Things you can do to prevent mosquitoes from attacking and breeding

•While not a repellent, mosquitoes are not attracted to GE Bug Lite, which gives a yellowish tinge. It is recommended for use on patios and porches.

•Mosquitoes like to rest and congregate under ground covers. Fog or spray under foliage in your yard every so often to reduce their resting spots.

•Wear loose-fitting clothing, long-sleeve shirts, long pants and light-colored clothing. Mosquitoes are attracted to darker colors.

•Discard any standing water or receptacles holding water at least once a week. The life cycle of a mosquito is seven days. If you change the water you are eliminating production of mosquitos.

Dump flower pot saucers, bird baths and boat tarp or water standing in a boat.

•Tiny, black Asian Tiger mosquitoes can breed in containers as small as a discarded soda bottle cap. They have a short flight range, so they feed on you where they breed. If you have small black mosquitoes, their breeding ground is nearby. Dump the water out.

•Keep vegetation down around pond areas, because mosquitoes breed in the margins, which should be graded steeply.

•Smoke from campfires, including those built from pine straw, from cigarettes and any kind of candle, is just as effective as a citronella candle.

•Tikki torches mask human odors -- such as the carbon dioxide you exhale and the lactic acid you produce in your sweat -- that attract mosquitoes.

•If you must wear both, put repellent on first, then sunscreen on second.

•Do not hang dirty socks outside of a camp site. Mosquitoes are attracted to foot odor. If you hang socks outside of a tent, you will be attracting mosquitoes. They are also attracted to Limburger cheese.

•Use ceiling and floor fans. Mosquitoes are weak fliers and have difficulty navigating through the breeze.

•Use larvecide mosquito dunks, which are nontoxic to humans and helpful to small water sources such as holding ponds. These look like donuts but contain bacterial spores, which kill larvae when they eat the spores.

•Stay inside when mosquitoes are most active, an hour before and after dusk and dawn. Asian tiger mosquitoes are active during the day but will attack at night.

•Mosquitoes tend to be more active when the moon is full.

•Report high mosquito counts to Beaufort County Mosquito Control: 843-846-3913.

Myths about mosquitoes repellents:

•Garlic (eating or spreading on your skin): Using garlic on your skin will provide about 20 minutes of repellent.

•Vitamin B1, Thiamin or anything that claims you can take by mouth and be protected against mosquitoes does not work.

•Clothes dryer sheets contain no chemical to repel mosquitoes or no see 'ums.

•Bug zappers are worthless. They kill more than 350 billion beneficial insects. The zapping you hear are no mosquitoes, but beetles and moths, which are food sources for bats and song birds. While bats do eat mosquitoes, it makes up for about one percent of their diet.

•Ultrasonic or electronic repellers do not work. They claim to mimmic the sound of amale mosquito wings that frighten the female mosquito (the one that bites) away. "Why would females be afraid of the males anyway?" said Joe Conlon, technical advisor for the American Mosquito Control Association. "They have it backward: The males, in many cases, are listening for wing beats of females, in a swarm that they can mate with."

•A Philippines study found that men who drink beer are more attractive to mosquitoes.

Information was provided by Gregg Hunt, Beaufort County Mosquito Control director and a board certified entomologist, and Joe Conlon, of Orange Park, Fla., technical advisor for the American Mosquito Control Association and a retired U.S. Navy medical entomologist.