Ep. 213 Summer Mosquito Control: What Really Works to Keep Bites Away |#GoodGrowing

Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb , Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. I'm starting to itch. I've got bites all over me. It is mosquito season.

Feels like mosquito season is starting earlier and earlier every year and going on later and later every year. Is that a coincidence? I don't think so. There are definitely some issues up that with that. And you know I'm not doing this by myself.

I'm joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson and Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Hello, Chris. I got it. Fortunately, it's been kinda breezy and cool, so mosquitoes aren't going too crazy or haven't been Mhmm. But with all that rain. It's a matter of Yes.

Mean, I I do literally already have mosquito bites. And we're we're at the May and that's probably to be expected, at least for me. I'm a mosquito magnet. I they are drawn to me. They just know where I am.

We once as a child, we went on vacation to a a little place off the coast of Georgia, I believe, Little Saint Simon Island, which is just literally a swamp off the coast of Georgia. And I think we counted. I had over 80 mosquito bites, and I was miserable. But yeah. And that's pretty common for me, though.

If there's if we're in a mosquito we place, they're coming for me.

Alright. So just bring Chris with wherever you go. He'll be fine.

I'm I must I guess I should add myself to this list of treatments we're gonna talk about. Oh, goodness. But, yeah, I mean, like, I think mosquitoes, they are becoming more and more common in terms of where they're falling earlier and later in the year. You know, we used to think like, oh, it's fall. You know, we don't have worry as much about mosquitoes or early spring.

We don't have to worry as much about mosquitoes, but there's a few new species. I think I might get the genus wrong, but I think it's Aedes japonicus. That is the Asian tiger mosquito. If I might have that one wrong. People feel free to correct

me. Albopictus. It's Asian tiger.

Albopictus. Okay. Well, there's a Japonicus one too, which I know in reading that one is more cold tolerant than a lot of our the native ones and some of the other introduced species. And so they're finding more, there's they're finding mosquitoes later into those or earlier into these cooler times of year. And so, you know, it can just be like our first warm day of spring and boom, there's a mosquito.

Yes. Good times. Good times, folks.

Yeah. But think with the show, what we're gonna talk about, Ken, are treatments. Like, can go online and find just a litany of things. Just just lists of do this, do that. This will keep you safe from mosquito bites.

I see that a lot. Kill mosquitoes, keep yourself from being bitten, all those kind of things. So we're going through the list today.

Let's do it. Start with the things that don't work or maybe we should talk about so you mentioned, you you get bit by mosquitoes a lot. Some people say they get bit a lot. Some people say they never do. And there is some some truth to that.

Some people are more, attractive than others, to mosquitoes. So trying to think what is it? People with type o blood, some studies have suggested type o blood, is more attractive. People that are pregnant are more attractive. If you drink beer or have been drinking beer, you may be more attractive.

It. So Well, we figured that

one out for me. But I was I wasn't drinking as a child, so I don't know what that was about.

So so I guess those are well, yeah, with the beer drinking, have control over.

Mhmm.

But but there's something like 400 different chemical compounds that humans kind of give off from their their skin and stuff, that may play a role in attracting mosquitoes. So there's there's all kinds of different chemicals they're they're getting attracted to, you know, sweat lactic acid, things like that. You know, it's believed that genetics are one of the bigger roles in attracting mosquitoes. So if you are very attractive, blame your parents. It's their fault.

I will blame my parents. That's a good that's a good one. And so and and apparently, my parents, they must have had, some type of recessive gene that just became the dominant one in me because they were always fine, though.

And it could be that they could be getting bit too. Some people react more to the bites too so that they, when mosquitoes are biting, they're injecting saliva, which is going to prevent the coagulation and kind of suppress the immune system too so they're not getting attacked. And some people are allergic to that or more allergic. Guess that's why you get those welts. So some people Mhmm.

Maybe getting bit and they just don't react very much to that, where others could be particularly sensitive. So you could have a double whammy that you're more attractive and particularly sensitive to.

Nice. Hey. Well, in the mosquito dating game, I'm winning. So the ladies love me. Because it's it's the ladies that need the blood meal to lay their eggs.

The males are not biting you. They are they mate. They can they be pollinators? Can they visit flowers?

Being a nectar pollinating. So Mhmm. They're good.

So those ladies, I guess,

have to get you. I'm not gonna touch that

one. Well, then we should probably switch our subject ever so slightly to the techniques touted online in you know, between family members and your groups of friends, somebody overhearing you online at the pharmacy trying to get some itch relief, you know. So these home remedies, so to speak, or these these techniques that that just have been touted over the generations of getting rid of mosquitoes, because the mosquito is something that has really followed human beings since time began, like, since the beginning of of our species, we have been plagued by mosquitoes and mosquito borne illness. That is just a constant factor in the history of humans. So we got a lot of weird stuff that we've contrived to to come up with things.

Actually, like, there there was this idea that there's no reason for a human to like an onion or garlic because most other animals do not like the taste of those things. But it is believed that early humans started eating those because we thought it warded off mosquitoes and so it became parts of our diets. Now we love it. I love onions. It's almost in everything.

Same with garlic.

Interesting. I had entered that before.

Yes. Oh, you just wait till I finish my mosquito book and still on page 80.

