Mosquitoes In West Palm Beach

Mosquitoes & Moisture

When a mosquito is moist, its body works like a well-oiled machine. South Florida offers mosquitoes lots of moisture to keep them healthy, active, and reproductive. The more moisture you have around your West Palm Beach home, the more mosquitoes you're likely to have.

Here are a few tips for reducing moisture:

• Create space: When you have space between the plants in your landscaping, the air is able to pass through your vegetation and dry the topsoil. Be sure to plant your vegetation with space between and keep your shrubs, bushes, and ornamentals trimmed.
• Water early: When you water your plants in the early morning, you give the sun time to dry the topsoil faster, and keep the humidity down.
• Remove vegetation: Plants can capture and hold moisture. You can reduce moisture by getting rid of unnecessary plants, plucking up the weeds, and keeping everything trimmed.
• Cleaning gutters: A clogged or broken gutter system can make your perimeter moist. Prevent oversaturation by making sure your gutter system is working the way it should.

Mosquitoes & Sugar

Mosquitoes are plentiful around West Palm Beach homes because vegetation is plentiful. Do you know that mosquitoes eat nectar and plant sap? Yup. Even female mosquitoes (the mosquitoes that draw blood from you) will subsist on nectar and plant sap. The more plants you have in your yard, the more mosquitoes you're likely to have. This is another important reason to remove unnecessary vegetation from around your West Palm Beach home.

It is also important to understand how attractive your landscaping is to mosquitoes. These biting pests are far more interested in hiding in your vegetation than getting into the shade of your shed or garage. One of the reasons seasonal mosquito treatments are so effective is that treatments are applied to landscaping where mosquitoes are sure to be hiding.

Mosquitoes & Standing Water

This is the big one. Marsh and wetlands give mosquitoes the perfect environment to lay eggs and reproduce. They start as eggs, hatch into wigglers, develop into tumblers, and eventually become winged adults that take to the air and bite us. All of this development takes place in stagnant water. If you remove potential breeding sites from your yard, you can significantly reduce the number of mosquitoes in your yard. One female can lay a hundred eggs at a time.

Here are a few examples of mosquito-breeding sites:

• Puddles
• Water captured by a toy in the yard
• Stagnant birdbaths
• Rainwater captured in a clogged gutter
• Pools of water on a tarp

Removing objects that capture water and emptying stagnant water before mosquitoes can develop will work to reduce mosquitoes around your home. Keep in mind that it takes over a week for a mosquito to grow from egg to adult.