mosquito magnet...

After spending a week this winter building a swingset in the backyard for the children I decided to experiment with mosquito control measures this spring and summer to see if there was anything I could do to reduce the ludicrous amount of bug spray that is necessary here to survive being outside without being exsanguinated.

I invested in the smallest of the mosquito magnet devices hoping without expectation that they might help the biting gnat problem here in the early spring. These things HURT given that they are so tiny. They like to crawl down a hairstalk and bite your scalp too. OUCH! the only good thing is that they dont raise a welt like a mosquito and so far I'm not aware that they carry any diseases.

This picture is of the pile of gnats that I emptied from the net after the first 25 days of operation! So it DEFINITELY catches the little monsters. This is in a paint cup and easily is over 4 ounces in volume of dead gnats! YUCK! There are only a handful of mosquitoes in there, but it's not really mosquito season yet.

I am thrilled that it's catching so many of them! So far it hasn't seemed like it's making much of a difference in how often I'm getting bitten when I'm outside, but I'm now willing to keep the thing running all summer and see what happens. What originally seemed like a ripoff at least now feels like a rout in my favor Even if it doesn't do anything against the thriving population of the things I feel like I'm exacting my revenge!

Is your "mosquito magnet" catcher thing—does it utilize a propane tank?

I suspect it uses a propane tank, mine did.

James,
I used mine one season before my boy tossed it over the fence and broke it. I definitely noticed a drop in mosquitoes after about two weeks. I moved it a few times before I found the right spot. Placement is key to success.

Yes, it's one with a propane tank. They catalyze the propane to make CO2 to convince the biting *******s that there is something over there with lots of warm yummy blood just waiting for them.

This represents my first tanks kill. I'm not disappointed at all! I'll give it a few months of operation before I decide it made a real difference in the gnats, and by next month it should start seriously catching mosquitoes too.

Dave, I placed it sort of half way between the swingset and the patio hoping I could cover both areas. But I may experiment with moving it one way or the other. The wind kind of blows both ways through the yard so it's not cut and dried which side would work better. I'll definitely experiment though!

Indeed!

A friend of mine has one of those, and it sure works for him. He's in Texas and there's mosquitos galore in his neck of the woods. Placement for that thing was in his drive through, between the garage and the house.

I need to get one of these things!

What's the cost? We don't get many mosquitos here. I use my ear as bait and then slap my head to kill the creature. Sometimes I have to use the electric swatter.

That is really a lot of bugs. You could use them as fertilizer, or sell them to Fear Factor.

"Hey, I made some great Oatmeal Raisin cookies..."

Image could be compressed a lot, I think.

Well, the one that my friend has was $300.00+ something. That's what he told me. Other than that, I don't know.

There are some trees (leaves) & flowers (lavender) repel mosquitoes. Put bunch of them inside the house, I tried once & worked well. I don't know their name, except that lavender flower. Don't forget to water them milike mine, they all dead now. Don,t know if these trees can live in subtropical countries.

I've heard the best thing to do with a mosquito magnet is give it to one of your neighbors.

Other impractical suggestions:

Smoke a cigar.

They say bats eat an enormous number of insects. I never appreciated them in the attic, but maybe you could build a belfry they might like.

I see swallows hunting insects in the evening. I don't know how many they eat, but they are amazing fliers and they are not as scary as bats.

There aren't any natural solutions that I'm aware of that make a real impact. I tried growing some citronella plants on the deck at the last house where they weren't as bad to start with here and even with a significant investment in the things (as far as potted plants go) they made no difference. They did smell like mosquito candles though if you like that

This thing is the smallest model which I think was $250 plus the cost of the tank and propane, so I easily spent $300 the day I bought the thing. If it means that I can actually use some of the outdoor space around here though it will be worth the money as I'm paying the mortgage on this deck and spent a week of my life cutting lumber and building the swingset, so I want to be able to use them!



What actually sold me on coughing up the cash I didn't have to buy the thing was a report I found online from the government of the Bahamas. They need to catch mosquitoes just for counting and monitoring purposes to make sure that the population isn't out of control and what kind they are and stuff. They tested several models, including one that tried to use sound to attract them that did nothing at all, and this brand caught the most. They weren't trying to reduce the population with it, just use it as a gage as to how their more widespread efforts were working, but it caught a LOT of mosquitoes for them to count.

Whats interesting is that the bugs have a scent when you're playing with them. I dont know how to describe it, it's not unpleasant except for the fact that you know you're breathing tiny bug parts But all together like that there is a musky quality of the jar :green:

I need to get the tank refilled today and get back to killing bugs! Whats also fun about them is that you can remove the "net" anytime and it snaps shut holding the bugs that haven't died (they die by being dried out by the warm air, no chemicals or anything, and it takes some time after they are caught) and on some evenings I'd open it just to look and pull out the net full of live gnats, thousands of them! Made me want to go release them somewhere for maximum impact But there just isn't anybody nearby that I hate that much...

