There are any number of recommendations about the Internet for a home-made mosquito trap that uses a modified soda bottle containing water, brown sugar, and yeast. The premise is that this mix will create carbon dioxide and this will attract mosquitos. Once they're inside the modified soda bottle they can't get back out and good night mosquito. Catches many of them and change the mix every two weeks for best results. OK, got that.
Here at the Greek Rockhouse, the experiment has been tried several times to really be sure whether it works. After quite carefully making the traps and mixing the bait, the traps were set out for three days each. The total number of mosquitos caught during both experiments was precisely ... ding, ding ding ... zero!
So the research into an effective way to deal with the little bloodsuckers continues. There is the possibility of putting something deadly poisonous to mosquitos in my blood but this has the unfortunate disadvantage of killing me as well so I am not enthusiastic about this method.
My latest thought is to catch some bats and keep them in the house. I have not as yet discovered any Internet resource for capturing and house-training bats but you know some lunatic out there has tried it!
(Ed: Many bats carry rabies.)
Yes, I do admit there are some problems with this approach as well but this is science, damn it!
(Ed: Before you go off on house-training spiders, just stop. Stop, right there!)
You didn't think the idea about bats was strange enough to say stop? (laughs)
Here at the Greek Rockhouse, the experiment has been tried several times to really be sure whether it works. After quite carefully making the traps and mixing the bait, the traps were set out for three days each. The total number of mosquitos caught during both experiments was precisely ... ding, ding ding ... zero!
So the research into an effective way to deal with the little bloodsuckers continues. There is the possibility of putting something deadly poisonous to mosquitos in my blood but this has the unfortunate disadvantage of killing me as well so I am not enthusiastic about this method.
My latest thought is to catch some bats and keep them in the house. I have not as yet discovered any Internet resource for capturing and house-training bats but you know some lunatic out there has tried it!
(Ed: Many bats carry rabies.)
Yes, I do admit there are some problems with this approach as well but this is science, damn it!
(Ed: Before you go off on house-training spiders, just stop. Stop, right there!)
You didn't think the idea about bats was strange enough to say stop? (laughs)
4 comments:
a small box with a hole on the bottom side and a. rough interior surface will do well as a bat house. They eat over their weight in bugs daily(nightly).
most rodents are capable of carrying rabies
A citronella plant will also help reduce they number of mosquitos. or burning citronella based candles.
Thanks! I know bats are our friends and I wonder how much they have changed world history by eating mosquitos! Other than rats and humans, what else has spread so much disease! (The death toll in native American populations when Europeans brought bubonic plague, smallpox, etc to the New World is on par or exceeds that which came from the original Black Death pandemics.)
I had hoped for mosquito death but keeping the damn things away from me will work just fine!
You could try having dragonflies around. They apparently eat mosquitos and would be less toxic and more interesting to watch. Let us know how that works out. lol
dragonflies work quite well. I have hundreds that frequent the pond and the mosquito population in around the hammock is practically zero
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