ABOUT BEETLES AND INSECTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 121, 22 April 1938, Page 11

ABOUT BEETLES AND INSECTS

Black lieetles and cockroaches have an extraordinary abhorrence of cucumber peel. If it is placed in the corners of rooms or in cupboards inhabited by them, they will disappear. Flies arid most kinds of insects have a hearty antipathy to pine oil. The smell of it is sufficient to cause them to beat a hasty retreat. A drop or two on a moist rag hanging in the kitchen is an effective tv ay of freeing the room, and less messy than the use of a deadly fly-6pray. Citronella, smeared on the face and hands, is an effective deterrent against mosquito bite. Wasps, wild bees and domestically raised bees are sometimes found to be infesting ripe stone fruit. This is an occasional source of stings in tlie mouth or throat. Wherever possible a doctor should be summoned without delay,, as the swelling in such a place might cause suffocation though the actual sting is not serious. Ants—that bugbear of many country housewives—can be enticed and killed by a mixture of flour, sugar and sodium fluoride. , Ordinary borax mixed with bran and sugar in equal parts is equally good for ridding the home of ants, but this must be kept moist, or the sugar will be consumed and the borax left.