Mosquito Death Buckets, My 2 Week Update
My four mosquito death buckets have been set up in my yard for two weeks now. So how are they doing? Well, that’s not enough time to reduce the adult population of mosquitoes yet, but there are three things we can look at to see if they’re on track.
- Are the buckets of death attracting female mosquitoes to lay their eggs on the surface of the water?
- Are the eggs hatching into mosquito larvae?
- Is there a great reduction in the larvae population before they can turn in to pupae and then adult mosquitoes?
The video below has the answers to all three questions.
Yeah, but is it science?
Now, I know you may be wondering how valid my answer to the third question is. And you have a good point. To know for sure, I should have set up at least one control bucket with no BT larvicide to see how it developed over the same time span. So it’s not a scientifically valid experiment, but I think we’re on track for a huge reduction in mosquitoes in our backyard sometime next month.
Adult female mosquitoes—which are the ones that bite—live about a month. If the current generation of adult mosquitoes dies off and the mosquito death buckets result in few new ones to replace them, I should be able to enjoy my backyard next month. Well, if the weather permits, that is.
Allison A. Bailes III, PhD is a speaker, writer, building science consultant, and the founder of Energy Vanguard in Decatur, Georgia. He has a doctorate in physics and is the author of a bestselling book on building science. He also writes the Energy Vanguard Blog. For more updates, you can follow Allison on LinkedIn and subscribe to Energy Vanguard’s weekly newsletter and YouTube channel.
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To me, the issue isn’t whether the bucket attracts the females and kills their offspring. What is the range of female mosquitos during their one-month life span? If it is larger than your yard, than you probably aren’t going to do much good if your neighbors are not also doing this.
Time will tell, Roy.
Roy: apparently several kilometers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito
I did a little googling on mosquito range and saw the same numbers. It will be interesting to hear Allison’s results in Part 3.
I read all your articles, but this is my favorite so far because I’m desperate to get rid of those pesky disease carrying insects that love to feast on me and not my husband! I’m going to have to camouflage the buckets though, so that they don’t detract from our beautiful landscaping.
Mary: Have you started your buckets yet? Camouflaging them is easy. You can put them in a big clay pot or hide them in a place where they’re not visible. I haven’t done that yet but will sometime.
After your previous plans on them I emailed a link to a friend south of Atlanta that is trying it out. He said so far he has found some in them.
I haven’t tried as here in TX although it’s been the most normal summer we have had since the 90s where it’s been much cooler and wetter than normal but virtually no mosquitos this year so far. Now that summer is over and misery season is starting where lows will barely get to 80 and highs rarely as low as 95 (most will be 100+) we may start seeing them as they tend to be worse here as the vegetation starts turning brown.
Now do you have a solution for moles. That’s our real nuisance as they are extremely destructive.
Robert: It seems that I did see something about a plant that repels moles when I was looking around for info on this topic, but I don’t recall what it was.
I’ll have to look into that and see if I can get it to grow here. Anything is worth a try. After the massive rains we had this year I have one spot where the water washed down into the layers of tunnels and the bottom of the trench is about 2′ down. They create a massive tunnel system. We have basically a sand soil where as everywhere else here is hard clay and rock so digging is very easy for them. The cats don’t waste their time digging them up.
Hi Allison,
I too live near Atlanta. I live right next to a swamp or “retention area” for storm water runoff after 40 years it is a real muddy swamp about the size of a football field. After many years I have never really found a better solution then spraying and respraying my yard esp. the walls, fences, trees etc. then after it rains I do it again. I use mosquito BT dunks. I try to toss them into the semi-permanent wet areas of the swamp that I can reach from the top of the banks, through the trees and underbrush. Sometimes a little pesticide might get sprayed into the swamp. Gwinnett County was not interested in helping me with this. They said “we don’t have a spray program” so lets just wait for Malaria to reclaim the south then we’ll stop building schools and build hospitals.
The project you are working on has a problem which deserves some thought. Are you just attracting more mosquitoes then killing their larvae ? Which can be the problem with leaving water buckets around your yard. However your neighbors my benefit since the party is at Allison’s house.
I think the scientific approach would be sticky traps before and after that would gave some idea of the local population. I know someone whose job it is to count bugs for UGA on a career path to pest control.
The rainy weather we had in May and early June seems to be replaced by hot dry weather which helps but 3:30PM to dark is the party time for mosquitoes still and I use DEET but it seems to keep your skin from sweating and makes it even hotter outside.
I recommend skip the preliminaries and go straight to the hose end sprayer at least once a week and rotate insecticides. BT is best supposedly for standing water.
A years-long hobby of mine has been reducing the population of mosquitoes in and around my yard. Having read and informally interviewed experts on the subject, the ultimate test of effectiveness is whether mosquito fighting efforts reduce ‘biting pressure’. Simply put, biting pressure is the measure of the number of landings and/or bites on an unprotected arm held out in a mosquito bearing location. Many mosquito killing inventions are able to demonstrate that they catch many mosquitoes but do little to reduce biting pressure.
What has worked for me is reducing as much standing water within 200 or so yards of my yard (the distance that most species of mosquito in the northeast USA seem travel most of the time) and using mosquito bits and mosquito dunks for the water which I cannot eliminate or gets refilled too often for me to empty effectively.
A few bitters remain in and around my yard; I suspect some of them are species that breed in wet leaves instead of in standing water.
If you get a chance, a video interviewing a mosquito expert like Colin Purrington might provide some addition insights and information. You could ask questions like why neighborhood efforts aren’t a more common tool in the toolchest, what species are most common in the Atlanta area, why is so much emphasis on Gravid Aedes Traps (GATS) and other even more expensive and complicated devices instead of the work you propose.
Can we hear your thoughts about including that particular Muir quote in the footer of your newsletter after linking to the mosquito death buckets article? 🙂
Paul: Sure, but first, let me put the Muir quote here for others who may not subscribe to our newsletter:
“I always befriended animals and have said many a good word for them. Even to the least-loved mosquitoes I gave many a meal, and told them to go in peace.”
My reason for using that as the quote of the week was as a reminder that mosquitoes, like us, are a part of nature. As annoying—and threatening to health—as they can be, they do serve a role in ecosystems. They serve as a significant source of food for a great many birds and bats. I certainly don’t want them to have free reign of my yard, and that’s why I’m using natural methods to combat them.
Allison: I am not sure if I understand your thinking. If your goal is to reduce the mosquito population in your area, doesn’t that have an impact on their predators whether you use “natural” means or not? My solution to mosquitos and other outdoor pests is to use screened patios. I don’t think this has much impact on the bird population other than they have to find somewhere else to nest.
When I first heard about research to create GM mosquitoes it sounded so exciting. Then comes Allison with the Muir quote. There goes my enthusiasm. 😉
One group of research is trying to modify the mosquitoes to prevent the malaria parasite from reaching our little friend’s salivary glands. What, if any, butterfly effect something so small as a modified mosquito internal organs might have on the ecosystem as a whole is a question well beyond my head.
However, throwing Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis at the mosquito larvea is an interference, natural or not. We are also likely interfering with something else by spreading Bti.
Mosquitoes are opportunists and their population fluctuates greatly with the amount of available water sources. Reduce water sources.