Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

On the problematic side, the cheap boric acid solution (pun!) will likely be the most used. And this will be bad.

1) Boric acid will kill any insect that ingests it.

2) If you leave rotting fruit out, every nectar lover will drink it. From experience, this will be at least 50% honeybees.

So yeah, it will crash native honeybee populations too. If you are curious and want to see how effective it would be, mix up some bait without the poison. After a few hours, enough for every bug to find it, sit next to it for ten minutes. Count bees vs mosquitoes, you'll probably be disappointed.



Honeybees are much larger than mosquitoes. Could you simply screen the honeybees out?


That's so low tech, it's genius.


According to the EPA "technical boric acid is practically nontoxic to birds, fish and aquatic invertebrates, and relatively nontoxic to beneficial insects." http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/REDs/factsheets/0024fact.pdf


I thought about this as well. I am going to leave boric acid laced juice socks out at night. BTW this has worked as a solution for cockroaches terrifically well at my place for the last 20 years.


What is a 'juice sock'? Is it like a windsock? A size-12 tube sock soaked in Borax?


It's an open container filled with toxic nectar suspended inside a tube sock which is in turn suspended from a hook.

A wick is added so that the contents of the container are pulled up by capillary action and suffuse the sock.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: