Does anyone have good experiences with outdoor mozzie traps?
I know, some of the zappers need 240V electricity, are noisy and attract the mosquitoes from all over the neighborhood and only work at night.
My ideal mozzie trap would have the following attributes:
solar powered
attracts and kills mosquitoes and the nasty little midges
covers a radius of at least 20 meters
low noise level
water (weather) resistant
if attractant is required it will be biodegradable
Can you help?
Question to Choice:
How about a review on mosquito traps?
The zappers do not kill mossies but only more benign insect life. Mosquitoes are attracted by carbon- dioxide - see www.researchgate.net/post/Mosquito_attractants and you are probably better off building some mossie traps (old tyre semi-circle suspended by rope) and emptying the water out of them every day so eggs laid but larvae don’t change into adults but die instead when water emptied and tyre re-filled. When googling, disregard all sites that sell zappers!
You could try planting pyrethrum. Easy to propagate and entirely biodegradeable. They work as a repellent. Seeds can be obtained from allrareherbs.com.au
@loubaxter
Thanks a lot for your suggestion. Reading through the content of the link you provided I believe there is no real solution to the mozzie problem, they seem to be attracted by too many things - or not (various opinions)
My problem is, we’ve got hundreds of bromeliads in our garden that store water and are a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes and on top of that there is some dense, sub-tropical bush land around our 1 acre property.
In order to keep all the good bugs alive we’ve decided against any trap - until we find something suitable.
@msookee - Thanks for your suggestion.
I did some reading at Wikipedia and http://www.pyrethrum.com/faqs.aspx.
It appears pyrethrum is a good companion plant to repel aphids, mites,
bugs and some worms, rather than mosquitoes. The dried and pulverised
flower can be mixed with water or oil and used as insecticide.
@vk2jng
Thanks Gerard, I will have a look for the Silicon Chip magazine.
Can you please let us know how successful the trap is once you’ve had some experience with it.
wear long sleeved light shirts - and some say lavender oil keeps them at bay for a few hours (then needs renewing) but be careful of essential oils if you have CATS (many toxic to the meowers)
Rather than trying to kill the mosquitoes, I use those magnetic mesh insect door curtains. It changed my life when I put a couple of those up. Also it might be an idea to find out how to make your garden microbat friendly. They consume about their own weight every night in mozzie-type insects. And swallows and fairy martins do it at dusk and dawn.
Thanks for the hints, I definitely will look into making my property more mozzie-hunter friendly. One of the issues we experience is that the mozzies are around during the day too, and it’s on the verandah, so the magnetic mesh would only work if we completely enclose the back. Still, reducing them will already help. thanks
I went to Bunnings for a mosquito zapper. All the ones I could see had the Mosquito as one of the pests zapped.
When I asked which was best in store the assistant said none of them actually does the job.
Unfortunately, many biting bugs are not attracted to the UV light coming from bug zappers , mosquitoes and biting gnats included. Traditional bug zappers will kill a large number of harmless insects. In fact, they may even kill a larger number of beneficial insects than harmful ones.
With summer here, and humidity (in WA seeming to be on the increase; Ross River Virus, etc, if they don’t work, they shouldn’t say they do.
Hi @mcmap, what a great first post and welcome to the community.
It is good that the assistant gave correct advice. They won’t attract mozzies …and will only kill them if a mozzie accidentally flies into the zapper part.
Mozzies respond mainly to two things, carbon dioxide being exhaled and smell (such as pheromones)…and not UV light. Other insects which use light to find food, are attracted to zappers including flies, moths, butterflies, bees etc. They will also attract and kill native and exotic (e.g. Indonesian) geckos…as they have learnt it is a good place to wait for go for an easy feed.
The devices shouldn’t be called or nicknamed mozzie zappers but maybe insect/bug zappers…as they won’t attact and kill mozzies. To prevent mozzie bites, the US CDC gives some good advice…
or closer to home, Sydney University…
and note, the recommended methods doesn’t include zappers.
I bought 2 of these UV light zappers on FB Marketplace (fortunately cheaply) - they did attract moths etc but zero mozzies… So they are now unplugged, gathering dust and I continue to suffer…
This may be useful:
Want to swat that mosquito in the dark (or the light) first time, every time? Here’s a hot tip from Kris at Bugs n Slugs; When you feel the ‘prick’ of the mozzie biting you… Take a long, slow, deep breath and hold it. This will expand your blood vessels and trap the mosquitoes proboscis in your skin long enough that you will be able to swat it before it can escape. You can thank the 10 years I spent working in a mangrove forest for this one. Try it. It works and its chemical free. #trustmeimascientist
I’ve found in recent years that aerogard, Off! And the rest are generally useless. A friend who goes camping a lot recommended Bushmans insect repellent, and I must say it has been a boon. Its 20%, 40% or 80% DEET and the mozzies stay well away. Zappers are useless, been there done that.
I use repellents with Picaridin in them rather than DEET. Picaridin doesn’t have as much odour as DEET to my nose and doesn’t affect the plastic of my glasses like DEET does. Rated as having similar effectiveness to DEET it may appeal to some. I think it also works better against flies if they are a concern for a user.
There is ongoing research into Picaridin but a 20% solution is almost as effective as a 20% DEET solution and it won’t damage plastics or synthetic materials like DEET will.
If you do a internet search, it is possible to find sprays containing such as this one. Another readily available one is Skintastic Insect Repellent Spray which is available at most chemists and some supermarkets (such as Woollies) and Officeworks.
This paper found that ‘Picaridin 20% performed equally well as DEET 20% and better than picaridin 10%’. It looks like, a bit like DEET, the higher the concentration (%), the more effective the repellent will be.
ALDI sell their one with it in (fairly cheap and good), but I like the Skintastic one in the little hand spray pack. Unlike DEET it isn’t an oily mix so feels less greasy on the skin.
Off! Insect Repellent uses picaridin and is widely available at Coles, Chemist Warehouse, IGA etc. We actually have a mozzie repellent test underway at the moment (sprays and roll-ons, not zappers). When we did mozzie repellents in the past, picaridin-based products performed as well as many DEET products, though DEET formulations topped the list.
