Absolutely. There are several mosquitoes that commonly lay eggs above lakes or ponds. There are others that lay eggs on the ground. The key is that most all do need some amount of water but the amount produced by watering your grass just once a week could be enough.
Mature mosquitoes lay their eggs in slow-moving or standing water. You might already know this, but did you know that they can also lay their eggs on wet soil or leaf litter areas prone to collect water? Congratulations if you did.
Tall grass and bushes are the primary places where mosquitoes hide in your yard. However, there are other hiding spots, too. Keeping a well-maintained yard helps. But there are places where you are likely to find mosquitoes even if you maintain a tidy yard.
Excessive Overgrowth, Brush, Grasses, or Wood Piles
Mosquitoes love to hide and they'll often seek shelter in tall grasses, shrubbery, or even around wood piles. To get rid of mosquitoes, you must think about reducing their hang-out spots.
While you may know that stagnant water is the best place for mosquitoes to breed, you may not be aware of just how little of this water they actually need to do so. Mosquitoes don't need a wheelbarrow full of water or whole pond to reproduce; they can lay their eggs in as little as a bottle cap of water!
Moving water deters mosquito breeding. Remove excess vegetation and algae on the water that provide mosquito larvae with food, shelter from the sun, and hiding places from predators. Smaller ponds may just need to be cleaned with skimmer nets, but large ponds will require a mechanical pond skimmer.
Add a Drop of Oil or Dish Soap
One drop of dish soap or oil in a large bowl of water will kill the mosquitoes within hours. This is because the mosquitoes will drown in the water with the addition of the soap or oil instead of being able to float on the water.
Mosquitoes have an incredibly strong sense of smell, which they use to find accessible food sources. You can repel mosquitoes by using scents they hate, like lavender, peppermint oil, geranium oil, cinnamon bark oil, lemon eucalyptus oil, citronella oil, catnip, rosemary, and pine oil.
The length of the mosquito breeding cycle varies by species, but mosquitoes generally need 10 to 14 days to develop in standing water. Insect control authorities often recommend dumping any standing water at least once a week.
Some mosquitoes like living near people, while others prefer forests, marshes, or tall grasses. All mosquitoes like water because mosquito larvae and pupae live in the water with little or no flow. Different types of water attract different types of mosquitoes.
Why Mosquitoes Are Attracted to Standing Water
The larvae, called wigglers, feed on organic matter in stagnant water and breathe oxygen from the surface. That's why eliminating standing water is one of the simplest and most effective forms of mosquito control.
Pupae develop into adult flying mosquitoes in 2-3 days. Female mosquitoes lay eggs inside containers holding water. Eggs are ready to hatch from a few days to several months after being laid.
Impact on Health
Thankfully, mosquito larvae do not bite humans or animals, and even if consumed by animals drinking the water in which they live, they usually do not cause harm.
Standing water is the number one breeding spot for mosquitoes. Mosquitoes breed by laying eggs in stagnant water. Mosquito larvae live in standing water, the larvae require only minimal amounts of water, and even something as small as a puddle of water on a discarded plastic bag can house them.
More rain means more standing water, which means more mosquitoes. Similar bouts of rain are expected in 2021, which will no doubt lead to similar increases in mosquito populations. These warmer and wetter conditions allow diseases that mosquitoes carry to be spread quicker and easier.
You can control them with coffee grounds, a safe and effective way to keep pests away. Not only do they repel mosquitoes, but also other insects such as wasps and bees. Coffee grounds are the bee's knees when it comes to staying bug bite free.
The easiest and most obvious place to build a nest is buried in the leaves of plants, and that means they can often nest in grasses, in flower beds, in overgrown shrubberies, and more.
When drains and gutters go uncleaned for long periods of time, leaves, twigs and other debris create blockages that trap water. These clumps of debris form the perfect home for mosquitoes because they supply them with protection from the wind as well as a source of collected standing water.