that the same time they then avoid the males ones

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1979 Roadster (Big Red) daily driver.
unknown GT somewhere in the future.
09 Accent

Don't got to bed made - stay up all night plotting revenge