lemon balm as mosquito repellent

I was recently reminded of this after my accidental discovery of the mosquito repellent properties of neem oil (see the neem oil for fleas thread).

My feet were eaten alive around a workshop campfire one weekend. Two weekends later, I was at another campfire late in the evening. I was so tired of itchy toes, so this time I brought some fresh cuttings of lemon balm and rubbed them all over my legs, ankles and feet. No new mosquito bites! 

Lemon balm smells like citronella and works far better than any of those silly chemical sprays. And it doesn't leave green on your skin (people have asked me this).

will have to try this, mozzie's here the size of jumbo jets also midgies

Tea tree oil works well for repelling misquitos also

I wonder if you could make a tea from it and spray it on your body or if that loses too many essential oils?

This is a cool video about an easy fan solution - one electric, one solar-powered - to massive quantities of mosquitoes in Florida.

Have fan, screening, and magnets will be building one of these. Thanks for posting this.

BTW I have just heard wax myrtle rubbed on you works to repel them and I have several in the yard. I will be trying that and report later as this year around here has been bad with them.

Oh and another thing after watching the whole video this might be a good protien source for your chickens or to raise chicks on depending on how many you have of both birds and sketers.

Peter K. wrote:
Oh and another thing after watching the whole video this might be a good protien source for your chickens or to raise chicks on depending on how many you have of both birds and sketers.

That's what I was wondering! He sprays them with diluted rubbing alcohol to kill them, with the idea that it evaporates and then it's fine to just leave them outdoors and let other bugs and critters eat them.

I'm wondering if plain water would keep them from flying, then you could dump them, live but flightless, near your chickens. Some might fly away before the chickens get them, but you'd be training your chickens to go after them (if they don't already) at the same time!

I have a recipe someplace for a lemon balm mosquito repellant.  I think I just make a tincture and try that.  We hardly had any mosquitos in the past, but this rainy spring, the pond overflowed and with it went all the pollywogs. 

I recently read that lemon eucalyptus works very well, celery seed oil is supposedly as effective as DEET too.

decanted my lemon balm tincure and put it in an empty palmolive bottle. Easy to get some out and rub on.  I take the goats to some rough brushy place where they would not go by themselves.  Mosquitos live there. I did not put the stuff in my face much and I had one mosquito on my eyebrow.  Don't know if the balm stuff worked or if there were not more.

Any reports back on how things worked - or didn't?

Not sure if this was mentioned elsewhere, but I just thought of it when mosquitoes came up in meaningless drivel. I heard that some people recommend eating a lot of pickles, or vinegar-type foods for being less appetizing to the mosquitoes. And, people feed lots of garlic to their dogs and cats to ward off fleas, so I wonder what other foods might help.

Any thoughts on mixing the lemon balm with peppermint oil?