Consistent moisture through the summer is making for some heavy insect populations—and none is more prevalent than the mosquito. K-State Research and Extension news reporter Randall Kowalik has some tips for reducing mosquitoes around your home.

(Randall Kowalik)
At best, they’re a nuisance; at worst, they’re carriers of potentially-lethal diseases like West Nile Virus. Mosquitoes are impossible to avoid during the summer, but you can take steps to reduce their numbers around your home. K-State Research and Extension entomologist Ludek Zurek says your #1 target should be standing water:

(Ludek Zurek)
Mosquitoes, as a larvae, develop in standing water--and that goes for all species of mosquitoes. So the best way to actually prevent large populations of mosquitoes is to control them when they are in the larva stage in standing water. So you can basically control them as a larvae, just by simply dumping standing water from containers that collect rainwater, once a week. The minimum time for development of mosquitoes is seven days--so if those containers can be dumped once a week, that's good enough to prevent the mosquito development.

(Randall Kowalik)
For keeping mosquitoes off your skin, Zurek says there’s really only one tried-&-true ingredient:

(Ludek Zurek)
The "gold standard" for repellent against mosquitoes--and chiggers and ticks--is DEET, D-E-E-T… So, the gold standard for using a repellent is about 30 percent DEET--that's going to give protection for about five to six hours, against mosquitoes.

(Randall Kowalik)
Insect repellents come in a wide variety of formulations geared towards the conditions in which they’ll be used. Before re-applying any repellent, read the label carefully. For K-State Research and Extension, I'm Randall Kowalik.