Homemade Mosquito trap

Ah spring!

I am so glad that the end of winter is at hand and soon the grass and trees will be green. I look forward to the yard work and the planting of flowers. I can't wait to see our roses come out of their winter bed and start to grow and bloom again.

I LOVE SPRING!!!!

Wait a second, I hate mosquitos! Soon the little blood suckers will be swarming, biting and driving us crazy.  Every year it is the same, first comes the bigger ones that aren't quite as aggressive then the hordes of those littler ones that seem intent on draining us dry and that leave us itching for days.

I have looked into getting a commercial mosquito trap to try to keep our yard free of these menaces. There are several different types. One uses propane to make Co2 to attract them into the trap. and another uses black light and some kind of attractant, again Co2, to attract them in to electrocute them.

These units are pretty costly and they have to have some ongoing supervision to continue working. I would like a simple, cost effective way of dealing with these pests. Free or nearly free would suit me just fine.

Seems to me that the commonality is the Co2 to get the mosquitoes to go where they can be destroyed. With that in mind I did a little research and found a homemade way of creating the Co2 to attract the mosquitoes and a very simple way of getting them right where I want them... DEAD!

 I wish I could claim this as my idea but I found it on the internet in several different places with the earliest I could find dated 2006 and with the instructions in traditional Chinese, so I sure hope whoever translated it got the recipe right!

I know that before I shell out a few hundred dollars for a store-bought zapper I am going to give it a whirl. Mosquitos are also attracted to black so I think I have an orphaned black sock or two that I could slip over the whole bottle to act as an added attractant!

MOSQUITO TRAP

Canadian Recipe:

200 ml hot water

50 g of brown sugar

1 g of yeast

US Recipe:

1 cup of hot water

1/4 cup of brown sugar

1 tbsp of yeast

Method:

1. Cut 2 litre plastic pop bottle in half.

2. Mix the brown sugar with hot water to desolve. When, cold, pour into the bottom half of your bottle.

3. Add the yeast. No need to mix. It creates carbon dioxide which attracts mosquitos.

4. Place the top portion of your bottle upside down into the bottom half of your bottle. You can tape them together if you want just to make it more secure.

5. Wrap the bottle with something black leaving the top uncovered because mosquitos are also attracted to the colour black. (An orphaned black sock works great.)

6. Place the bottle in an outside area away from where you would normally be.

7. Empty the bottle and make up a new batch of the recipe every two weeks to keep it affective.