But I'm working on it to get there eventually.

Yeah. We'll see. So alright. To the list. Now the things that we're gonna talk about first are things that that you'll you'll hear you'll find these online.

You'll find people talking about these, But they really have not been proven to be effective. They're not they don't have a great track record of working consistently or at all sometimes. So the first one this is the first one is one that I have heard, but it's this one is a lot of work, is to attract purple martins to your yard. So that means you've gotta have, like, a purple martin birdhouse, which that that's a big investment in and of itself. You gotta protect it from predators and all that.

And the idea here is if you have purple martens, it's gonna keep mosquitoes away. So can is is this a a functioning working way to keep mosquitoes away?

Probably. So they they may eat mosquitoes, but the mosquitoes aren't very big. So they're probably going after bigger insects to feed on. So if they are eating mosquitoes, they're they're not gonna be a major part of their diet and they're not gonna have a a significant impact, on those, on those mosquito populations. And you can also, throw bats, into the mix of another one that's always, you know, have your bat analysis attract bats to eat mosquitoes.

And again, while they may eat them, again, they're going to get more, you know, burrow moths, beetles, things like that. There's there's more to them. That's going be a lot more attractive to them than the little tiny mosquito. Yeah. They may eat them, but again, they're they're eating other things too.

They're not solely eating mosquitoes. They're probably not gonna have a a really big factor on on those mosquito populations in your landscape.

Yeah. That's true. I I would say that, you know, I know a lot of folks, they try to put up bat houses, and that's probably its own show, you know, how do you attract a bat to your yard. There's many different species of bats. They all have their different habitat of needs and and and wants and then their life cycles.

So, yeah, I'd say that's a whole show in and of itself, drawing bats into your yard. Just eat mosquitoes. Yeah. Ken said it. They eat all kinds of if it's flying in the air, they eat it.

You know, when we're growing up, when we had we had our cow barn, we would throw rocks in the air and we would watch bats swoop down and and try to grab the rocks. So like, they're just eating things that are flying around in the air.

And I was at University of Florida, they've got two giant bat houses. And every evening people would come out and watch them leave the houses and stuff and he'd be constantly getting bit by mosquitoes. It wasn't fun.

Where are the bats going?

Was right next to to Lake Alice on campus and yeah. Mhmm. It's constantly getting buzzed by mosquitoes and bit Yeah. Right next to the bat houses.

Yep. So purple martins, bats, you know, hey, they would be great to have in the landscape. They'd be great to have in your yard, but not necessarily going to be a thing that's going to reduce mosquito population or prevent bites from occurring in your backyard.

Yes. So another one we hear about, and this goes for a lot of different animals. But the sake of our show, we're getting new mosquitoes, the sonic devices, so they give off buzzing noise. So with mosquitoes, it's, some of them are supposedly mimicking the male mosquito, because once females mate, females will take a blood mate take a blood meal and lay eggs. Once they've mated, they're not going to be supposedly messing with males anymore.

So that'll keep them away or supposed to mimic the sound of a dragonfly's wings. Neither of them work. There's been no studies that ever showed, that they work. So if you really wanted to find out and get one, sit outside with it on, see how many land on you. Turn it off, see how many land on you.

It's probably going to be the same amount or close to it.

Probably. Mhmm. We we did that experiment but with mice and we installed these these mice sonic repellents throughout the house and a week later we had a mouse in the house once again. So yeah. At least when it comes to mice, I know not effective.

So I would the mosquito one, I'm like, yeah, doesn't it sounds too gimmicky to be true. You know? So I I will say one of them that it drives me a little crazy, and I do know that there's a few folks that have them in their backyard, are are the lights, the bug lights, mosquito lights, the ultraviolet black light. You know, any form of of light to attract a in this case, they're hoping to attract mosquitoes, which then gets zapped, trapped on a piece of sticky paper, you know you know, some some way it gets trapped in into some some way or form or killed. And those, you know, you have said this multiple times on on this Shokin that they are they're not effective.

They are actually probably killing more beneficial insects or more of our nocturnal insects like moths at night than any mosquitoes. Know, mosquitoes are not necessarily drawn to light, which I guess maybe we'll get into some of those things that they're more attractive to also when it comes to like what human human breath that exhale c o two, they see that heat signature that we have. And then, of course, our sweat glands, we do release kind of these pheromones that can draw them in, aromas. And so that that does not occur with these light traps. So we're we're killing far more, kind of beneficial or benign insects than than anything else.

And we're taking food away from the spiders. You know, I I feel like the spider is is our friend in this fight because I have we have a light in our house. It's it's inside, but there's a window there and it's a light that is on frequently at night. And we have so many orb weaver spiders outside that window capturing all manner of of insects, mosquitoes, a lot of flies, midges. We have actually, we have a a yellow jacket wasp in there right now.

They they captured a yellow jacket. So yeah. I I spiders. They're they're our friends in this fight against well, not really, but everything. Everything.

They eat everything too. They're just like the lights.

Yeah. I mean, if you if you have a bug zipper, go in and and empty that out, then, you know, you can look at what you're catching. Yeah. Like I said, moths, lacewings. Mhmm.

