On Jun 5, 11:10 am, dean wrote:
On Jun 4, 8:21 pm, dpb wrote:



On Jun 4, 4:49 pm, mm wrote:

On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 22:35:32 -0700, dpb wrote:
On Jun 4, 12:15 am, dean wrote:
On Jun 4, 1:12 am, "Noozer" wrote:

"dean" wrote in message

roups.com...

I just put in a couple of pale-yellow plastic encased CF bulbs (bug
lights, supposedly) outside on my deck, and there are piles of bugs
flying all around them. Not as bad as a daylight bulb, but still,
they're crap. Are there any that really work?

Uhm... bug lights are supposed to ATTRACT bugs. You put them out away from
where you want to be. At least that's how all the ones I've seen work.

That's a bug zapper. A bug light is a yellow light of some kind that
insects can't see (supposedly, they can only see UV and blue, which is
filtered out).

That's theory, as you've discovered, it isn't all that effective of
one...

I'm unaware of any that emit any usable visible light that don't also
attract at least some -- as in enough as to not be of much value as
compared to an ordinary incadescent bulb. I suspect the only thing
that would be effective would be so far to one end of the spectrum or
the other that it wouldn't produce enough light that humans could see
in it either. After all, the insects fly around during the daylight
hours in the same light we wander around in -- would be somewhat
surprising if what light sensitivity they have weren't in similar
response frequencies...

It wouldn't be surprising. In fact all of us** assumed it was the
case until we heard about bug lights. But it wouldn't be necessary
either.

**Didn't we? Once we found out other animals had eyes, didn't we
assume they were just like our eyes? Dogs have ears but they can hear
dog whistles.

The point was that the yellow bug light isn't very effective if the
plan is to have a light that doesn't attract bugs so something is
attracting them -- maybe they hear the filament, I don't know. What I
was driving at was that by the time one shifted the spectrum to
whatever is the most effective if it isn't something in our range the
light might be effective at not attracting them, but it won't help you
see, very effectively it at all, either...

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To be fair, I did read in multiple school books that bees can't see
anything but blue and UV. But then they are not mosquitos, and it was
only a school book.

I recall that too, now that reminded..I don't know where they found
the bee that had learned names for colors and could either write them
down for us or tell us, but...

I was thinking the question had more to do w/ the nuisance moths and
that sort of thing than 'skeeters which aren't that light-attracted
anyway, from what I've read. They're mostly scent-/temperature-driven
iiuc.

My ploy is to keep a couple of the UV bug-zappers running 24/7, one
fairly close to the front porch to draw as much away as possible.
These make a very noticeable reduction in the nuisance bugs but aren't
particularly helpful for mosquitos, either. I spray the barns/lots
regularly for flies anyway, so when have load of malathion ready, will
do the grass in the yard then if they're being a problem. That pretty
much knocks 'em down for quite a while. For the entrance light we
have a 2nd-story-mounted flood so it's far enough away that what it
attracts isn't a direct nuisance and that provides enough light to
find one's way from the garage to the door and so rarely try to use
the direct porch light at the front door during warm weather.

Don't know if any of those ideas/remedies are of any use or not, but
consider the cost...

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