Mosquito Control On The Fly

Back in April, I wrote about ways we can bring pollinators to our yards. Now I am turning to mosquito eaters. In these dog days of summer, mosquitoes are the fun spoilers of our backyard parties, hikes in the woods and days on the water. Here in southern Arizona, our monsoons came late so we’ve had a reprieve for a while. But now that we’ve had some serious storms, puddles and water-filled crannies everywhere are turning into mosquito nurseries. Besides using some of ARBICO’s awesome and earth friendly mosquito products, I’d like to suggest you consider luring some voracious skeeter eaters to your yard. Specifically, bats.

By now, I’m hoping, most people know that bats have been falsely and unfairly portrayed in popular culture. They are not fearsome and malevolent creatures that go after people. They are more like Batman, really. They swoop in and come to humanity’s aid. Not by beating up the Joker, but by pollinating plants for us and devouring millions of mosquitoes.

Bat eating a moth

Bats are extraordinary insect hunters. Each one can eat up to 1,200 mosquito-sizes insects every hour. If they are out and about getting their bug grub on for 7 hours, that adds up to over 8,000 insects per bat! Of course, bats do not only eat mosquitoes, they also enjoy moths, beetles, flies, gnats and lots more. In this way, their opportunistic and enthusiastic predation covers insects that target crops as well as people. With their outsized appetites, encouraging insect hunting by bats around your home can significantly reduce the number of bites you and your pets will have to endure. And their droppings (guano) is an exceptional fertilizer for your garden.

The key to luring anything anywhere is to have something it wants. In the case of bats, if you want to lure them to your yard, you’ll want to create a space that bats will want to visit. The most important things for bat visitors are water, insects, plants and shelter. All of these elements are symbiotic and together make a first-rate bat habit, but adding even one or two of them would be helpful and enticing to your bat neighbors.

Water – Being a bat is thirsty work. It is estimated that bats can lose 50% of their body weight in water in a single day due to their non-stop, high-energy hunting style. They rarely even stop to drink, preferring the drive-by dip and sip method (see them in action here). So, you’ll want to provide some water in an area or container without high edges that they can access mid-air and mid-flight. It does not need to be big, a little backyard water feature can do nicely.

Insects – Bats definitely need water, and where these is water there is also insects. For an insectivore, a pond or water feature can become a convenience store with one-stop shopping. It doesn’t make much sense to try to bring in bats to kill mosquitoes and then provide a space for mosquitoes to thrive in. But you also can’t be overly hostile to insects or all of them, beneficial and otherwise, will abandon the area. What to do? First, if you absolutely must treat for mosquitoes, use something that will not harm the bats. Natular DT and Natular G30 WSP are very effective and easy to use and is safe for everything but mosquito larvae. Whether you treat to control mosquitoes or not (but especially if you do), encourage native and beneficial insects to stick around. Insect-eating bats enjoy a diverse diet, so a moth appetizer with its mosquito dinner is appreciated.

Plants – One of the crucial elements in a bat and beneficial-friendly garden are native plants. Native insects love their hometown plants and will congregate around them. Bats in the area will be tuned into this and will be on the lookout for healthy clusters of these plants. So, plant native species first. The other option is to create an oasis of night blooming flowers that will attract nocturnal insects. Datura, Moonflowers, Nicotonia and Night-Blooming Jasmine are all beautiful and deliciously fragrant options. Night-blooming water lilies would give you the water ingredients and the insect attractant in one gorgeous setting. If you don’t have (or want) a pond, here is how you can have water lilies in containers. Or go all out and create a Moon Garden; it will be as enticing to you as it is to night insects.

Bat Houses

Shelter – When you plant native species, you are not just providing a space for native insects to dwell; you are giving native bats a place that feels safe to them. They may rest for a while or make themselves at home for extended periods. If you are interested in giving bats a more secure or permanent home, the only way to go is with a bat house. Individuals and communities around the globe are embracing the potential and installing bat houses. Before you take this awesome step, be sure to read up on how it should be designed, built and positioned in the yard. Bats are particular about where they set up house and will either ignore or abandon a structure that doesn’t measure up. Here is a document from the experts at Bat Conservation International that clearly lays out the criteria for success. You can also get a bat house from us here; be sure to read all the instructions there as well. There is a place in Florida that built one of the largest bat houses in the world in order to help an endangered bat, check out this interesting and inspiring story here.

I encourage you to open your mind (and yard, garden or patio) to bats, but that does not mean that you should be overly friendly with them. Just keep your distance from them. Sit back and watch them hunt while you enjoy your moon garden and water feature; don’t try to interact with them. Remember that bats can carry rabies and other diseases (but not always), so watch wisely. And never pick one up!