Probably not a you may get a few mosquitoes and everything and not not enough that's really justifying killing, everything else that you're catching. And so a lot of times I see them on, you know, for sale online, you know, marketplace or always tempted to buy them just so I can throw them away, but they'd get really expensive.

Yes. I there are some times so there we should probably fact check this one, but I have heard that the color, like the yellow part of the light spectrum is not as attractive to many insects or nocturnal insects. So when we're say we have something going on at night, maybe we have a barbecue, maybe a friend's over, maybe the kids are running around the neighborhood, and we want to have our outdoor lights on, well, we have these LED lights where we can adjust the color of them. And so I've adjusted our nighttime lights to be yellow when we have to have them on just so we can see what we're doing outside. I honestly have not noticed any difference in whether we're drawing in more insects or not because usually we're pretty busy running around doing activities and things like that.

But it's something I've heard, so it's something I've done. Whether it works or not, it's not really hurting me in any way. Mhmm. It actually makes the it makes that night, that that evening atmosphere more pleasant because it's not a harsh bright light. So even in my eyes, I like it more.

Yeah. The yeah. Even it's like the red light when you're going out. A lot of times, like I've so every year I enter the, Firefly Lottery in the Smoky Mountains and stuff. I've I still haven't gotten selected.

But with that, know, they say, if you have flashlights, make them red. So one that's not gonna that won't mess with your night vision as much. It's not gonna affect, like the fireflies, lightning bugs, whatever you want to call them. That flashing pattern, it's not going to disrupt it. That would make sense.

Yeah. That in the yellow red spectrum. Probably not going to affect insects as much as into the blue. Yeah. Especially when I have a of LED bulbs.

Outdoor bulbs are more of that yellow or that blue, nowadays.

Yeah. So turn your lights off folks if you don't need them.

Yes. Alright. So another one, you're right. And use a lot of times for like pest management or monitoring anyway is, dishwashing detergent, soap, whatever, in a pan of water. And and you'll use that for like Japanese beetles and stuff like that, but we're we're physically putting them in there.

A lot of times when people are doing like pollinator studies, studying bees and stuff, they'll put out these pans, painted yellow or blue, put water in there, some soap so that the insects are attracted, they drowned and they can collect them. Assuming this is kind of the same idea with that, put out the soapy water, mosquitoes are attracted to it, they'll die. They're not going to be terribly attracted to it. Again, you may catch the occasional one, anything that gets in there, insect wise, is probably going to be trapped and killed. So again, not that practical.

They're probably not working all that well collecting all that many mosquitoes. Again, that's going to justify killing everything else that you're collecting.

Yeah. The other one, and I have heard this one also, is using, like, brand name called Listerine or any other mouthwash. You know, some people say, well, I put that on my skin and I I don't get bitten or it helps to repel them. So there is something in a lot of these mouthwashes, eucalyptol, it's an aroma compound, which we'll talk about, I think, more here later on. But they do see that, you know, eucalyptol can have an effect on mosquitoes if sprayed at a 75% concentration, but our mouthwashes contain less than 1% eucalyptol.

So in terms of thresholds, we gotta you know, you gotta get a gallon of of Listerine and go swimming in it first or, you know, submerge your clothes and saturate them or something. And even then, you're probably still not at that threshold, 75%. So, yeah, that that is not proven to be effective. And I guess, you know, with all of these, some of the other ones that are also no research evidence showing their effectiveness, vitamin b, garlic, spraying yourself down with garlic, pepper spray, which that sounds terrible. Don't do that.

Eating certain dietary supplements, you know, there's just not any research. There's either no research showing that it works or there's research showing that they don't work. You know, that's basically what we can say here. And even people's anecdotal experiences, you know, maybe they did put Listerine all over their skin and they didn't get bit that next night. But also maybe there are no mosquitoes out.

Maybe something shifted in their own body that was less attracted to mosquitoes. Like, you know, we're what we're talking about here is we're we're trying to speak to effective remedies also across a general population. You know, what happens in a specific backyard, that's that's out of our control. You know, we can't worry about that. But generally speaking, across the state of Illinois, that's, I guess, our purview here at Illinois Extension.

But, yes. Yeah. We we know there's a lot of anecdotal stuff here.

Yeah. So Always, you know, if in doubt, I would, you know, check to see if there's any, legitimate research backing it up. Lot of places will say, oh yeah, according to our study as well. See if, see if somebody independent from that company has actually studied the stuff and it's not just their data. Because sometimes I get, I'm not saying for all, but sometimes that can be, the the information can be selected, in ways to make it look more effective than it really is.

Yes. Mhmm. Yep. That's true. And and even, a lot of our artificial intelligence bots questionnaire for, you know, forms, they they are scraping that information off of the web, and a lot of that information they're scraping is marketing information, which makes in the bot or, you know, AI sees that and it says, oh, look, an effective treatment for this.

Wherein in fact, they're looking at some type of, like, marketing piece for that company.

Yeah. Just be careful.

Yep. Do your homework. Do your reading folks.

Alright. I'm sure there's a plethora of more things that that people say work, I don't really work. I'm probably only scratching the surface, but I guess in the interest of time, we'll move on. They can probably be a two part Yes. Episode by itself.

