Miller Time
June 7th, 2005 - 11:54 pm
We plugged in the back yard bug zapper on Saturday, and already it’s buzzing and shaking like a meth fiend on a really dirty dose. Why all the fuss? Miller moths.
Here on the Front Range, we get jillions of the little guys every spring. My first year here
Havn’t seen any millers here in Denver…YET. Our cats will let is know for sure when they come. To them it is a great game.
I got bit by a miller. the bite site sweeled up pretty good.
Here in California, it’s time to break out the zapper when the first June Bugs arrive.
That first night is a treat. Pop the top off your favorite adult beverage, take a seat, and watch the show. And enjoy the fine pile of ash on the ground the next morning.
So do the zappers actually reduce biting insects by any noticable degree? I mean the zaptastic-entertainment is reason enough to have one, but I’d also like to carve a sphere of safety in this cloud of backyard black-flies.
Miller moths are a big problem at observatories, too. Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico has trouble with them. I was teaching an observing class at McDonald Observatory in W. Texas several years ago, and the students learned a valuable lesson in real-life data acquisition: we couldn’t get light down our instrument, and when we finally opened it up and shone a flashlight down it, there was a moth blocking the entrance window.
Millers are easy. Take a large bowl or cake pan and fill with soapy water. Shine a light on the bowl, a desk lamp works well. In the morning dump the millers and refill the next evening. This is what we do in Kansas when the colorado moths attack.
Orkin.
FYI- Millers come from the wheat fields in Kansas. Their lifes’ mission is to fly to the west coast. Funny thing though- they can’t fly over 12000 feet. Hence, not many make it to Bel-Aire. Most ending up along the front range.
Zap away steve- They will all be gone in a month.
P.S – Get an arasol can and a lighter. Just enough to singe them out of the sky. Cats love millers when they are flopping around on the ground.
I remember the Mark Brothers ( morning show guys on KKFM here in the Springs ) a few years back offering OzFest tickets to anybody who’d come in to the studio and bite the head off a Miller. Not sure if anybody took them up on it.
Steve,
By all means, zap away, but there was a recent story about how zappers spread whatever viruses, bacteria etc. there were on the bug over a 6′ radius. So you might want to place the zapper away from chairs, water sources, food prep surfaces…
Puppies like chasing millers too. I guess they taste like chicken.
Thanks for the massive giggles. (Okay, so it *could* be the hormones…)
I personally like the electronic fly swatter from Harbor Freight – the personal bug zapper with 2-D cells. I see there is a store in C. Springs too.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=40122