How to Make a Mosquito Bucket of Doom

[ysabetwordsmith]

I found this article about making a Mosquito Bucket of Doom. 

1) Fill a bucket with water and put it outside.

2) Add a handful of grass to make carbon dioxide which will attract more mosquitoes.

3) There are two options to kill the resulting larvae.

-- Dump the bucket weekly and refresh the trap with new water and grass.

-- Add a mosquito dunk, which lasts about a month.  Replace whenever it sinks or dissolves.


Also, make sure there are no other pockets of still water to attract mosquitoes elsewhere in your yard.  Every bit that you can find and remove is one less mosquito nest. 

Comments

[cyprinella]

We've been using mosquito traps in my neighborhood for a couple of years now so a few notes:

1. Straw works the absolute best for stagnant water that's not stinky from feet away. Green grass will smell to high heaven. Dried leaves are better but can still get pungent. Dried grass or straw is pretty much only smelly if you stir it up. It still ferments and grows attractive bacteria though.

2. You only need a quarter (1/4) of a dunk per bucket. The dose is calculated by surface area and a quarter of one will work just fine for five gallon buckets and less. That means one dunk lasts four months per bucket but it does need to be renewed every month.

3. If you aren't monitoring your buckets closely, don't do the dump method. Once it warms up, you can get from eggs to adults in as short as four days. Not an issue with dunks.

4. Either cover with a wide mesh screen or add a stick to your bucket so small animals that fall in can get out, especially if you're using a five gallon bucket or something else tall. You don't want to pull out drowned mice. It sucks.

5. You will want to monitor your buckets to make sure your dunks are good (they can be damaged by heat while stored for example). If your larvae reach pupa stage which looks like swimming commas, dump it and get new dunks.

Hope that helps!

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I appreciate the added details.

[moonhare]

Excellent information, thank you!

[moonhare]

Thank you for this! I dump standing water when I see it, but this looks like a good way to keep the nasty varmints away. We keep getting ads for local pest control folks who want to spray, and I would never consider that because of collateral damages to the beneficial bugs.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yeah, I don't spray either. We have insects out the wazoo. I've seen raspberry patches absolutely crawling with bugs, but all eating each other instead of the fruit.

This year I have a bee tree again! :D 3q3q3q!!! I just heard the lawnmower sound today when we were walking in the savanna, looked up and there were the girls to-ing and fro-ing overhead.

[luna_moon]

Thank you for sharing! I live a few blocks away from the town's main river. Our town will spray problem areas if people request, but I really don't going that route unless they get really bad. I've heard about these before, but never really looked at it much. It look like mosquito dunks are safe to use around chickens, and it is even safe to use in their water bowls! I dump and rinse their water daily, but it is good to know this won't bother them if they happen to get into some water that contains the dunk.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Mosquito dunks only threaten mosquitoes, blackflies, and fungus gnats. \o/

Re: Yes ...

[luna_moon]

Good to know it gets the blackflies and gnats too! Heading to Menards for some supplies today and I have it on my list :D

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Woohoo!

Yeah, too bad "mosquito dunk" doesn't scan to Blackfly.