Damn mosquitos.....

[tannat]

Just wrapped up a wonderful evening outside with the kiddies. In at 8 pm and lots of fun with no disturbances by........

MOSQUITOS!!!!!!!!!

They'll ruin any backyard fun from May onwards in my neck of the woods.

So what are the flying *******s like in your region?

[Easy Drifter]

They are so big up here they sit on the trees and bark! Ouch!!!! :D

[Captain VXR]

Hardly ever get them here :p

[tannat]

Hardly ever get them here :p

So I need to raise my kids in England-not so difficult to accept....

[Alexamateo]

About the same as yours :D

[tannat]

About the same as yours :D

There is hope for us yet, alexamateo.

Just published in PNAS

http://news.discovery.com/animals/wingless-female-mosquitoes-prevent-disease-spread.html

[Easy Drifter]

The Skitters are tame compared to Black Flies. A least you can see the skitter but the Black Flies are tiny with a nasty bite.
The season is only 2 to 3 weeks but that is enough!!!!!

[Steve Boyd]

Black flies? Sounds like the things the Scots call midges - black, no more than a couple of millimetres long, bite like piranhas!
The only time it's safe to go out is when the wind's too strong for them to fly.

[slorydn1]

The 'skeeters get so big around around here they have tail numbers! :p

Seriously tho, every time it rains during the spring and summer it gets so bad after wards they have to come around with trucks and spray this awful white insecticide into the air as it drives by....its worse than the mosquites.

At work we have to go outside to smoke (Slo, u dummy doesn't everyone now?) and on the back porch behind the office it gets so bad that I'll come back to my console with enough new bites that make my arms look swollen. I have a can of repellent in my desk drawer just for this. Problem is, it makes it hard for the others sit with me in the room. Even the non smokers say they'd rather put up with the smoke than the smell of that stuff....

[Easy Drifter]

Stand in the smoke of a wood fire for a while. That masks your scent to the skitters. Your fellow workers might not like it though.
I am lucky. I have been bitten so many times I basically do not react to a mosquito bite. Doesn't mean I like them though.
The black flies can be so bad they drive the deer and moose out of the bush onto the roads where the wind helps. Cars don't and if you hit a moose they win! I am not immune to black flies!
However I do begin to worry when the skitters turn on their landing lights and blind you.

[anthonyvop]

We have a dept. of mosquito control here. Planes & trucks keep them in check. Now if you go to the "glades during the summer after sundown you will pass out from anemia if you don't use strong repellent.

[Sonic]

Black flies? Sounds like the things the Scots call midges - black, no more than a couple of millimetres long, bite like piranhas!
The only time it's safe to go out is when the wind's too strong for them to fly.

Bloody things!
But being scotland its always too windy ;)

[Mark in Oshawa]

Bloody things!
But being scotland its always too windy ;)
I think the Midge is a relative of the Canadian Black Fly. We also have Deer and Horse flies, that I swear have a bit like a Pit bull. All in all, when Ontario's bug season starts to really roll in May, it is pretty rotten in some parts of the woods until August.

This year, spring has been warm, benign and early, so I am predicting a lot of the flies and mosquitoes to be out early...