You see our favorite camp site has a swift moving stream close by. That swift moving stream is a perfect breading ground for black flies. So, on our last day there we ended up leaving a bit early because we were being swarmed by them. I didn't know what the bug was at first. I knew it wasn't a mosquito so I set my mind to finding out what it was and how to keep the horrid biting bugs away from us.
The first thing I did was search the internet for flying, biting bugs in Pennsylvania. I was lucky to find a web site with a long list of pictures to search through. What I was looking for was (in my mind) a cross between a bee, a fly and a mosquito. It didn't take long for me to find this picture.
Black flies need swift moving, non-polluted water with lots of oxygen for egg, larva and pupa growth. One of the ways to control a black fly population is to dam up these swift moving streams so the larva can't breathe and die.
Most female black flies need a blood meal for egg production. Some species will only bite one type of host, some will only bite mammals, some only birds and some will bite just about anything. This is why May and June are not the best time to be doing anything in the woods near a swift moving stream in Pennsylvania.
Now that I have a name I can find a way to keep them away... I thought. We used DEET spray and had citronella candles but they didn't seem to work very well. In my searches I found that not all black flies are put off by either. It seems that when they are determined to bite you they will ignore the DEET and citronella. Just ask Alraune. He feel asleep in his camp chair and woke up with his legs looking like a small child took a red marker to his legs. I even ended up with a bite in my ear. Let me tell you that wasn't fun at all.
By the end of that camping trip we did discover that Aloe is WONDERFUL for black fly bites. I had a bottle of it along because I sunburn easy for the first few months of the summer and it's wonderful for that. Alraune got an idea and read the back of the bottle, grinned at his good luck than slathered it all over his legs. Instant relief. It has to be reapplied from time to time but it really helps the itching and the bites heal much faster.
We didn't discover a way to keep the biting flies away until a day hiking trip 3 weeks later. Again we brought DEET, Aloe (half knowing we'd not keep all the bugs away) and (almost as if I knew) Patchouli incense sticks. Alraune has taken patchouli powder along for camping trips before. I saw how it worked on bugs and I thought I'd take a chance. I'm so glad I did.
We sprayed ourselves down with DEET right after getting out of the car and headed down the path. We were fine for about an hour or so, then the bugs started to get bad again so we reapplied the DEET... No good. I was going to save the patchouli incense sticks for when we sat down to eat but on a whim I had Alraune pull one out and light it. It worked much better than either of us thought it would. The rest of our hike I kept one burning and we didn't need to use the DEET again. I even tried it a few times on a small swarm of gnats to see what would happen. Each time I did all the gnats hastily left the area.
Part of me wonders if the patchouli incense worked so well because the bugs are getting used to DEET and citronella in the same way that some bacteria are now becoming immune to antibiotics. We plan on doing more experiments with incense sticks. We have two other kinds and wonder if it's just the non-typical smell that is keeping the bugs away or just the patchouli smell.
We have an overnight hike planned in a few days. The camp site we decided on is very close to a swift flowing stream most likely loved by black flies. We're going to take along our normal “get you gone” bug repellents but I would like to see if the patchouli incense sticks work alone. I'll let you know how it works out.
Dreaming of Butterflies,
Chrysanthemum
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