We have to deal with a range of flying insects. May flys, bees, wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, horse flys and many other unidentified flying insects. Despite spraying your head with deet or bug off or spraying a bug killer near your face as you are outside, a large bug zapper did the trick.

Man, that thing went day and night zapping bugs. Quite a few times one of the larger flying insects would get jammed on it and we would turn it off and wash it out. Daily we had a pile of dead bugs below it on the ground. Many of the still larger insects couldnt get inside the plastic guard and would spend some time bumping into the sides.

gee I hate seeing all that good fishfood go to waste! I spend several dollars an ounce I think for my goldfish food..

which brings me to my excellent suggestion for catching the flying nanosyringes; it is not nearly as expensive as the CO2 machine, yet is so effective it is used exclusively to feed the fish ponds of the aquaculture system at The Ark in Cape Cod:

the device is simply a uv flourescent ring light, with a fan mounted in the middle. That device is mounted on a circular piece of foam and the whole thing is floated on the surface of the pond. The light attracts the insects, the fan blows them onto the surface of the water where they are consumed by the tilapia (fish).. later the tilapia are consumed by the people.
so you also get a little revenge on the bugs with this system; icing on the cake, so to speak..

lacking a fish pond, I imagine a tub of water with a bit of soap added would catch em and hold em too.

it works!

bon apeptite!

TTL

I haven't wasted it, I've kept it there are more people I need to gross out first

bug zappers dont get mosquitoes much, though there are ones now that you can hang an attractant strip from and they dont get gnats at all, too small! They do get flies though, but mostly they seem to kill moths which are bugs I have no quarrel with. It is fun to watch mosquitoes die in them though.

If I ever put in a water feature with fish out here I'll give the floating UV thing a try Sounds like fun!

Man, that's a lot of gnats! I'm trying to figure out how many there are... and what the heck you could do with all of them...

If there's a local pet shop, maybe the owner would want to buy them to sell to fish owners?

Since we're talking on the subject of gnat/mosquito/bug magnet, do they sell those "caged" bug zapper still and did/do they really work? Other than the "popping" sound of a bug getting zapped!

This maybe off topic, but I find the twistie CF lamps great for catching flying insects. When I replace mines that sit in a floor lamp in the vertical position full of small bugs.

I guess they still make the bug zappers. I find many hospitals, nursing homes, etc have them, but they are hidden like. They are mounted up high near the ceeling or down low. The errie purple glow gives them away.

It hasn't been mosquito season here for a while, but I have a fan assisted blacklight trap that seems to trap everything..I don't distinctly remember the mosquito body count, but there must be another way of attracting them -- or is co2 the only best way?

by the way bug zapper fans, remember when you here that 'pop' juicey insect innards are flying all over the place, ten feet or more, I heard..
..so cover your gespacho.

(high pitched)
nyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..!

do you have a link for an online dealer? never knew these devices existed, an dI have a friend that lives in a mosquito infested area that will love it.


Pablo

Something that seems to help prevent getting sucked dry by the little *******s is to eat marmite every day... Ofcourse, if you've ever tasted marmite, it's not that hard to imagine why the mosquitos dont want you anymore :laughing:

I guess you either love or hate the stuff, theres nothing in between...

Pablo, you talkin' to me?

if so here you go, I own an Insectivoro:

http://www.mosquito-zapper.com/insectivoro1.htm

Reducing consumption thanks to a high quality electrical motor and long lasting lamps (more than 2000 hrs working life).
UV-A LAMPS

Low pressure mercury vapor lamps, made of a tubular glass covering containing two electrodes with fluorescent internal coating. The lamps produce emissions in the ultraviolet field between 300 and 400 nm with a peak at 365 nm

Tests indicate that black-light fluorescent lamps (BL) are the most successful attractant. Fluorescent black light-blue (BLB), which filters out visible light, is also popular, but the filters increase the cost of the lamp.

Compared to fluorescent, incandescent lamps are less energy efficient and have less ability to attract pests.

Some electronic bug killers are self-cleaning. This means that there is enough power that bugs are burned off when they hit the electric grid. At lower wattages, bugs will stick to the grid and clog it, limiting ifs effectiveness. In addition, lower-wattage bug killers may not kill bugs, but only stun them, particularly larger insects such as bumblebees.

Bug killers should be placed in line of sight 25' to 50' from the area to be cleared and operated 24 hours a day. However, they are most effective at night without the interference of the sun's ultraviolet light.
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