All out war on Mosquitoes ( Archived) (2)

I realize it's a losing battle but I wage it anyway. I like to think I'm smarter than something with a microscopic brain, if they even have a brain which I doubt. They are instinct driven, but they are capable of learning as I have recently found out. What have they learned which makes them more successful at stinging me? They learned that if I can see them, I will kill them. Their counter to this is to target areas like my elbows, forehead, neck, back of my arms etc. IOW areas that I can't see. They've also learned to avoid my ears cause I can hear them.

I can learn too and I learned that I can kill way more of them by focusing not on an adult trying to sting me, but on their larvae wiggling around in the water or even more effectively by harvesting their egg "rafts". A typical egg raft looks like a black seed about 7mm or 5/16" long which floats on the surface of water and contains 100 to 150 eggs so by destroying an egg raft it's like swatting about 75 mosquitoes trying to suck your blood. Remember only the female stings and I'm assuming half the offspring will be non stinging males, hence the number 75. I augment my efforts by providing them with a 5 gallon bucket of rather smelly stagnant water in which to lay their eggs and eliminate any and all other sources of standing water. Since I started sequestering egg rafts it may be my imagination, but I feel there are fewer Mosquitoes around than before. 3 days ago I collected 8 egg rafts out of my water bucket, that averages out to 1,000 Mosquitoes. The average person doesn't swat 1,000 Mosquitoes in their entire life!
This effort is actually a lot of fun and it feels good to be doing something positive which may make life outdoors quite a bit more enjoyable than having to itch for hours.