Fun with HI and mosquitos

tinfoil hat timmy

tinfoil hat timmy

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No mosquitos in the picture, but this time of year in Minnesota is notorious for the buggers. Especially when it's as nice out as it was today.

This is an 18" OAL WWII

That log was seriously harmed during the making of this photo.
 
Awesome pic! I only saw a few mosquitoes today, but those little (almost to small to see) black bugs have sure been biting here in southern MN the last few days
 
I have a basement full of big black flies that appeared suddenly yesterday. I swatted about a dozen, but they are fast and alert, and have a knack for landing on breakable objects or out of reach. Today I tried a spray can of stuff that's supposed to kill flying insects and is safe for humans. The flies laugh at this stuff unless I score a direct hit. Then the fly falls to the floor and if it is an accessible location (about half the time) I can step on it. That seems to work.

Since the flies appeared all at once I suspect that they hatched out together on some rotting corpse, probably a dead rat, but I haven't been able to locate the source by sight or smell. I've killed 25 or 30 so far, but I understand that one female can lay up to 150 eggs.

Does anybody know of a good remedy? Maybe a big bowl of poisoned sugar water?

I know all the jokes, like hand them to me one at a time and I'll hit them with a hammer. I'm hoping for a real solution before I have to start spraying the basement with the really nasty insecticides, and before the flies figure out how to use the stairs and come up to the main floor.
 
davidf99 said:
I have a basement full of big black flies that appeared suddenly yesterday. I swatted about a dozen, but they are fast and alert, and have a knack for landing on breakable objects or out of reach. Today I tried a spray can of stuff that's supposed to kill flying insects and is safe for humans. The flies laugh at this stuff unless I score a direct hit. Then the fly falls to the floor and if it is an accessible location (about half the time) I can step on it. That seems to work.

Since the flies appeared all at once I suspect that they hatched out together on some rotting corpse, probably a dead rat, but I haven't been able to locate the source by sight or smell. I've killed 25 or 30 so far, but I understand that one female can lay up to 150 eggs.

Does anybody know of a good remedy? Maybe a big bowl of poisoned sugar water?

I know all the jokes, like hand them to me one at a time and I'll hit them with a hammer. I'm hoping for a real solution before I have to start spraying the basement with the really nasty insecticides, and before the flies figure out how to use the stairs and come up to the main floor.
Click to expand...

OK...You ready for this one? No joke. I discovered this after my house burned down and we were camping on our land. We hung a clothes line and in the evening they would get sedated and all land on the clothes line by the hundreds. Kinda like birds on a wire. Dont ask me why cause I cant tell ya nothin. What you do is get your favorite propane torch and use thumbtacks to string a line across your kitchen pass thru window or something of the like. Let them all land and get comfortable on the line. Test the torch a few times to make sure it will ignite when you need it. OK all good. Start at one end of the line and torch them all the way down the line and you can get hundreds of them at one time:D It burns their wings off so you get the pleasure of stomping them to death. You could Khukri them to death too I suppose? Forget the water bags and chemical warfare and smoke and stuff. This works. I even rubbed a bit of sugar water on the lines so they could at least die happy. I doubt you will read this on the internet or anywhere else because mother is the necessity of invention when it comes to weapons of mass drosophilia destruction! If you get up early enough in the morning you can do another round! Once the sun comes up they get active again and your on your own. Then you got to get them one at a time. Like Trump says "Bulieeeeeeve me!" 'cept I aint lying!
Oh and for individual assault the propane torch works better than anything. All you need is hit the button with a quick flash. It has to be one with the self igniter cause you will never be fast enuff to light the torch and chase them away otherwise. I just killed about fifty of them tonite because it was such a nice day. I had the house open while bar-b quing and they decided to invite themselves to dinner. Be real careful if they land on your drapes or an a towel or something. Dont flash them if they land on your gas can either!
 
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Believe it or not, I don't have a propane torch. I could get one, but there's no place in my basement area where I could light a propane torch without risking a fire. Getting up early in the morning is also a no-no. Other than that, your method sounds good.

I have to amend my first posting in one respect: A couple of the flies have already figured out how to use the stairs and get to my main floor. I got one of them with the spray + stomping method.

I set out a bowl of sugar water laced with vinegar this evening. I'm hoping that the sugar water will attract the flies and the vinegar will kill them. So far, after a few hours, not a single fly has shown any interest in the sugar water.

Meanwhile I have ordered an electric fly zapper that I think will do the trick, but it'll take a few days to arrive.
 
Use borax instead of vinegar. I had ants something terrible. used this, and no more ants
 
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Also heard bait inside milk jug or wine bottle, supposedly keeps them inside for easy disposal.
 
I think I've solved one of life's mysteries. You know the ships in a bottle, big ole sailing ships all intricate.

I bet they is built by fly ship builders. Wonder how they teach em to do that.
 
I personally enjoy hunting flies and mosquitos with an electrified fly swatter. I discovered the joys of the hunt while I lived in Brasil. It's not the most efficient method, but it is fun.
 
i used to use a quad 40mm AA gun (aka pom-pom) against the skeeters in alabama. not quite as big as the ones in texas, but as you can see, still fair to middlin' in size.

another trick: the females only mate once, they're the ones that bite. so an effective treatment is to lasso a horde of males, de-ball them, and let them go. they still mate with the females, but shoot blanks. soon no more skeeters.

a fair sized alabama skeeter:
skeeter.jpg

the screaming lady sadly, was carried off never to be seen again.
 
I'm not sure if you're joking or serious. It seems plausible, but I don't know if they ever made a quad-mounted Bofors. ;) But seriously, is castrating male mosquitos a thing? And yes, I know quad-mounted Bofors are real.
 
Scara said:
I personally enjoy hunting flies and mosquitos with an electrified fly swatter. I discovered the joys of the hunt while I lived in Brasil. It's not the most efficient method, but it is fun.
Click to expand...

I have ordered a stationary electric fly zapper. I saw lots of the swatter types online, the ones that look like tennis rackets. However, the flies that I have in my basement are very fast. They can zoom from one end of the room to another faster than I can turn my head, and they don't go in a straight line. Also, the rooms downstairs are all crowded with stuff, so I would do more damage swinging an electric swatter than the flies could ever do.

There were a lot fewer flies today than yesterday. I killed six and saw maybe another six today. It's hard to keep track, since they all look alike and they don't have individual names as far as I know. I suppose they can tell each other apart. Some of them might have found their way out of the house, or maybe I killed most of them. I'm almost hoping that a few are left by the time the electric zapper arrives, so I can test it. However, I won't be sorry if they are all gone by then.
 
you get someone to hold their wings, sneak up behind and - whack! use a sharp M43 khukuri, doesn't take long. fried, they taste just like chikken.

photo.JPG
 
No wonder so many deaf folks in the mature generation. All that boom boom and no ear plugs.

Quite a probiscious on that Bama Skeeter. Some day I need to learn how to spell probiscious.
 
Great pix and post, thank you
 
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