How do I love thee? In more ways than I can count! We’re amazed at the different creative ways you’re using the SansBug pop-up screen tents. Apart from bug protection for us humans, we’ve seen them used to provide a safe habitat for monarch butterfly caterpillars and also to house small plants to protect them from bunnies! Contact us to share the different ways you’re using your bug tent… and feel free to send pics!
Seen and read: Lifehacks to make summer camp more comfortable. Here are a couple of pictures from Camp Scouthaven in Freedom, NY which is about an hour from Buffalo. Folks coming back to Scouting after 30 years as Scout Leaders say the popup mosquito nets on cots are a gamechanger as they still have flashbacks of 400+ daddy long legs on top of them!
Mirror mirror on the wall
Who has the tidiest tent of all?
To be fair, one of them seems to have less gear. Nonetheless, an additional advantage of popup mosquito nets is that you can keep the extra gear in it during the daytime leaving your tent organized, neat and tidy!
You can swat a skeeter but since ALL spiders are supposed to be left alone, having your own spider proof tent may just convince a reluctant kid to actually look forward to attending summer camp at Goshen Scout Reservation!
Even a malaria expert needs protection from mosquitoes in Africa. Dr. Amy Bei, a Harvard-trained, Yale professor who speaks a gazillion languages spends her time between Dakar, Senegal and New Haven, CT. When she’s not fighting malaria, she grows and roasts her own coffee in Senegal, knits and weaves, and is working on her pilot license so she can fly bush planes and land on water.
Here’s an email from her regarding her experience with the SansBug mosquito net tent:
After months of testing out the SansBug nets in a variety of different conditions, I can officially give you my personal review – 5 stars! Here are my findings:
Test scenario one: Durability
For this, I put my kids to work! If these tents can stand up to my kids play, they can stand up to anything! We used the SansBug tent outdoors, but it soon became their favorite indoor play area as well. They set it up inside with books and activities and made it like a little fort. They also tested the strength of the material, base, and zippers – success! I was very impressed with the durability of the materials.
Test scenario two: Insects in CT
My kids also tried these outdoors avoiding mosquitoes in CT. They worked great. No complaints.
Test scenario three: Ravenous field mosquitoes in West Africa
I gave one of the tents to our entomology field team and brought the others with my research team on our current field research mission. We are here now, in Kedougou, West Africa. I set up the SansBug tent as a curiosity but very quickly transitioned into sleeping under it every night. Each night, I go to sleep to a literal symphony of buzzing mosquitoes around my head, but I don’t have a single bite thanks to the net! I was curious with the very fine mesh if it would be too hot for sleeping (here the temperatures can get up over 100degF with humidity, but so far with a fan in the room, it has been very comfortable. An additional bonus, the field station where we work has an infestation of bed bugs. I put the SansBug on top of the mattress and the bed bugs haven’t been able to get inside, either through the mesh or through the base. Amazing!
I just wanted to share these thoughts and reviews with you. I will definitely be ordering more for our field research team, as well as for my kids and family members for camping trips and play.
Thank you so much for introducing me to this great and useful product!
Sincerely,
Amy
Amy Kristine Bei, Ph.D. Assistant Professor | Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases
It’s that time of the year when the earth springs into life again… but this year there is expected to be a little more activity. A dozen states from NY to IL and south to GA will see billions of cicadas emerge this month or next after spending 17 years underground. They will mate, lay eggs and die and the nymphs will hatch and burrow underground to repeat the cycle in 2038. Unlike mosquitoes, cicadas are pretty much harmless but their buzzing mating calls are as loud as a lawnmower or a motorcycle! Regardless of the increased traffic, the main culprit to watch out for is still the mosquito. After a relatively mild winter, there are expected to be more mosquitoes this summer and an increase in West Nile virus cases this year. Which is why it makes sense to protect you and your kids with a mosquito net tent – a totally enclosed bug tent with a floor. The open-air platform tents at summer camp are just that – open to all kinds of bugs and mosquito nets draped over PVC frames do little to thwart the pesky skeeters which still manage to sneak in through the gaps between the floorboards.
Seen and read:
The canvas wall tents at Curtis Read Scout Reservation are wide enough so there is ample space between the cots.
But if the wall tents are narrow like at Camp Sequassen or Resica Falls Scout Reservation, simply turn the cots sideways so you’ll optimize the space by aligning the slope of the tent with that of the SansBug screen tent.
Since the SansBug mosquito net tent is freestanding, it beats trying to figure out how to suspend a mosquito net inside a wall tent. There usually aren’t any grommets or tie-offs inside canvas wall tents. Therefore most folks lash PVC pipes to the cot and drape mosquito netting over it. However, it is almost impossible to make sure there are no gaps between the netting and the floor every time you get in and out of bed… especially if it is dark. Also, since most platform tents have gaps between the planks on the floor to prevent water pooling when it rains, there will always be space for mosquitoes to come in. One mosquito can keep you up and make your night miserable. The SansBug screen tent has a sewn-in floor so it is totally enclosed… you’ll sleep like a baby and you’ll be alert and focused to learn new skills the next day!
And, hey, if the weather is nice… just pop up a village of SansBug bug tents like this troop did at Kerr Scout Ranch.
We’re thrilled that the SansBug mesh tent is being used as a giant insect terrarium to house monarch butterfly caterpillars. Much larger than butterfly cages specifically made for the purpose, the smallest SansBug bug tent can house more than a dozen milkweed plants.
Monarch butterflies with their familiar orange and black pattern are known for their annual migration where some of them travel more than 3000 miles! Considering the butterfly weighs only about half a gram, that’s mind blowing!
Monarchs in Eastern North America overwinter in central Mexico while those in Western North America overwinter in the southern California coast. Eastern monarchs fly south along different routes, but merge together in Central Texas and fly along the same route to Mexico. It’s amazing that they overwinter in the same 11 or 12 mountain sites, often the exact same trees, even though they’ve never been there before!
The epic migration south is done by the same super generation which lives up to 8 times longer than their parents and grandparents. The return journey north to US and Canada is done in 3 or 4 generations.
Western monarchs have seen numbers dwindle by more than 99% in the last 30 years. Eastern monarch numbers have gone down by about 80%. The number one reason for their decline is the reduction of milkweed, a wildflower, which is the only food the caterpillars will eat. Milkweed has been decimated because of indiscriminate spraying of herbicides across genetically modified corn and soybean fields and mowing along road sides.
Lately, there has been a growing call to reverse this population decline by encouraging people to plant native milkweed in their yards and cities. And since survival rates are only 5% in the wild because of ants, spiders and other predators, the SansBug bug tent provides a safe rearing tent to increase that to more than 80%! While rearing tents will not reverse the population decline, they are a great tool to learn and observe the amazing metamorphosis from egg to adult.
But seriously speaking, there are hordes of sandflies, horseflies, black flies and mosquitoes in the swamps, dense bush and forest up north, so the SansBug screen tent is not a toy… it’s a lifesaver. Oh, and if you’re taller than 6 feet, get the 2-person which offers 7 feet of usable length.
Even a malaria expert needs protection from mosquitoes in Africa. Dr. Amy Bei, a Harvard-trained, Yale professor who speaks a gazillion languages spends her time between Dakar, Senegal and New Haven, CT. When she’s not fighting malaria, she grows and roasts her own coffee in Senegal, knits and weaves, and is working on her pilot license so she can fly bush planes and land on water.