But some stuff that kind of works, maybe works, do some of those. Mosquito repelling plants, you see these, marketed, you know, it was at a garden center this weekend and mosquito repelling plants. So there's citronella. Oh, I'm drawing a blank. There's there's a whole list, lists of them out there.

So while these, these plants may contain, chemicals that that may repel or be mosquitoes may not be attracted to or repel them or in some way keep them from biting you. Usually that's again, that's done lab setting and maybe a concentrated form of that chemical. And in your plants, your plants aren't giving off significant amounts of those chemicals, so it's not really going to work unless you're going to pick those plants, rub them all over your body, take a weed whacker to them. Basically you have to release those chemicals into the air or put them on you for them to be effective. So the plants are just sitting there next to you.

They're not really doing a whole lot of good when it comes to replying the skills. I mean, you could probably, sure if we looked hard enough or spent enough time, you'd probably find pictures or find mosquitoes sitting on, you know, citronella plants and mosquito repelling plants. Just because they're not giving off a whole lot of it. If they are giving enough, it's just around that plant. It's not spreading out kind of area wide that's going to protect you or mask you from mosquitoes.

You know, Ken, I do remember when we were at the Poinsettia trials in Milstadt, and there was one company there set up that was selling mosquito repelling plants, you know, for their season. So if you're there was a lot of garden centers managers there, so they were advertising some of these plants that they were growing. For garden centers, one of them was naturally repel mosquitoes. It looks like a geranium, but it just let's see. Yeah.

Or it might be no. It is a citronella. Yeah. It is citronella. Just looks more geranium like.

And then on the flip side of this thing was a scaredy cat, bunnies gone, and dog gone. So it's like that's a company that is you know, they're kind of marketing the that that these plants planted in your yard is going to deter a group, you know, different types of species from coming in and and bothering you. But, again, that's a marketing piece. That is not a research. There's there's

there's an ounce of truth to it. You know, there is those chemicals do repel.

Mhmm.

But in practical sense with the plants, it's not gonna work unless you are somehow releasing that chemical from the plants, which is going to lead to the to the decline of your plants. Yes. For the most part.

Yeah. Alright. Tear your plants up now and rub them all over your body.

And that's not to mention, you know, you could be allergic to them too and

Oh, yeah. That would not be good. Mhmm. Another one which which we do use in our yard every so often, but it's more for the again, I like the character that they bring. I like a little bit of fire in my in my evening, you know, in the backyard are citronella.

Candles, sometimes like torches. So we do use those. Again, I'm more going for the atmosphere, but I'm like, well, hey, you know, if they do deter some mosquitoes from coming in and trying to bite me, that would be great. But the big thing here is that there has been research on this, on citronella, on the product of burning it. And for it to be effective, you have to be standing in the smoke.

And that really, according to the studies, is only about 40% effective. I mean, if I'm gonna have to stand in smoke and breathe it in, inhale it, I at least wanna get over that 50% mark of of reducing my chances of being bit by a mosquito. Smoke just wafting off into your your backyard, into your neighbor's yard, wherever. You know, if it's not surrounding you, if it's not all around you, it's not going to deter those mosquitoes from finding you or from being bitten.

So yeah, unless you're standing right next to it or if you're five, ten feet away and the wind's going in the opposite direction, probably probably not doing you a lot of good. Yeah. But it does look cool.

I I like them. So I think it's fun. But we do use we do have some fire elements in our yard, which fun fact, that's fire and water number one request in landscape design for homeowners as they want something either fire, like a fire pit, or they want some water feature. We love them natural elements. Combine them.

Yes. I've seen that a few times.

Waterfall coming out of your fire

pit. Yes. Fiery waterfall. Yes. It's not Disney World, Ken.

We can't we we don't have that kind of budget. Well, Ken, let's shift on to things that we know can work, can be effective even if we're talking short term. And this first one, I know a lot of people probably don't wanna hear this one, and we'll have our own critiques of this, but fogging and spraying. You know, this is basically putting out some type of a chemical. I think some of them say that they are repellents.

Some of them say that they are killing the pest. They're killing the insect or, in this case, the mosquito. But either way, you are using some type of seems like a modified the modified

Like leaf blower.

Leaf blower to disperse some type of chemical into your yard. This is very often only temporary. It's usually used before, like, a big event might be occurring. And it it is certainly something that is not going to be permanent. The effects definitely wear off over the course of sometimes a few hours, maybe half a day, a day, if you're lucky.

I you know, it might depend on weather as well.

Yeah. It's like you mentioned, wears off, it's it's going be repeated applications. Depending on the products being used, if it's an insecticide, you know, more of a broad spectrum, you've got all of the non target organisms you're affecting. I mean, you can say potentially affecting. You're going to be affecting because you're doing this area wide.

Pollinators, natural enemies, other beneficial insects, even insects that are just there. And again, those are nine that that we're not classifying as beneficial. You know, they're they're coming into contact with that potentially affecting them. So it's yeah, again, it's a it's a temporary solution and you're just it's only affecting the adults. So you may kill them in your yard, but next door neighbor is going have them.

So eventually they're going to fly over. Eventually that insecticide is going to wear off and they're going to be able to be, in your landscape. Again, so we get temporary. And in my opinion, you know, I don't think the potential side effects aren't necessarily worth it when when it comes to to managing them.

