Black Flies
Thanks for all the great solutions. I’m hoping in early September they should not be to bad as I only encountered the pests for the first 2 days last year. I was amazed how they went deep inside my yak to find some exposed flesh. Fortunately where I live in CT they are not a problem as we have the Black Nile Skeeters and Lyme disease.
September blackflies
do exist.
Enjoy.
However that hatch is sterile so there are consequences.
A funny story
Years ago when backpacking leading a Scout troup in the ADKs,Peter Fish the long time high peaks ranger, after giving a talk to the boys offered me a plain glass bottle with a cork who’s contents were supposed to repel black flies.I used the positivly evil smelling stuff regurlarly,but still had trouble. When I encountered him on the way out and showed him the mostly empty bottle he said, with a look of amazment, “you actually used it?”
Turtle
Cryptic wording.
– Last Updated: Apr-11-09 1:43 PM EST –
Short choppy sentences without context are always tough to understand, so you've got this old entomologist baffled with the statement: "However that hatch is sterile so there are consequences".
Sorry, but if it weren't for the fact that I've been casually studying biology and ecology all my life, I wouldn't be checking to see if this might be interesting. Since much of the seasonal spread of black-fly emergence is due to different species living on different yearly schedules, I would expect that is what is going on. I can't imagine an evolutionary benefit to an insect entering its adult phase if not capable of reproducing at that time (that's hardly a recepie for species survival). Enlighten me on this.
Old-Time Fly Dope
I have a book, first published in 1935, with a few recipies for repellent. One of them was as follows:
“Three ounces of tallow, one ounce of camphor, one ounce of pennyroyal, one ounce of creosote. Mix, and cork tightly.” The other recipies were about as vile-sounding.
At one point, the author says “During the time these pests are abroad, you may take your choice of: a clean, soap-and-water washed face every day and insect bites, or a nice slick coating of fly dope and comparative freedom from the pests. The longer you keep on a coating of dope the better is seems to be and, since it is altogether wholesome, why not forget face-washing for a time?”
Who knows. Maybe if I were often in the worst black-fly habitat I might think this was good advice.
(Quotes are from Deep River Jim’s Wilderness Trail Book, The Open Road Publishing Company, Boston, 1945)
The September black fly is annoying
but wont bite.
We have five different species of blackfly I have been told.
The ones that swarm in September have apparantly done their thing already and have no need for a blood meal.
The ones that came out three weeks ago I hope were an anomaly. We were cross country skiing and there was a cloud of them in one small spot.
They will appear circa May 15 and take their first meal about two weeks later. They are extremely annoying even when they do not bite. However they do have a citrusy tang.
Okay, that makes sense.
I did some reading on black flies earlier too, and they say there are many species that will swarm around the face and eyes of humans but won’t bite because we are the wrong species for them. I suppose one behavior is to fly into the face of an animal, and then some other cue is necessary to trigger them to bite, so those September black flies are probably such a species. That must be the case for most of the black flies we have in southern Wisconsin, and also for the ones in the Ozarks in April, because they are greatly annoying but never seem to bite.
Well, up here in the 'dacks…
We’ve come to an agreement with our black flies:
Just bite the flatlanders and citydiots.
(Translation: Don’t act like tourist and
you should do fine.)
Ninja Suit
On an eleven-day trek over the Newfoundland highlands (Gros Morne Nat’l Park) my wife and I encountered black flies that were simply horrific! We met seven hikers wearing “Ninja Suits” that were designed and fabricated by one of the women in their group. Our black flies could not bite through almost ANY thickness of clothing. These suits were thin (primarily) cotton turtleneck-like shirts, high necks with hoods that allowed just the eyes visible on the face, with Velcro wrist and ankle closures and fingerless gloves. They were comfortable and not even a bit blood-soaked.
For all other flies and mosquitoes I use an “Herbal Armor by All Terrain” mister that works like a charm ( http://www.evitamins.com/product.asp?pid=5364 )
You smell like you were hit by a truck hauling lemon-grass and geranium flowers. No DEET-crap. I recommend it highly!
that’s a terrible haiku