Bats May Help Protect Against West Nile Virus

I read the Jeff Rense news page at rense.com every day without fail. I ignore the articles about UFO's and some of the other weird stuff there, but mixed with them are often very good articles. For instance, I never knew that a single bat can eat 3,000 mosquitoes a night. That brings me to the point about getting a bat box for your own house or garden.

West Nile - Single Bat Can Eat 3,000 Mosquitoes A Night

Bats May Help Protect Against West Nile

'A bat box?' they ask - with a dubious look on their faces. Is Johnny trying to pull our leg again? I wish I had dreamed up this scheme, but it is true: check this out:

BAT BOX TIPS

Boxes should be 3.6 metres to six metres off the ground, ideally on a post or side of a building.

Bats prefer warm temperatures, so it's crucial to mount the box where it gets some sun.

Great stuff, isn't it? But it is not King Honey Bee's imagination - this time. Exactly what a bat box should be made of is not stated, but I would imagine some type of wood which can withstand the weather - sort of like a wooden box hung upside down so the bat can fly up into it. I should also imagine there would have to be a wooden dowel or a twig for the bat to hang onto.

At this point I was really getting into the idea of a bat box and decided to try an Internet search on 'bat box.' I was surprised at the amount of items the search brought up. Look, I am only a King Honey Bee and never claimed to know everything, but I am delighted to know that others have been concerned enough to think about bats - from a conservation point, we are rapidly killing off our wildlife.

When summer arrives - along with hordes of mosquitoes and the possible threat of the West Nile virus - many areas will be spraying insecticides in an effort to combat the problem. When will we ever learn a very simple and basic fact - if it kills a bug or a weed - it will certainly kill us!!! Such use of insecticides is a threat to bats and birds and other wildlife, and in some cases, ourselves, in the immediate term versus long term, like in infants, young children and those ill or infirm. I will spare you further lectures, for I am as guilty as the rest of you in many areas - we all must try harder and become more aware - AND LESS DEPENDENT OF USE OF CHEMICALS AND WACKY GOVERNMENT MISJUDGEMENT. Mother Nature don't take bribes or kick backs, She can't be bought by crooked politicians, nor swayed by the largest corporations, or threatened by the president of the USA and his piddly bombs, missiles and other weapons of mass destruction - piss Her off and we are all going to suffer Her wrath. We are not doing a very good job at living with the rest of the creatures in the world - nor with ourselves, come to think of it.

Queenie Bee Beate told me to calm down - and I have. So I did an Internet search and found ready-made bat boxes that can be ordered and plans to make your own bat box. This is what a ready-made bat box looks like:

The bat house above and the butterfly house below can be ordered from this linkBatboxes and Butterfly Houses.

I am trying to figure out a sure fire scheme of attracting bats or butterflies to their respective boxes. If they are not used by bats or butterflies, you can bet the squirrels will find a use for storage.

Here are some of the links I found for bat houses:

The Buzbee Bat House Temperature Plot!

Did you know ... that one small brown bat can eat up to 1,200 mosquitoes in a single hour claims BatNest.com:

Bat Houses at BatNest.com

Make Your Own Bat Box

North American Bat House Research Project: Economy Bat House Plans

How to Build a Bat House

If you are not into bats, perhaps you could try Citronella or Lemon Grass plants. I think they are two different but similar plants - described as 'ornamental grass' that grows in clumps with a nice lemon scent that mosquitoes seem to dislike. I know about this one - a friend of ours has several clumps of Citronella plants growing in her back garden - and in the summer we play euchre a lot on the patio - and guess what - we never get bothered by mosquitoes.

There are other natural ways of dealing with mosquitoes and other pests - be they insects or weeds. In the long run it is better to deal with them in a natural way; as I reminded you above, if it kills a bug or a weed - it will certainly kill us!!! Bugs and weeds seem to recover from anything we can spray or spread over them - WE CAN'T. All this stuff we spray around mounts up in our system and we really ought to stop paying large chemical corporations a fortune to slowly kill us off.

May your bats be nice and flappy, your butterflies colorful and your scents sweet.