Yeah. When and I know, you know, maybe you you and I are definitely odd. And and maybe folks, you listening and watching us, you you have a different viewpoint of the world as well. There are certainly people out there though that want to just nuke their yard, that they just want to totally eliminate any insect activity going on out there, that any bug is a bad bug, to quote Starship Troopers. But that the yeah.

That that that you're just going to encounter that I'm pretty sure know, I have friends that they they're like, oh, there's bugs out here. We gotta fog this place. I'm like, well, you don't have to, but that's your choice if you want to. I will try to tell you that's something there are other ways you can do this. But yeah, some people just wanna nuke the place and just be done with it.

Yeah. And obviously we need to because mosquitoes can carry diseases that can affect humans, what we do there is that balancing act of we have to do this vector control to save protect the population, as a whole. But then, you know, balancing that with the, I guess, the more naturalist side of things where we're trying to conserve these other organisms. So I mean, there's a there's a balancing act. I don't envy anybody that has to do that.

I know you've got municipalities that will fog, you know, the chemicals are going to vary as to how they're doing this. But there's a reason, they're doing that too. So it's, you know, I don't want to try to vilify, you know, fogging and stuff like that. But, know, if you're doing it in your backyard, probably not terribly effective because it's, you know, it's temporary. They'll move back in over time.

Yes. Yeah.

Well, Ken, this next thing is actually the one that prompted the entire show. You stumbled across this. You you turned me on to this this social media thing that's been been buzzing around. The bucket of doom, which when you first described this, I was a little suspicious at first. But but tell tell everyone what we're talking about who may not have seen this online.

The bucket of doom.

Yes. Bucket of doom. So this is, so this one that comes from Doug Tallamy. So he's if you're familiar with the Homegrown National Park, this kind of movement of of people planting native plants, and stuff like that. And this is, one of the things that they've been promoting.

And this has been going on for for several years, but saw an uptick the last week or two. I know the algorithm algorithms thought I needed to see this, so here we are. But with this, with this, you're taking a base, you're taking a five gallon bucket, you're filling it two thirds of the way full of water, and depending on on where you're looking at that, the recipe is different as to what you're adding to that water. Some of it's straight, straw or hay, some of it's like, just lawn waste leaves, grass clippings, things like that. Basically, you're adding some kind of plant material to that.

Meaning you're kind of letting that sit, get all nice and funky, letting the the the bacteria and algae and stuff grow in that. You're going to add a mosquito dunk, a quarter of a mosquito dunk. So these are, you can find these in nurseries, garden centers, things like that. It's a Bacillus thuringiensis, Israeliensis is the strain, so it's a BT product. The Israeliensis strain is specific to mosquitoes, black flies, other aquatic flies.

So basically you're putting that in there when the, the, female mosquitoes, when they've taken a blood mill, they'll start to lay eggs. So they're going to find your nice bucket here. They're going to lay their eggs in there, eggs will hatch, larvae will start feeding, they'll ingest that BTI, and that BTI creates a protein crystal, they ingest it, basically cuts up their gut and they die. It does not affect other insects. So basically you're building a trap, mosquitoes lay their eggs and that you kill the larvae.

And if you do this, you know, you're eliminating the subsequent generations of mosquitoes. And the idea of this is you put one or two in your yard and if you can get a bunch of people in your neighborhood in the area to do that, this is working on the container breeding mosquitoes. So these need small amounts of water to do that and they don't travel terribly far. So if you do this a little more kind of area wide, it can be effective. There was a group from Rutgers that did some did something similar, in Maryland.

And I'm not sure they were using traps, I'm not sure if they're quite the same, but I think in parts of of the city they're doing this and they found like an 80% reduction in mosquito populations, or they found a reduction in mosquito populations when they're like 80% of the people in the area, of the yards using this. So if you get use some of your neighbors to do this, it has been shown that this can help reduce those mosquito populations, long term. But you've got to make sure, I think you've to replace that mosquito dunk every 30. So if you don't, eventually that kind of runs out and then you've just created a mosquito breeding factory. So there's a little bit upkeep.

You've to make sure the water level is maintained and stuff. But that's that's the general idea. I think with the Homegrown National Park when they're putting a stick in there or whatever, so that if some animal falls in there, they can climb out too. So you're not it's a bucket of death for mosquitoes, not everything else.

I see. I see. Well, and and Ken, I was suspicious of this because the you're treating one part of the mosquito life cycle. You are treating the larva side of it. But there's still the female still needs to bite you for her blood meal, for her eggs, for her protein that to develop those eggs.

So maybe at first, you might not see that effect of this bucket. But again, if this is you, a handful of people surrounding you, this is a you're you're building something out here. It's more of a long term thing. You know, you're eliminating that source, which can take time. It's not necessarily an overnight.

It's gonna be an instant fix for your barbecue that you're having in two days. But it is something that can be effective for the entire summer.

Yeah. Long long term control. Yeah. If we if we do it right. And even even if you're doing it yourself, I'd imagine you'd still could still potentially see a little bit of a decline depending on how big your yard is.

