bee pond a mosquito haven

Have an aquarium? Net the larvae and feed them to your fish. Put a fine-mesh net or screen over the water. Bees can drink, mosquitoes can lay eggs, but mosquitoes that hatch cannot escape and will die eventually. Put a coupla guppies in the trough. They will eat the larvae.

I agree , but I would put some feeder guppies in there,,,,,,,Pete

Movement in the water will prevent mosquito's. If your trough is anywhere near power you can get an aquarium air stone or small pond pump to keep the water moving.

Bt v. Israelensis (mosquito dunks) are safe for bees. More on that here:

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05556.html

Bought two feeder goldfish for 14 cents. Problem solved overnight

It takes flowing water to adversely affect mosquitoes. An air stone will not do the job. I use the mosquito dunks with no problem with the bees using the water. They only work on the small larvae so if you see no results with this batch they were too big, and the dunks will get the next generation. There are few places in Idaho that have temperatures warm enough for guppies.
Dave

I agree with the above. Mosquito dunks are safe for bees. The dunks are only deadly for mosquito larva and some closely related species such as fungus gnats.

I had the same problem this spring, i bought some water hyacinth from a local garden center,it reproduces like crazy and gives the bees a landing/self rescue pad. It keeps the water crystal clear and has a flower the girls seem to like, with the addition of a few feeder goldfish i haven't had any skeeter larva at all. Goldfish can handle the colder weather also

You can actually buy "mosquito fish", which are much hardier than guppies and do a good job eating the mosquitoes.

I second mosquito fish, our county vector control gives them away for free.

oldiron56 said:

I agree , but I would put some feeder guppies in there,,,,,,,Pete

Click to expand...

'second that. (mosquito fish if you can find them, but feeder gups are cheap & readily available)

Yes, Bt is safe for bees.

Toss some pool shock in there every once in a while. The bees will like it better.

Thanks for all the replies I have a BT disk and am going to place it tomorrow.