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Can't seeums

D

DPittman

Member
The black flies or can't seeums are apparently the scourge of everyone's outdoor activities this year
including central Illinois. We got em, but they haven't driven me inside yet although if they get much
worse, they will. My question: anyone got a homemade concoction that keeps em away or are we using
store bought stuff? I heard a mix of water and vanilla extract is works as does the OFF wipes, except
you have to reapply either one every hour or so. What's working, what ain't? Thanks. DP
 
Anything with DEET keeps them off your skin. I've [i:d5716475a3]heard[/i:d5716475a3] Lemongrass Oil, but have not tried it.

I just keep a swatting towel with me and forego any sprays.....usually. This year might be an exception!
 
As bad as the skeeters usually are here, the towel usually doesn't stop more than a few seconds. But at least I can feel the skeeters. Can't feel these dang black flies!

Had to call it a day early. Sun going down, breeze stopped, and the black flies really got aggressive. Then a few skeeters decided to join in the fun. :shock:

It's difficult to paint wood with used motor oil (in good clothes) when all them bloodsuckers is getting in your eyes, nose, ears and, as is habit with the wife, the mouth! She's probably swallered a pint of the little buggers this year already. *lol*
 
They are a pain, but they usually only come one at a time, place hand on head, wait til they land, slowly bring hand down and whack. Most times I can still swat and catch or do the previous. They are the most persistent along with black flies, gnats and those tiny ones.
 
Absorbine Jr for sore muscles seems to help.
I put it mainly on my cap unless they really get hungry.
 
I've heard Deet won't touch them.

Some say it takes the real vanilla and others say imitation will work. The one guy I've seen with vanilla is using imitation and say it works.

They haven't bothered me that much.

RT
 
john , for deer flys, i found on the net the trolling deer fly trap. i use empty gallon jugs painted blue and covered with tanglefoot sticky glue trap. they mount on the roof of the golf cart and cruise around. really puts a dent in the population. you can also use a blue solo cup. covered in tangle foot and duck tape it to you baseball cap. looksgoofy, worksgreat. here is a pic of thedaughterand momma hunting deerflys on the golf cartt
cvphoto25164.jpg
 
There is a merck product IR3535 which is supposed to be more effective than deet when used in 20% concentration. You have to check each brand of repellent to see if it has it. Of course these were tested again lab reared mosquitoes. Individual results vary.

There is a lemon-eucalyptus oil (para-menthane-3,8-diol, PMD) which is reported to be as effective as deet. It is currently registered in Canada and undergoing certification in the UK. It is a naturally occurring compound, but has to be refined to up the concentration. It has also been synthesized. All other natural repellents have been deemed not as effective.

I do remember a researcher giving a seminar on federally funded research on face or sand gnats especially to try DNA investigations. He concluded that elimination was doubtful and the best remedy he could offer was control. The method of control was to cut a hole in ones britches and attract them elsewhere. NIH or NSF was not amused and immediately terminated his grant.
 
Synthetic vanilla has the same main component as real or natural vanilla. Real vanilla extract also has small amounts of several hundred other compounds which adds nuances to the flavor.

Synthetic vanilla is far cheaper because the vanilla orchid has to be hand pollinated since it normally has a very low pollination rate.
Synthetic vanilla can be made from wood pulp.
 
Thanks Glennster! I watched the video. I wonder why the color blue attracts them? Since my tractors are Ford thousand series and blue that might explain why they attack me so much!!! Lol
 
(quoted from post at 18:37:56 06/02/19) I wonder why the color blue attracts them?
Click to expand...

If you look at the blood vessels inside your elbow (where they generally take blood samples), you'll see that through the skin, the vessels look blue. That's how I've heard the bugs see it also. They go for anything darker, but especially like darker blues.
 
Glennster has the answer for Deer flies. They DO prefer blue, I painted an old hardhat blue and covered it with Stickyfoot and caught many while mowing the lawn! We have a blue old paper tube out at the end of our drive and I put stickyfoot on that and get hundreds. (Might be called tanglefoot?) It's usually used to keep birds out of barns, just spread some on top of their perches...
 
We have been using plain old Listerine in a spray bottle, put it on our pants legs and arms, and on any exposed skin. has been working with chiggers and skeeters, but I don't know for sure about no-see-ums, as I have never been bothered with them.
 
We never had these type knats in Louisiana until a couple of years ago. This year they are in pandemic proportions. Does anyone know their official name and where they came from?
 
There was something on Taiwan we called "flying teeth".

Tiny black specks you could hardly see, but if they chomped down on you, you came halfway out of your chair.
 
Goose's post described them perfectly. Tiny little bugs that bite. They seem to bite and leave and then the swelling and itching starts. The biting is not painful. The flying into your eyes and ears is annoying.
 
The problem is that the description fits a number of species and they all bite and hurt. The family is Ceratopogonidae and they are called biting midges.
Getting them down to genus and species is the problem. It takes an entomologist to take specimens and key them out to make sure we are talking about the same thing.
 
Here is some information that is probably more than you want to know.

The biting midges are pool feeders like the deer and horse fly. They lacerate the skin and sponge up the welling blood. I think they all use anticoagulants, but some also may have an anesthetic. If they all do have an anesthetic it does not work very well at least for me.

Mosquitoes on the other hand have a full tool kit (like a Swiss army knife) complete with anesthetic. Their feeding behavior is much more complex than the slash and grab midges. They probe the skin to find capillaries close to the surface and cut a small hole in the skin. They then inject saliva that is both anesthetic and anticoagulant. The feeding tube or proboscis is hypodermic like. If you ever watch one feeding you will see how the behavior has distinct stages culminating with a head bob when they insert the tube.

Then you smash them. It is actually better to smash them before they inject the saliva.
 
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