If you got a postage stamp lot, you probably need help from your neighbors. If you've got a larger area, maybe a little more effective. And I think with them, they're they're recommending putting this in a shaded area. So again, it's just going to dry out a little less quickly. When mosquitoes are hanging out during the day, so usually mosquitoes are dusk and dawn feeding.

There are some day biters as well. But a lot of times they're hanging out in shaded areas, a lot of vegetation and stuff. So they're they may be hanging out there already. Okay.

Yeah. And so let's go into our next one because it ties right into what you've just said, habitat modification. So so this and you mentioned we have container breeding mosquitoes. You know, there there's mosquitoes that that breed in in in in lay eggs in all manner of habitats, environments. I remember when we had our drought of 2012, there was a particular species that seemed to thrive in those drier conditions.

The you know, there so there's still mosquitoes even though there was no rain going on. But I think there's a lot of mosquitoes that that tend to tend to plague us humans that are container breeding, and that's because we tend to have lots of containers in our yards, little kiddie pools, buckets that don't have BTI in them, or a lot of times the unseen gutter that needs to be cleaned out. Those can be just, you know, they're above our head, out of sight, out of mind, but they can be an incredible reservoir for mosquitoes and breeding if you have a clogged gutter. Because there was one time I, you know, we were you know, cleaning out gutters. I do that regularly, but it had been maybe at least a week and a half, maybe two weeks since the last rain.

And I go up there and I see our gutters full of water. I say, well, what in the heck? What is going on here? Well, it turns out a baseball got lodged in the downspout and was preventing any water from draining out of there. And it just sat and sat for almost I would say almost two weeks.

It didn't dry out. And, yeah, there were plenty of larval mosquitoes in there. And then so the you know, you've let the water out, you've fixed the problem. But we have all of these areas where they can breed. So habitat modification, cleaning up the yard, cleaning the gutters, having good airflow, you know, because mosquitoes aren't the strongest flyers.

And so if you have good airflow through your yard, you could even have fans installed in a backyard area or just bring out a fan. I did one time put a fan next to a citronella torch, which that was a bad idea. Don't do that because the fan turned just black with smoke, and it just sort of smoked out everybody that was sitting around there. So that didn't work very well, but it it did help keep some of those weaker flying mosquitoes and also buffalo gnats as a side. That's a that's a whole other thing, though, from from bothering us at night.

But, yeah, change your habitat. Make it less hospitable to mosquito breeding and for their just being there.

And even though the the plant saucers on your pots, those and we dump them this stuff at least once a week. Just, you know, pick a day of the week, man, that's going to be your day. You dump the the plant saucers, empty out the kiddie pool. Yeah. Old tires.

When we bought our house, it came with a bunch of old tires. I don't know why. But we went in and drilled holes in all of them so that the water will drain out. And so so basically just anywhere that water is collecting that you are capable of then dumping it out, make sure you're doing that. If you've got a small pond, you know, backyard pond, something like that, putting the mosquito dunks, or something in there, having minnows, something like that, and eat the mosquitoes.

And there's a variety of different things you can do in that situation to help manage those populations. You mentioned, you know, with the airflow, you know, they like the really dense foliage and stuff in shaded areas, you know, it's nice and damp, which is where they like to hang out during the day. Again, you know, that's also attractive a lot of other organisms. So again, it's that balancing act of, you know, how much, how much cleanup do you want to do. They like, you know, underneath decks, something that is nice, Usually pretty damp and cooler area.

They'll hang out there during the day. So there's a lot of areas that that we're creating for them too that they like.

Yeah. And usually underneath those those decks, there's a layer of plastic often that the builder has put down, which, you know, is supposed to be pulled tight and hopefully sloped a little bit to allow the water to drain off. But very often, there's ridges and ripples that that hold water. And so it's just perfect spot for mosquito breeding. And then, of course, you're on top of that that deck there, and their blood meal's right there.

So that's it's everything they need, so why why leave? The other thing also when I know I've encountered this a few times with extension. If you have somewhere in the neighborhood, maybe it's an abandoned house, the person is gone for several months, they have an unmanaged pool that's full of water, check your local health department because our local health department will do something about that. We've already mentioned this. Mosquitoes are human health concerns.

So a lot of times, our local health department, if there is that reported, like a stagnant pool or unmanaged pool, they'll go in and they'll at least treat it with BTI. And and but that varies based upon the town that you're in. So check your local health department if they do that.

So another one, we can do to avoid mosquitoes is just stay inside. Don't go outside.

That that sounds easy. That's too easy, Ken.

Assuming your screens and stuff are in working order and don't have holes in them. But Mhmm. I think, you know, joke about it. Anyway, if we we avoid the times that they're most frequently out, dusk and dawn, we can do goes a pretty long way in avoiding bites. Know in our backyard, it's it's pretty shaded.

We've got a lot of vegetative growth back there. That's also where we put the kids swing set. Probably was the best planning on our part, but you know, when when kids don't use it too much anymore, when they were younger, maybe go out swinging in the evenings and once the mosquitoes started biting, real bad it was time to go in. So we just we would just go inside and come back out the next day.

Yep. Yep. No. That's true. That's the season went and we have definitely had the mosquito buzzing around our ears while we're trying to sleep.

