 | Do Bug Zappers Work? Q. I believed I read somewhere that bug zappers don’t actually work. My neighbor’s zapper is driving me crazy with that ZZZZT noise all evening. I’d like to point out him proof that each one he’s doing is annoying his neighbor. A. Yes, there is some scientific knowledge on the usefulness of bug zappers, however first we'd like to tell apart between the bug zappers that homeowners use in their yards to (hopefully) kill mosquitoes, and the industrial insect light traps that pest management professionals use mostly in eating places, meals plants, and warehouses. These expensive business traps are used primarily to kill home flies they usually do work. The relatively cheap backyard bug zappers kill plenty of flying insects, just not mosquitoes. Bug zappers use ultraviolet gentle to attract mosquitoes to a metal grid the place they're electrocuted or "zapped." People who personal these traps swear by them. They level to the piles of dead insects that they empty out of the entice every morning. And people insects do appear to be mosquitoes. But principally they are midges, harmless fliers that don't bite and are thought of helpful. Bug zappers truly attract and kill very few mosquitoes. Instead, the ultraviolet gentle draws hordes of insects into the yard that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. Yard zappers have never fared very properly in research assessments. One examine discovered that 89% of the zapped insects had been midges; solely 3% have been feminine mosquitoes able to biting. The remainder were aquatic insects, predators, and insect parasites. In another examine, after eleven days of continuous operation, the zappers failed to scale back the mosquito biting price in the test yards. |
