Mosquitoes

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I'm waiting for Carobu to answer. He should know everything about skeeters and how to protect yourself from them.
The times I was in Alaska they about ate me alive.
The only thing I ever used that actually worked was 100% DEET.
Deet is very effective, but what did people use 100 + years ago? There must have been some home remedies.
 
@Spikedriver These 3 plants are effective against mosquitoes, ticks, fleas and a host of other insects.

Dog fennel - Eupatorium capillifolium

Beauty Berry - Callicarpa Americana

Black walnut tree leaves

Dog fennel is the easiest for me to find and use.

Somewhere I have a list of more than a dozen plants in the southeast that are effective insect repellents.

Edited to add... @Bacpacker


Here is what dog fennel looks like... grows in every pasture in the southeast, can't kill the stuff.

Its the fuzzy looking plant along the fence lines... It has a very distinctive smell, sort of like Dill.

Dogfennel.jpg
 
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I'm waiting for Caribou to answer. He should know everything about skeeters and how to protect yourself from them.
The times I was in Alaska they about ate me alive.
The only thing I ever used that actually worked was 100% DEET.
Mostly I use deet and my car's windshield but that doesn't answer the OP.
 
If you eat the Seed Spike from a Plantain Plant Bugs won't bother you, eat one every day. One could also make a spray from Yarrow to repel the little buggers, mix it with a little oil to make it stick.
 
@Spikedriver These 3 plants are effective against mosquitoes, ticks, fleas and a host of other insects.

Dog fennel - Eupatorium capillifolium

Beauty Berry - Callicarpa Americana

Black walnut tree leaves

Dog fennel is the easiest for me to find and use.

Somewhere I have a list of more than a dozen plants in the southeast that are effective insect repellents.

Edited to add... @Bacpacker


Here is what dog fennel looks like... grows in every pasture in the southeast, can't kill the stuff.

Its the fuzzy looking plant along the fence lines... It has a very distinctive smell, sort of like Dill.

View attachment 11351


Have to try that Beauty Berry, we have lots of it here. Is it the leaves or the berries? I'll try both I guess. :Thankyou: Peanut.
 
In Alaska my BIL gave me some spray with a little DEET. I quickly figured out that was like a dinner bell to the mosquitoes. They smelled it and knew there was someone with fresh blood. We drove from Anchorage to Seattle and we had to stop every 100 miles or so and tighten up stuff on his crummy old trailer they would swarm us so bad we couldn't stay long. One guy would start driving and the other guy would run about 100 yards down the road then jump in. We then killed mosquitoes in the truck for the next hour.
 
In Alaska my BIL gave me some spray with a little DEET. I quickly figured out that was like a dinner bell to the mosquitoes. They smelled it and knew there was someone with fresh blood. We drove from Anchorage to Seattle and we had to stop every 100 miles or so and tighten up stuff on his crummy old trailer they would swarm us so bad we couldn't stay long. One guy would start driving and the other guy would run about 100 yards down the road then jump in. We then killed mosquitoes in the truck for the next hour.


Guess whos coming to dinner, :ghostly:
 
A used dryer sheet rubbed over your exposed skin and clothes is the best repellent I have found.
 
Mosquitoes can be wicked. I have some Off-Woods spray and some of the spiral bands. I am wondering if anyone has any home remedies that can be concocted and applied when we are all out of commercial repellents?
Vick's Vapo Rub. It repels mosquitoes.
 
If the bugs are Alaska thick, I highly recommend the bug shirt. Works exceptionally well. The OP wanted a home remedy, which this is not. But at least there are no chemicals to spray on yourself.

The Bug Shirt
 
Vick's Vapo Rub. It repels mosquitoes.

LOL When I was a kid all the kids would be slathered in Vicks before we went fishing in the swamp! It works! Not a single mosquito would land on us.

A couple years ago I found out it contains Pyrethrin... actually the plant Tanacetum parthenium...
 
If the bugs are Alaska thick, I highly recommend the bug shirt. Works exceptionally well. The OP wanted a home remedy, which this is not. But at least there are no chemicals to spray on yourself.

The Bug Shirt

Save thing with the Everglades ,you can jump in a pool of Off and they don't care, we were still covdered in them ,runing and brushing them off.🦟:good luck:
 
I found that a flame thrower works best. Use it as you enter an area and then as a mosquito gets close or lands on someone else use it again. No mosquito will survive.
caution; the state of California says that using a flamethrower may cause harm or death to people.
But we are using it on mosquitoes! ;)
 
We use Thermacell gizmos.

See here

We call them "Debuggers" (a play on the name of a program used on old computers before operating systems were invented). They use a small butane cartridge to heat a small pad with repelant in it. It creates a mosquito free zone o about 15 foot radius. The pads last about 8 hours and the butane cartridge last about 24 hours. The Princess and both have one and as long as we are with 15 feet of each other, we can shut one off.

Ben
 

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