And fixing our window screens, replacing those, cut down on the amount of mosquitoes, flies, brown marmorated stink bugs, Asian lady beetle. Like, it it cut down so much on the amount of insects that were able to get into our house. So good screens, you know, caulk and sealing those cracks and crevices around windows and doors, That is a very important way to keep insects like mosquitoes out of your house. And also, the double door system, which if you've ever gone into, like, a restaurant, you have to go through two sets of doors. Do you know why?

It's to keep the bugs out. That that is a an an effective deterrent to insects. If you've ever gone through doors and you feel a strong gust of wind on the top of your head, that is an insect deterrent to keep them out of that structure. And for restaurants, mainly flies. But, yes, that's why you have to have two doors if you are serving food to people in at least in this part of the world.

Yes. I mean, I never get to know every lot of that. Makes sense. But if you go to a butterfly house, it's the same thing. Mhmm.

Yep. Know, two sets of doors.

They have mirrors too. But yes.

Well, the the next one that can be an effective deterrent is wearing light colored clothing because it you know, some research does show that they're they tend to be attracted to darker colored objects, but also loose fitting clothing. Because I've definitely been wearing, like, maybe a tighter shirt or something, and I have witnessed the mosquito land on my arm. And, you know, she's drilling around looking for that vein, looking for that blood meal. And they will they'll bite you a couple times as they're looking for that. And I've seen her multiple times going through my shirt into my skin on, like, a a thin or tight piece of clothing.

So, loose fitting clothing can help to prevent some of that type of biting from occurring.

Yeah. And mosquitoes have these the the long needle like mouth parts, so they can it's not something like, you know, we had the garden bite a couple of weeks ago on buffalo gnats. So they've got small biting mouthparts. They're not going to get through that. But those longer mouthparts, yeah, they can get through that clothing.

So and the light colored clothing will help with the buffalo gnats, ticks Mhmm. As well. They're they're looking for those those dark objects. So

Yep. That's why I got my beard trimmed and my haircut so I can see those ticks better. And when we're cutting my kids' hair, guess what we found? A tick. Yeah.

So short hair, light colored clothing. It is summer in Illinois, and that's what we gotta do.

Maybe losing my hair isn't a bad thing.

There you go. That's sad. That's you see anything on my bald spot Sides of sunburn? Uh-huh. Well, Ken, one thing that this was something that I've I was first exposed to when I lived over in Manhattan, Kansas.

We were doing landscaping and our our foreman, the the the crew that I was on, he started using c o two traps. And I'm like, what the heck is that? And and he he he remarked that they seemed to be effective, seemed to work. It seemed to reduce the amount of of biting that that they experienced. He also had told his neighbors about it.

They're all like, what is that contraption in your yard? And I think a lot of them had started putting them up in their yards. He said it's really made a difference, but it's a CO2 trap. And these have gotten pretty sophisticated, I think, lately. So what they do is they use a c o two cartridge, and it emits c o two in, like, a plume, kind of like how our our breath exhaling would look to a mosquito trying to zero in on us for a blood meal.

Some of them even contain octanol, which is a pheromone in our sweat. Some of them do have a little bit of a heat signature to them as well. So all of those things help to draw in a female mosquito. And so but but a c o two trap, and and it lures them into either sticky card or some vessel that they can't escape from. And what we looked at, we we did find a little bit of, you know, a little bit of studies on this, is that it does appear to be effective.

But unlike the bucket of doom, it is not addressing the larval stage of the mosquitoes. So you're not, you know, you're you're not stabbing the hydra in the heart. You're just cutting off one of the hydra's heads, so to speak. Like, you're just killing the adults, and you are not addressing the reproduction that could be occurring here and the egg laying that could be occurring. So maybe in combination with the bucket of death, you know, you would be addressing both life stages.

It could considerably reduce the amount of mosquitoes biting happening in your yard. It it is probably, again, one of those more longer term solutions that would be more expensive. Because I remember one once upon a time, I tried to get into things like paintball and all that, and c o two is expensive. Those cartridges cost money. And, you know, they cost energy and everything and to to keep going unlike the bucket of doom, which is sort of a passive device that that the only management is just making sure you're putting that BTI dunk in every, you know, days.

But yeah, c o two traps. There's there's a lot of different ones on the market out there.

I think some of them run off propane too, don't they?

Yes. Yes.

Propane tanks set up and Yep.

Yeah. They're burning off propane. So they're burning natural gas, combustible fuel source. So environmentally friendly, maybe not as much as, say, like, yeah, the bucket of death.

Something to try, maybe.

Some something to something to try. I think yeah. One of the the pages said that, you know, on a island off the coast of Florida, they did see that there was an effective control of mosquitoes when they had one c o two trap per acre. But again, we're on an island where a very isolated situation there. Probably more controlled environment than the middle of landlocked Illinois.

Probably industrial sized ones too, not a backyard version.

I bet that's what they were using. Yes. They're probably trying to keep the mosquitoes off the tourists.

So then I guess the last one we have on our list and, probably the easiest one to do besides staying inside, which isn't that enjoyable, depending on who you are, is repellents. So we're using those insect repellents, to, depending on their felony, they're masking them, they're blocking the olfactory, there's the sensors on the antenna that they're using to find us. And I think with DEET, there's some research that comes out that it tastes bad to them, they, when they land on you, they're tasting it with their feet. And that DEET is an attractive event. Also, some of the blocking the sensors on the antenna too.

