In my experience... kind of. Light isn't the only thing they're attracted to so you'd have to optimize distance and cover different variables for different bugs.
One fun thing you can do is relocate small swarms of bugs with a torch to another light source. So if you're being pestered, turn on a torch... and slowly walk the bugs to a different light source (a distant lamp for example). Then turn off the torch and walk back to where you were. The light will keep them there.
Would or could that be automated? We are hounded from late spring to the fall by all kinds of flying nasties at our front porch. Some led string that moved them all away would be awesome!
would be interesting to try, it's easy to walk over because you can watch the swarm but if you've got a slow moving light on a string I could imagine it working
I’m not sure if there’s interesting optimization to do. Simply: bugs are attracted to light, light=more bugs, no light=fewer bugs. Motion detectors, for example, can make it so that the light is only temporary and you don’t get those moth parties.
The effect is the same (for the purposes of an outdoor dining area), and I believe that's what they were referring to. Perhaps a better way to word it would be: bugs will go towards a local light.
Still seems a bit tricky unless you have a ton of land?
>Only one experiment that we know of has tracked moth trajectories to lights over long distances, and found only 2 of 50 individuals released 85 m from a light source ended their flight their flight there
I realize this is a small sample, but seems to suggest that if you placed a lamp in a field that 4% of all bugs within a ~football field in every direction would end up near it. I feel like that may mean placing a lamp 10 feet from where you are going to eat (or whatever) may actually attract more insects to that general area.
But I'm having trouble understanding some of their methods
In Europe most insect ecosystems are collapsing, in both rural and urban areas. The first likely due to agriculture chemicals, the second possibly due to other reasons.
Like for example an outdoor dining terrace?