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It is my understanding that mosquitoes larvae hatch in the smallest quantities of stagnant water.

Assuming that one has a small-sized backyard, would it be a good idea to use, for instance, one or more strategically-placed small buckets of water laced with B.T.I. (the ingredient of the mosquito dunks), or do you think that they would still deposit their eggs in the natural water pools that form after some rain?

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  • Some mosquitoes lay eggs in dry areas where they sense that stagnant water was previously.
    – Polypipe Wrangler
    Apr 29, 2020 at 11:28

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They will still deposit eggs wherever they can find water. If you can attract them to those areas you will get a greater proportion infected with the BTI and help lower numbers in the immediate vicinity. However, the next breeze will blow fresh ones into your area.

You can attract them to areas using CO2 to help concentrate them in that specific area, but it won't stop them laying wherever they can find water - they just aim for the nearest source. There are devices on the market such as the Spartan Mosquito eradicators that work exactly on this principle - they contain a small amount of yeast, salt and sugar to which you add water to initiate fermentation and produce the CO2, then the mosquitoes find the water inside the device and lay in it, but the salt inhibits hatching. These are marketed as single-use but I have found you can reuse them - the proportions of ingredients are on the packet...

You should be able to replicate this effect with a bottle to which you add yeast, water, sugar, placing this near or inside your BTI laced buckets.

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  • I have noticed that they avoid water containing water plants , which I think is strange.I have aquariums and for various reasons I occasionally put buckets containing plants outside, and have one planted aquarium outside . I never see larva in them although I frequently find larva in any other container that has water. Naturally there are never larva in ponds containing fish.
    – blacksmith37
    Apr 30, 2020 at 17:04
  • @blacksmith37 it could be that they are actually hiding in the plants, or that the plants are producing something that inhibits the larvae. Remember in the natural environment mosquitoes are hatching on rivers and lakes etc, all of which contain plants.
    – bob1
    Apr 30, 2020 at 21:36

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