But, there's there's a bunch of of repellents that the CDC lists on their website, that are effective for mosquito, repelling mosquitoes. They're considered safe for pregnant women, women that are nursing as well. They they point that on the website. So it's DEET, which is probably the one that's that's most widely used. It's been around since so discovered in in the forties.

So it's been around for a while. Picaridin is another one. Think we believe that's been found to be, as effective, as DEET. IR3535, oil of lemon eucalyptus, which is a plant derived one, if that is of interest. Para methanediol or PMD.

And two, ondecanone, which is another plant derived one. I'll say the ones I see when I'm looking for repellents, again, majority are DEET, see piccaridin now and then, and oil, lemon, eucalyptus. Usually the three I see most often, at least where I'm shopping for for repellents. Yes.

I the the main ones that I see that tend to pop up in, like, the pharmacy aisle in cap are the RD, very common. Oil of lemon, the eucalyptus, also very common. So I think, yeah, it's one of those a person they're choosing whether they want to use something like deep or if it's that synthetic choice or they wanna use that non synthetic choice, that oil of lemon, eucalyptus. I think it was, again, retired extension entomologist Phil Nixon. He was really excited when Consumer Reports put out a study that oil of lemon eucalyptus was shown to be, you know, almost just as effective at repelling mosquitoes as as DEET was.

And so, yeah, as you said, Ken, they're just they're mixing up those signals for the for the mosquitoes.

And with the DEET, I'm trying to remember now. It's usually was, like, 50% less. It's usually it's gonna last longer than, like, the % DEET, because there's other, you know, oils and stuff in there that make that last longer. The % DEET kind of dissipates pretty quickly. So think usually you're looking for like a 30 percentage range, to get you know, they have good repellency and, it's going to last longer than the % DEET.

And DEET can be kind of harsh on certain clothing and stuff. So like like everything else, make sure you're reading the label and applying it properly and being careful about applying it to certain types of clothing too, especially as you start getting to those higher percentages.

Mhmm. Yeah. I think also, you know, if you're not aware I wasn't always aware of this. It is good manners to, like, step away from people when you're applying this, especially if they're eating. If you ever, you know, like a backyard barbecue and you just start beating up all around the the hamburgers and hot dogs, probably a good idea.

Step away. You don't you don't want that on your food. You don't want that in, like, open wounds. You know? You'd you know, it it's supposed to be on the outside of you.

It doesn't taste good. It doesn't taste good

at all. What is wrong with your hamburgers? I thought those were supposed to be the famous Ken Johnson hamburgers. This is this is not what I was expecting. So yeah.

And and also, oil of lemon eucalyptus, here here you go. You could use this as opposed to, like, mouthwash and get an effective concentration of that eucalyptol compound that would be more repellent to a mosquito than dousing yourself with Listerine.

Yeah. And another chemically is is permethrin. So that's a repellent and will also kill mosquitoes, it's something you're applying to clothing. You are not applying this to your skin. So you can buy clothing that is already treated with this.

You know, lot of our our more outdoor retailers, probably something that they're going to carry. And it will last for so many washings. I think some of the stuff I've got, this was thirteen, fourteen years ago, I went to Africa. I think it lasted for twenty, thirty washings. You can also buy, the the permethrin to treat yourself.

I think I need to make sure you're following, the label and that'll last, you know, maybe it doesn't. When the stuff I bought, I think it lasts five, ten washings, so you you had to reapply it. But that's on your clothing, it'll repel and the mosquitoes land on it. It'll it'll kill them too. So that's another option.

I'd say if you're going and probably not for everyday use, but if you're going be going to an area where you know there's going be a lot of mosquitoes, like say, you take a vacation in August down at the Everglades and decide to go outside, that may come in handy.

And then get carried away

by the insects.

We never saw Ken again after that. Oh, no. No. That would be me. We would never see Chris again after that.

I would I would I would literally get flown off the ground by the amount of mosquitoes on me.

Next time I go to the Everglades in August, I'm bringing you with.

There you go. Just stick me out in front of the tent. I'll keep them off you. Oh. Oh.

Well, that was a lot of great information about mosquito repellents, trying to avoid the bite, what works, what doesn't work. Well, the good growing podcast, a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by me, Chris Enroth. And a special thank you to Ken. Thank you for hanging out, going over the list of things that people say does affect us getting bitten by mosquitoes and digging through some of the the reading here to to see what works and what doesn't. Thank you, Ken.

Yes. Thank you. And just remember everybody, do your homework. If it sounds too good to be true, a lot of times it is. Mhmm.

Yeah. And let's do this again next week.

Oh, we shall do this again next week. We have a special guest coming on the show, doctor Elizabeth Wally, to talk about grapes. Growing grapes in the backyard, that sounds like fun. She's gonna talk all about it and and cover the ins, outs, the ups, the downs, the the goods and the bads, the highs and the lows, because there's quite a few with grapes. There's grapes.

Oh, I've seen lots of problems with grapes. But we will get to that next week. So listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, that is listening, or if you're watching us on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.