LED Lighting attracting fewer bugs?

[Daffy D]

Over the months as lamps need replacing have been upgrading to the new LED lamps and tubes round the house.

 

Have noticed that fewer bugs seem to buzz round the new LED's than the old regular fluorescent and low energy lamps. Especially this evening when we had one of those flying ant invasions and the regular fluorescent tube was covered with  bugs as is normal on these occasions yet a LED tube had hardly any round it.

 

If it is the case that LED's is less attractive to bugs, maybe by the time the whole house is converted to LED lights there should be no bugs indoors at all.

 

That would be nice, save a fortune on bug spray over the years   

[naboo]

What do the bugs know that we don't?

[kannot]

got led security lights replaced  halogen.....no difference in bugs

[Crossy]

LEDs have a different spectrum to incandescent of fluorescent lighting, almost no UV. Theoretically they should attract fewer of the night-flying beasties, I've certainly noticed fewer dead bugs in our LED fixtures compared to the fluorescent tubed ones of the same design.

 

They still attract enough to keep the geckos busy mind.

[Rimmer]

Most interesting, I am also replacing the older lamps with LED we shall see what happens when the flying ants come visiting after the rain

[chiang mai]

I have several outside LED lights and have mixed results with them attracting bugs, the fish fly like swarms are definitely attracted to them, other bugs far less so.

[dotpoom]

4 hours ago, kannot said:

got led security lights replaced  halogen.....no difference in bugs

Same here.

[sandrabbit]

6 hours ago, Crossy said:

LEDs have a different spectrum to incandescent of fluorescent lighting, almost no UV. Theoretically they should attract fewer of the night-flying beasties, I've certainly noticed fewer dead bugs in our LED fixtures compared to the fluorescent tubed ones of the same design.

 

They still attract enough to keep the geckos busy mind.

Agreed, it seems that insects see the blue end of the spectrum and if you see some wild life films where they shift the uv into the visible spectrum some plants have what look like landing lights guiding bees & butterflies into the flower.

 

The big diy stores are selling yellow low energy saving lamps which don't attract insects, the advertising on the packet says it repels them but I think it because they can't see that colour light. I was staying in a work camp in Western Australia and the bar area seating had yellow lights and almost no insects and just outside the floodlights were covered in insects.

[laislica]

12 hours ago, naboo said:

What do the bugs know that we don't?

 

 

There is research that shows that the spectrum or Florescent lights is harmful to human health.

Google it.

Did you know that Apple added a night view feature to change the spectrum so that you should sleep more easily than if you were looking at the regular, (bluish) light?

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2017 by laislica

[sandrabbit]

5 minutes ago, laislica said:

 

 

There is research that shows that the spectrum or Florescent lights is harmful to human health.

Google it.

Did you know that Apple added a night view feature to change the spectrum so that you should sleep more easily than if you were looking at the regular, (bluish) light?

 

 

 

I remember seeing a union bulletin in the UK in the 80's which suggested statistically that one person a year died from contracting cancer due to fluorescent lighting. I also find they cause eyestrain when there's a ceiling full of them like in the supermarkets.

[Daffy D]

7 hours ago, kannot said:

got led security lights replaced  halogen.....no difference in bugs

Maybe the term should be preference. If there are only LED's then the bugs don't have a choice they have to go to the only light source available.  

 

Round here there is a mixture of lamps and the bugs do seem to prefer the older ones, but as Crossy says the LED's still attract enough bugs to keep the geckos busy.

 

Used to be that yellow lamps were used to "not attract" bugs, that kinda worked sometimes. Maybe a combination of yellow LED will do a better job. 

[Deepinthailand]

We have yellow light on the outside lights. One white low energy jobs in the field about 50 or so meters from house. Works a treat lots of beasties around white light one or two around house.

[rickudon]

Red LEDs even better at deterring insects. Might get more sexpats though ........

[sugarcane24]

13 hours ago, naboo said:

What do the bugs know that we don't?

That LED lights are damaging to eyesight? This could mean that bugs are smarter than humans.

http://www.livescience.com/31949-led-lights-eye-damage.html

[johng]

Dont worry just use the tinfoil hat more often.

[RigPig]

We have started changing all the lighting on oil rigs to LED because of the longevity and the bug factor.  There are different colours of LED's though as there are with flourecent lights, I suspect there is some colours less atracitive to bugs than others.  There is also less heat from LED;s

[superal]

led works in my restaurant and is a 90% cure ( still get a few bugs ) over   fluorescent lights which I  have to the outside wall  10 in total that attract the bugs to them and keep away from the eaterie . Having said that , in the rainy season after a spell of heavy rain the firefly emerges in their thousands and go for any light and we have to dine in almost darkness for an hour or two . Tried the yellow coiled light but  customers do not like them .  The one thing that I have not seen in Thailand is the electric blue light zapper used in the UK in commercial kitchens that devours all insects that come into contact with it . 

[Crossy]

Your restaurant equipment supplier should have the industrial strength bug-zappers, for smaller ones Makro, Tesco, HomePro and the like should be your first port of call.

[kannot]

On 2/13/2017 at 0:55 AM, RigPig said:

We have started changing all the lighting on oil rigs to LED because of the longevity and the bug factor.  There are different colours of LED's though as there are with flourecent lights, I suspect there is some colours less atracitive to bugs than others.  There is also less heat from LED;s

The energy consumed by a 100-watt GLSincandescent bulb produces around 12% heat, 83% IR and only 5% visible light. In contrast, a typical LEDmight produce15% visible light and 85% heat. Especially with high-power LEDs, it is essential to remove this heat through efficient thermal management.

they  have  huge  heat  sinks on  them