bodies

[JH]

>No. All I can say is I have seen bug zappers in more than one vegetable
>garden in Austin. I have not talked with the gardeners and I have no idea
>how well they work. Someone must think it effective to run a bug zapper in
>a vegetable garden for several years.

If they are using bug zappers to kill moth pests, I'll bet they do work.  

The fact that so many people still use them to rid their yard of mosquitoes would suggest that the people using them are seeing some evidence of their usefulness.  For one, they hear the "ZAP" - music to the ears of the suburban mosquito warrior.  Because the unit they bought is called a mosquito zapper, that's what they assume is getting fried.  

Secondly, they also see deep piles of what they believe to be their quarry at the bottom of the unit the next morning.  The truth, however, is most people can't tell the difference between a midge of the Chironomidae family and a mosquito, which can look very similar.  The midges do go to lights - in great numbers!  I discovered this over 20 years ago, when I was duped into using one of these ridiculous things.  I remember seeing with great pride and satisfaction the pile of hundreds of dead "mosquitoes" at the bottom of the tray.  I thought this must be making a difference in the population - that's hundreds less who will be laying thousands less eggs - and that's just one night.  Then I looked more closely, saw the very feathered antennae and lack of a probosci.  Couldn't find a single mosquito among them.

Fortunately, some people do discover they don't work, which makes them easy to find, pretty cheaply, at yard sales.  As I mentioned in the previous posting, once the electrifying grid is disabled, they make great moth lights!

John Himmelman
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John Himmelman
Killingworth, CT USA
jhimmel at connix.com
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-----Original Message-----
From: Chris J. Durden <drdn at mail.utexas.edu>
To: leps-l at lists.yale.edu <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>
Date: Tuesday, November 07, 2000 9:13 PM
Subject: Re: bodies

>  As for both Ortho and bug zappers - I think they are an abomination. I
>raise *Urbanus proteus* on my haricots verts, so I try to run a clean
>garden with plenty of roaches in the compost pile and *Asterocampa* on the
>rotting plantains in the old martin house. Other things I have in abundance
>from eyed elaters to *Mantispa* and *Mantispila* and even strepsipterans
>and *Bipalium kewense* under logs.
>........Chris
>
>At 03:36  7/11/00 +0000, you wrote:
>>I wrote:
>>
>>> >If bug zappers could truly kill significant numbers of moths, how come
>>> >no one uses them in the home fruit and vegetable garden to control
>>> >common moth pests?
>>
>>Chris J. Durden wrote:
>> 
>>> They do here in Texas!
>>
>>Chris, are you saying bug zappers really do work to control vegetable 
>>garden infesting moths in Texas? If so, does that mean less Ortho type 
>>chemical pesticide sprays are needed?  Which method (bug zapper vs. Ortho)
>>do you feel is the lesser of two evils?
>>
>>Paul Cherubini
>>
>> 
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