I have a feeling that this is going to be a bad year for mosquitos in my part of The People’s Republic. Two and a half weeks ago I helped with cluster cleanup and got royally chewed up. Since then it’s like the original bites were the phosphorous flares marking the landing zone for the successive waves of real attacks—and we’re not even at the end of May.
The r/nova sub on Reddit is also indicating that it’s not just here—it’s all over Northern Virginia. So, it’s time for action.
In past years I deployed mosquito zappers, but—satisfying as it was to hear the ZZZZTs—it’s not clear to me how effective they were. Also—although I wasn’t unhappy to see moth corpses in the zapper grille, I don’t know how many good insects met their untimely end as collateral damage.
(If there are good insects.)
I also won't spray indiscriminately for the same reason. Although I have considered it.
But someone on Reddit urged readers to “Google mosquito bucket of doom” as a solution, and that brought me to something I think is worth a try. You partially fill a 5-gal bucket with water, mix in some leaf litter (making an attractive environment for female biters to lay their eggs and for the larvae to develop), but add a Mosquito Dunk, which murders the larvae wholesale. The lady puts all her effort into the bucket, but the babies never leave the maternity ward.
Viz:
I hope this is enough to get me through the summer. Through June, at least.
©2025 Bas Bleu
4 comments:
Yes! there are good insects. Unless you prefer pollinating your fruit trees by hand, or polyester to silk, or listening to extinct songbirds, or...
Point taken.
Use a shallow garbage can lid or smaller bucket so critters don't fall in and can't get out.
Or I could put some hardware cloth over it. But excellent point, thanks!
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