This may be a US thing but Jefferson County which begins 8 blocks from my house has it's first official case. West Nile is NOT good. It is spread by mosquitoes and this has been an especially wet year. I spent some hours today mowing my back yard. I still had puddles sitting in the yard and a drowned squirrel in my pond. I took a sample of puddle water with a cooking baster and sheppled it into a jar. What did I find? Hundreds of mosquito larvae in just a puddle. I have a video I made of the jar and the larvae but I don't know how to embed it here. Link: http://s255.photobucket.com/albums/hh137/jhanlon303/desktops/?action=view¤t=larvae.flv The black things in the jar are larvae. Ebil. If anybody knows about embedding I could use the help here. West Nile from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_nile_fever john
We tend to get a couple of cases in NY every year, it got really bad a few years ago. We tend to run the pool a bit more to prevent standing water, and make sure that any puddles are drained asap.... could be worse really eh, guess the "embed" code doesn't really embed....
In Florida we always have a dozen or so cases a year so the best precaution is to empty/dry all the puddles you see and any thing that can hold water
I think it's time to drain and get rid of all of Mother Nature's donated water. It's more a water feature than a pond and doesn't hold much water - couple hundred gallons. We'll probably pump it all out and stuff it full of Westminster's finest H2O. There's enough crap in out city water to gag a goat. It's just for looks and to make a little brook noise.. No biggy. Just have to watch for them mosquitoes. john
There are sooooo many mosquitoes over here as well, but thank god they don't spread any diseases. Still annoying when they get in the eyes and mouth while cycling around :/
I use Cutter Backyard Bug Control. The bottle says it kills mosquitoes, ants, and fleas. I used a different product to treat the yard for fleas over 5 years ago, and I have yet to see a single one since then. I use this solely for mosquitoes, and I'm very happy with the performance. The bottle says it lasts 8 weeks. I've found that it lasts about 4 weeks, depending on the amount of water you get. Before I treated the yard, you couldn't stand still without at least a dozen mosquitoes landing on you. After treating the yard, I never see any. It's very easy to use. Simply connect to the hose, turn on the water, and flip the little switch. It only takes a few minutes to treat the yard, and the family gets to enjoy several weeks of mosquito-free outdoors. That generally would be very hard to do here in south Houston. The mosquitoes have been known to carry away children and small animals. Ninja Edit: Most commercial garden centers have tablets you can drop into ponds or bird baths to help with mosquito control. The tablet makes the water toxic to the mosquito larvae, but it should be safe for nature's better creatures. -monkey
In NAM, that kinda problem (and we have malaria, etc up north) gets treated with DDT (no joke... ). Alternatively (also not healthy, but it shouldn't kill you immediately... ) would be buy a big bottle of Chlorine. Whenever the buggers show up, throw some granules in the pools...
now I heared that some natural insect repellents have appeared, but I don't think they can be used for your pond, but only if mosquitoes come out...well,just in case, u have to be prepared
