Don't Bug Me

It’s probably the surest sign of spring. We get a few warms days, the grass shows the first hints of green, leaf buds unfurl. Suddenly, whenever you're outside having fun, there’s a little cloud swirling about your head.

Yep, the black flies are back. Don’t worry, though, they won’t last very long. Just long enough for the mosquitoes, deerflies, greenheads, noseeums, and ticks to get a running start.

Biting flies like black flies, deerflies and noseeums can be annoying. Enough of them can ruin an outdoor outing if you aren’t prepared. Mosquitoes and ticks are another matter. They can be genuinely dangerous, carrying bad stuff like EEE (eastern equine encephalitis) and Lyme disease, plus some slightly lesser evils like West Nile virus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

None of these diseases have current vaccines. Some of them don’t even have effective cures. Fortunately, the diseases are relatively uncommon. Many people who are exposed to EEE and West Nile never get sick at all.

The illnesses can be avoided altogether by avoiding mosquito and tick bites. No you don’t need to stay indoors for the whole summer. Just use a few common-sense precautions which I call the AAA Bug Strategy. The three "As" are Avoidance, Alchemy and Armor. It’s flexible enough for any situation and will keep you bite-free no matter how fierce the bugs get.

Avoidance

Here are some basic tips for avoiding bug bites:

• Keep moving! Most biting insects will follow a moving target, but they rarely land and bite. Biking is an ideal bite-avoidance activity. Even speedy deerflies have trouble keeping up with a cyclist. Black flies and mosquitoes are slowpokes by comparison. Hiking at a brisk pace is usually enough to keep you relatively bite free. Canoeing and kayaking out on a breezy pond or down a flowing river also work well -- at least until you have to come to shore.
• Choose your battleground. There are places that biting bugs like a lot, and places they don’t. Mosquitoes, which breed best in stagnant water, like swampy area and tidal marshes. Obviously, it pays to avoid these areas if you don’t want to be bitten. Black flies, by contrast, breed only in clean, moving water. The presence of blackflies is one indication that you’ve left some of the worst ravages of civilization behind. But black flies can also travel several miles from where they are hatched, so you can get swarmed even if there isn’t any running water nearby.
• Let the breezes blow. Mosquitoes and black flies disperse in even a light breeze; a wind puts them entirely out of commission. Standing still in moving air is just as effective as being a moving target. Up in the far north of Quebec and Labrador, where black flies and mosquitoes can appear in mind-numbing numbers, caribou stay on dry breezy hilltops as much as possible. Whenever possible, keep to open, windy areas and higher ground. This is a wonderful excuse to climb a mountain.
• Timing is (almost) everything. In spring, when black flies are a major concern, get out early in the day. Black flies are generally inactive until the air temperature has risen to at least 50 degrees. Later on in the season, mosquitoes are most active on cooler, damper mornings and in the evening. Deer flies seem to love the heat of a summer day.

Alchemy

However much you dislike the thought of slathering chemicals on your skin, there are times when you just have to use insect repellent.

If I need repellent, I use one with at least 15 percent DEET (N,N-diethyl-m toluamide), which repels all biting insects, including ticks. Lately I’ve been using 3M’s “Ultrathon” which has 32 percent DEET in a timed-release formula. It really does work for 12 hours as advertised. All the legitimate research I can find and 40+ years of experience leads me to believe that DEET is safe. But you'll have to make your own judgements. You can find more information at deetonline.org, and on DEET producer Morflex, Inc.'s website.

Just be careful. Concentrated DEET does dissolve rubber, plastic and some synthetic fabrics. Use the lowest concentration you can get away with and put it on the backs of your hands to keep your palms and fingertips chemical free.

There are natural alternatives to DEET. In my experience, they either don’t work at all or require such frequent re-application that they aren’t practical.

The one exception is Avon’s Skin So Soft, which works pretty well on black flies, but not at all on mosquitoes.

Armor

Clothing is part of your defense against being bitten. Wear a light-colored long-sleeved shirt and pants with full legs. Pants legs with cuffs that can be cinched down tight enough to prevent ticks from crawling underneath are best. You can also tuck your pants cuffs into thick socks.

Socks, long pants and a long-sleeved shirt augmented with a simple headnet that can be worn over a baseball cap are good protection from black flies and ticks.

Unfortunately, mosquitoes can drill right through thin cloth, especially where it’s stretched tight. If the weather is cool, you can solve this with two light layers. The movement of one layer over the other foils mosquitoes.

My bug-phobic sweetheart Marilyn swears by “Buzz Off” clothing which is treated with a chemical repellent. It’s densely woven and fairly hot, but does seem to solve the mosquito dilemma.

The ultimate solution is a polyester mesh “bug suit” which you can wear over your regular clothing. Polyester is lightweight and extraordinarily tough -- much tougher than nylon. And it has enough "body" to stand away from your skin, providing a barrier from even stabbers and stingers like mosquitoes and bees. It's also totally breathable and won't interfere with your movement..

Bug suits are overkill most of the time in the northeast. The exceptions are blackfly season in the north country, and saltwater marshes and beaches in the evening when the mosquitoes and noseeums can plague you. Three I can recommend are Bug-Me-Not (my personal favorite for the convenient hood closure), Bug Out, and Bug Baffler. All have well-designed, hooded jackets, pants, head nets, gaiters and mitts.