Insect Bites

[RuthG]

Thanks MMM.

Note to self: must stock up on Skin So Soft before France.

[Millymollymandy]

It may just depend on where you go and more importantly depend on you - I seem to be a magnet for biting insects and am covered with Jungle Formula (can't buy here!!) from July through to early October and have been bitten by spiders here about 4 times, found ticks on me and found I am hugely allergic to red ant bits, yet my husband hardly ever gets bitten by anything! Yet he's the one that is paranoid about mossies and has to have a bug zapper on at night and spends ages flapping about trying to swat mossies - yet I hardly ever get bitten by a mossie here (neither does he actually) - probably the least of my worries.

[grahamhobbs]

Isn't the brewers yeast (or Marmite) and mosquito thing, a complete myth. Seem to remember (well that's almost impossible for me) something about it arising during the war in the far east. Anyone got a better memory than me?

[Zech]

A friend of mine has conducted experiments on marmite and mosquitos and she says that it does actually work. As she's a scientist working on ways to stop mosquitos spreading malaria and other nasties, I'm inclined to believe her!

I'm not keen on eating that much marmite so I'm using insect repellant made from southernwood (I think. I thought it was wormwood to start with) and that seems to work quite well.

[boboff]

Umm horse flay trap, any ideas which thread?

[Davie Crockett]

I made a very effective fly trap from a PTFE (Plastic) 2lt lemonade bottle..

Homemade Fly Trap
Cut a plastic 2 litre lemonade/cola bottle 1/4 down from the top.
Recycle the cap, invert top portion into bottom portion. Punch 4 holes through both parts at the top, tie string (twine) to hold both portions together, fill with recipe below and hang near where you're having problems

2 cups water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vinegar

Dispose of entire container when full of flies. Caution, don't leave it too long before replacing it, they tend to stink!

Edit: Not sure if it works on horse flies, but it certainly does the trick for other nuisance flies!
Edit2: I did find this which looks intreaguing! http://www.bitingflies.com/

[boboff]

Thanks

I tried that bottle thing this week, kept it indoors and nothing as yet.

I am sure there was a link on here to a Univercity site with plans for a home made one, typically I can't find it now! Mine made from memory is rather ropey!

[Davie Crockett]

I googled university horse fly trap and found this: http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G7013 it uses a mesh and swinging black ball, is that what you were after? the trap is at the bottom of the document.

[boboff]

Thank you. Why didn't I think about googling that! Thanks again.