On a lighter note, did you know bats have sparkly poop? I didn’t, either, until I read it here.

Submitted by Pam

What’s This Bug? The Asian Tiger Mosquito.

Aedes albopictus

Here at ARBICO we get a lot of people
coming in clutching their phones or carrying in carefully preserved specimens in glass jars or baggies
(not to mention those that send us emails with pictures) and they all ask a variation of the same question: “What’s this bug?’. And we love it. Not only are we generally crazy bug people, we embrace every opportunity to direct a person away from wholesale poisoning in the name of pest control and to guide them to a better, nature-loving choice. Some of what we come across is interesting in a “that’s weird” kind of way and some is interesting in a “oh, that’s what that looks like” way. These interactions can be entertaining as well as informative and I’d like to share some of this with you. So, with this post, I am initiating an on-going series to highlight some of these.


We begin with the Asian Tiger Mosquito (Aedes albopictus). Most people are surprised when they really get a look at these small guys (about 1/4" long) because they are actually quite lovely and way more decorative than one might think a mosquito could be. Their trademark black and silvery white striping may vary somewhat, but this species is easily identified by the white “racing” strip that runs from the front of the head down to its back. If this coloration seems more zebra than tiger, there may be a hint to this name thing in its origin story: In 1894, an entomologist, F.A.A. Skuse, in Sydney received a previously undocumented specimen from Calcutta. He referred to the insect as his “banded mosquito of Bengal” and gave it the albopictus name, which means “painted white”. Somewhere over time, this reference to Bengal became connected to this most famous animal of Bengal, the tiger. The ferocity of this insect probably played a part is the name as well. Besides, “Asian Zebra Mosquito” just doesn’t sound right.

Lucky Bamboo

The part in its name that is accurate, is the “Asian” part, as it is native to Southeast Asia. It has not stayed there, though. It has proven to be extremely successful as an invasive species. In fact, it is one of the Top 100 World’s Worst Invasive Alien Species according to the Global Invasive Species Database and can now be found in a good portion of the world. The reasons for its success lie in the adaptability of this insect. It can thrive in a wide variety of climates from wet to dry in tropical and temperate areas; it feeds on multiple types of hosts (people, domestic and wild animals and birds); it is a container breeder that can breed in small amounts of water (both natural and manmade) and it is active year-round in many areas. It is believed that these pretty little biters first came to the Southeastern U.S. in a shipment of tires in the mid-1980’s. California had managed to stay clear of these invaders until 2001, when they were found in several counties. It was determined that these mosquitoes had been introduced by a shipment of ornamental “Lucky Bamboo” plants from Taiwan.

Aedes aegypti larvae

So, what’s the deal with these? First of all, these tigers are difficult to ignore. The females are aggressive biters and might bite the same person several times; she is persistent about getting that all-important iron and protein needed to produce eggs. In addition, Asian Tiger Mosquitoes work during the day, unlike other species that will feed at dawn and dusk. This day-drinking habit means they can come into contact with greater number of people than other mosquitoes and it also makes them more difficult to control. Most large-scale spraying for mosquito control takes place at night in order reduce the effects on humans and other insects and because atmospheric conditions in daytime make it less effective. By the time these guys go to work in the morning, the sprays broadcast at night will have already dissipated.

This biggest issue with these mosquitoes is that they are reliable vectors for some very serious diseases. These diseases include Chikungunya, Zika, Encephalitis, Dengue, Yellow Fever, West Nile Virus and Heartworms in dogs. Of all the big names of viral diseases carried by mosquitoes, the only one the Asian Tiger does not carry is Malaria; that virus belongs to the Aedes aegypti species. It is important to note that the viruses carried by the Asian Tiger in the U.S. have (to this date) only affected animals; there is no evidence of human disease. So, although your risk may be fairly low, take care to protect your animals from potentially devastating bites as you are outside enjoying yourself this summer. Here are some ideas from my blog.

In late 2017, the EPA approved the use of male Asian Tiger Mosquitoes that have been infected with the Woolbachia bacteria as a biopesticide. These non-biting boys are then let loose to breed with wild females. The bacteria renders their offspring unviable, eventually causing the population to drop. These bacteria-ridden deadbeat dads are being sold under the moniker “ZAP Males”.


These mosquitoes are pretty but they can be a real nuisance to you and a real danger to your animals. The best way to protect yourself is to cover yourself up when outdoors and to deprive them of breeding space, but remember that they can breed in something as small as a bottle cap - even a flower or plant. We offer a comprehensive assortment of mosquito control products to help you and further information here.

If you are interested in what the USDA has to say about the Asian Tiger Mosquito, here is a Public Service Announcement video they put out. You can also keep up to date with these insects and other invasive species on their website here.

