Has home made mosquito trap worked for you?

Has home made mosquito trap worked for you?

Every year there's a widely circulated recipe to make a home made mosquito trap that instructs you to cut a 2L plastic pop bottle down about a third of the way from the top; make a syrup of 1 C. of boiling water; 1/4 C. of brown sugar; wait until the dissolved sugar syrup mixture cools completely before adding 1 tsp of active dry yeast on top of the syrup after it's been poured into the bottom half of the bottle. You do NOT stir the yeast in, but leave it to float on top. You turn the top cut off part of the bottle upside down and place it outside somewhere out of the sun.  This is supposed to collect hundreds of mosquitos according to the picture in the blog.  Has anybody tried this yet, and if so, does it work????

Re: Has home made mosquito trap worked for you?

I haven't, but sounds like it could work.  We have lots of mosquitos here in Florida and a year ago we planted a border (on both sides) of "mosquito" plants.  Now that the plants are mature, they seems to be working.  Nice green foliage and no flowers.  Bugs and mosquitos in particular do not like these plants.

You can grow them in pots for your patio/deck or plant them directly in the ground.  The spread nicely, make a nice border and are perennial.

You can see how nice and full they are.  These were purchased at Home Depot, but any garden center should have them this time of the year and they are not that expensive.  They'll spread rather quickly.

Lady - formerly SH Eastedie

Re: Has home made mosquito trap worked for you?

Thanks for your reply Lady.  I made one up and put it out late last night but the air had cooled down to 9°C with a breeze so that's not really ideal mosquito conditions - they'd likely all gone to bed. :)  I'll keep monitoring the trap and keep this thread updated.  I've heard many different reviews on this trap.  Many said it works like a charm, others said it didn't.  People said it would work if follow directions properly so I'll see.  The only thing I might not have done properly is maybe put too much yeast in - I dumped the whole packet on top of the syrup and the pkg says there are 8g in it.  I have no idea how many grams one tblsp is.