One-Minute Mosquito Prevention

By Erin Cassidy, AccuWeather staff writer

May 27, 2013, 4:46:17 AM EDT

With the first warm sunny days of spring comes the buzzing of mosquitoes. As you are preparing the backyard for your next barbeque, make sure these pesky bugs don’t stop by for a bite. Mosquitoes rely on stagnant pools of water for breeding grounds. These pools can form in things like abandoned bird baths, buckets, dog bowls or something less noticeable like the inside of a tire or the fold of a ground tarp. If you think about the size of a mosquito, it doesn’t take much to provide a suitable pool; even an upturned bottle cap can provide enough water! Regularly agitated water sources such as fountains or streams are not usable by mosquitoes and are therefore fine to keep.

Viewer Tip: These quick and easy steps will help you keep mosquitoes at bay.

- Leave buckets, planting pots or any other type of vessel stored outside in a position that drains easily or won’t collect water. - Keep rain gutters clear and unclogged to avoid water backup. - If you have a small pond on your property that doesn’t cycle water from a stream or receive regular mixing from wind, consider introducing fish such as goldfish or mosquito fish to help prevent hatching. - After rain, empty or wipe off puddles of rainwater that have collected anywhere around your yard.

(Source: U.S. EPA. Mosquito Management: How to Avoid Mosquitoes in Your Backyard.)

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