Happy bite-dodging this summer!

Protecting Your Pets From Summer’s Flying, Biting Insects

In recent weeks, I have written about how to create an enjoyable outdoor space and how to plant to attract pollinators, now it’s time to take our animal companions into consideration. You can have a beautiful yard and a pollinator-friendly garden, but none of it can be properly enjoyed if mosquitoes and flies are making themselves at home there. And if insects are making you uncomfortable, your pets are also miserable out there.

As we move into summer (some of us already there – it will be 98°F here today), biting insects are coming out. Mosquitoes and flies are annoying pests that go beyond merely being pesky into being hazardous to health and even, in some cases, deadly. Mosquitos are especially dangerous to humans; in fact, they are considered the world’s deadliest animal. You can combine deaths by lions, sharks, snakes, wolves, crocodiles, bears, tigers and humans and not even come close to the number of people killed by mosquitoes. It is not the insect itself that kills, but the diseases that it carries. Many of these mosquito-borne diseases can have calamitous effects on our dogs, horses and other warm-blooded pets.

Flies are especially troublesome to pet owners. They are drawn to the animals manure and bodily fluids. Since our pets don’t have hands to swat them away, the poor creatures suffer greatly from flies. Not only are they on the high end of the annoying spectrum, they also carry a myriad of devastating diseases. All of the many fly species have the capability of transmitting diseases, with some of these affecting humans and other directly aimed at other animals. By some accounts, house flies are credited with transmitting at least 65 diseases to humans.

Now that I’ve provided the gloom and doom, I’d like to offer some effective solutions to the problem bugs of summer. ARBICO Organics offers a carefully curated selection of products that can be used in, around and on your pets and yard to keep mosquitoes and flies away. If you have horses or livestock, we have you covered there as well. Luckily, much of what you can do to keep biting insects away from your animals will work to keep them from the people in the family as well.


Repellents, beneficial insects, traps and insecticides all have their place in keeping your garden pet-pest free, but there are other steps you can take to discourage pest insects from coming over to begin with:

Management, management, management: Since mosquitoes breed in standing water (in as little as a bottle cap, see how that works here) and most of the flies you are troubled by breed in manure, it is important to keep things emptied out and cleaned up. Trash, junk piles, tires, flower pots, gutters, lawn ornaments and toys in the yard– all are able to host a mosquito nursery. Walk around, pick things up or turn them over. Responsible animal owners understand manure management and daily pickup may not be feasible, but it bears noting that the cleaner you keep it, the better.

Clip it, cut it, groom it down: While pollinators like tall grass, shrubbery and other “wild” spaces to gather, unfortunately, so do pest insects. There is no right answer on this; you will simply have to decide which insect is your priority. A possible solution would be to groom the areas where you usually gather and create an unkempt area on the opposite end of your space.

Let's plant catnip, what could happen?

Cool it down: Mosquitoes and flies are disrupted by fan-blown air. Not only does it break up the scent trails they use to get to us, it makes it more difficult for them to fly. If you have a way to hang it, put a fan up over your patio. Or a simply set an oscillating fan where it will hit you. And either option works well in stables or barns.

Plant enemies of mosquitoes: The effort to reduce mosquito numbers can begin as simply as adding plants that repel mosquitoes to your garden. Many of these same plants also repel flies. Repellent plants include Eucalyptus, Marigolds, Basil, Catnip, Lavender, Peppermint, Citronella, Lemon Balm, Rosemary and Pennyroyal. Some of these plants serve a double duty as delicious additions to your table, so planting them is a definite win-win. Scientific studies have shown Catnip to be 10 times as effective as DEET in repelling mosquitoes. Of course, you may have to deal with additional cats in your yard.

Lights out: Many, if not most, insects are drawn to light. But not all light is equal to them. Fluorescent lights are less attractive than incandescent. So, keep lights off near or in kennels, barns or stables. Or light up an area with incandescent light that is far away from you and your animals.

Zebra camouflage:  Recent research has concluded that a zebra’s signature black and white stripes are actually an evolutionary adaptation to keep flies off them. The stripes mess with the fly’s vison and interrupt their ability to land. Apparently, this also works if you put a horse in a black and white coat. You can buy these here, along with fashionable zebra accessories. So, although your horse may feel like a fool in his new suit, he will have fewer flies bothering him.

None of these pest control suggestions will work if you have neighbors who do not have the same commitment to the fight as you do. The best solution to that problem is to befriend (or stay friendly to) them and encourage a dialogue around working together on this. Lend a hand to fix the problem; not only can you feel good about that, your own problem will be reduced. And that is all just good karma.

Submitted by Pam