Mosquitos

[tree monkey]

11 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

If you are in Britain, there are no mosquitos, they are gnats and midges, fruit flies, dung flies, bluebottles, crane flies, wasps and the venomous hateful vicious horse flies.

Well apart from the 30 odd native species, apart from those 

 

Someone got there before me

 

avon skin so soft works well as a repellent 

Edited May 4, 2020 by tree monkey

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, Sir Nibble said:

Mosquitos will never be as much of a problem as driving a mooring pin through a wasps nest by accident!

It wasn't pretty  when the grass cutting chap strimed a nest entrance on the towpath. I did ask him if he was OK and wanted any help

[Tracy D'arth]

36 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

Well apart from the 30 odd native species, apart from those 

 

Someone got there before me

 

avon skin so soft works well as a repellent 

Oh Shoot!  Bug-er,  Just a few then, but not real nasty mossies, no malaria or dengue.  I remember in Thailand  riding an elephant and a mossy over an inch long went straight through the hide on the elephant's shoulder and drew blood. We were soaked in repellant thankfully.

No one has yet told me why mossies don't transmit diseases in the UK, like CV19?

[tree monkey]

5 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

It wasn't pretty  when the grass cutting chap strimed a nest entrance on the towpath. I did ask him if he was OK and wanted any help

We had to fell a tree with a bee nest in it once, had a bee keeper on site, we plugged all the holes under supervision and felled it.

He then asked us the cut the trunk in half where the nest was, so he could extract the queen.

That was an interesting day, with a lot of big normally unfazable blokes very very nervous 

[system 4-50]

and ticks?

[Machpoint005]

Malaria is caused by Plasmodium parasites. The parasites are spread to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes, called "malaria vectors." There are 5 parasite species that cause malaria in humans, and 2 of these species – P. falciparum and P. vivax – pose the greatest threat.

 

(from the WHO web site)

 

Malaria is not a virus - that's why.

1 hour ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Oh Shoot!  Bug-er,  Just a few then, but not real nasty mossies, no malaria or dengue.  I remember in Thailand  riding an elephant and a mossy over an inch long went straight through the hide on the elephant's shoulder and drew blood. We were soaked in repellant thankfully.

No one has yet told me why mossies don't transmit diseases in the UK, like CV19?

 

[Claudious]

Ticks, midges, horse flies, mosquitos! You guys are beginning to freak me out. I hope I’m not being punished because I called a widebeam a barge ? 

[tree monkey]

17 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

Malaria is caused by Plasmodium parasites. The parasites are spread to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes, called "malaria vectors." There are 5 parasite species that cause malaria in humans, and 2 of these species – P. falciparum and P. vivax – pose the greatest threat.

 

(from the WHO web site)

 

Malaria is not a virus - that's why.

 

But some viruses can be transmitted by mosquitoes, it is curious how some diseases, including viruses, but not all.

 

[TheBiscuits]

1 hour ago, Tracy D'arth said:

No one has yet told me why mossies don't transmit diseases in the UK, like CV19?

 

The average mosquito weighs around 5 mg, so you would need a thousand of them to get 5g ...

[tree monkey]

4 minutes ago, Claudious said:

Ticks, midges, horse flies, mosquitos! You guys are beginning to freak me out. I hope I’m not being punished because I called a widebeam a barge ? 

Yes we are 

Ticks are horrible but towpaths are fairly safe as they use other mammals as vectors, any area with deer or sheep for example can be hot spots for ticks, not many of either on most towpaths

 

Mozzies and midges, you find everywhere, skin so soft keeps them at bay.

 

Horseflies, foul bloody things but they tend to hang around horses in late June/August, so avoid horsey area, skin so soft can put the buggers off but not completely 

2 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

The average mosquito weighs around 5 mg, so you would need a thousand of them to get 5g ...

You are being very naughty 

[Felshampo]

3 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

If you are in Britain, there are no mosquitos, they are gnats and midges, fruit flies, dung flies, bluebottles, crane flies, wasps and the venomous hateful vicious horse flies.

As Howard says there is about 33 species of mosquitoes in the British Isles including 5 anophelines which can carry malaria. This is now quite rare in Europe but used to be common in East Anglia where it was known as Fen Fever. 

[Onewheeler]

I got bitten on the bell-end by a mozzie a few years ago (it was hot, sleeping nudie with the window open). It itched like mad and not in a wholly unpleasant way. Normally I'd not mind three days of semi-tumescence, but I was working on a nuclear power plant at the time which involved a twice-daily full-strip communal shower, usually shared with a bunch of rough scaffies.

 

The horror, the horror... My colleagues still mention it.

[tree monkey]

2 minutes ago, Onewheeler said:

I got bitten on the bell-end by a mozzie a few years ago (it was hot, sleeping nudie with the window open). It itched like mad and not in a wholly unpleasant way. Normally I'd not mind three days of semi-tumescence, but I was working on a nuclear power plant at the time which involved a twice-daily full-strip communal shower, usually shared with a bunch of rough scaffies.

 

The horror, the horror... My colleagues still mention it.

?

 

Chap I knew found a tick in a similar location,  he couldn't face trying to remove it so waited until it fell off on its own

Edited May 4, 2020 by tree monkey

[rusty69]

4 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

?

 

Chap I knew found a tick in a similar location,  he couldn't face trying to remove it so waited until it fell off on its own

Blimey, that was a bit drastic wasn't it?

[tree monkey]

23 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

Blimey, that was a bit drastic wasn't it?

welcome back 

[restlessnomad]

6 hours ago, Claudious said:

Ticks, midges, horse flies, mosquitos! You guys are beginning to freak me out. I hope I’m not being punished because I called a widebeam a barge ? 

barge is what boat ppl call their wives... come in wide-barge and narrow-barge variants.

[Claudious]

36 minutes ago, restlessnomad said:

barge is what boat ppl call their wives... come in wide-barge and narrow-barge variants.

And can become hard work if you don’t maintain them well enough! ? 

[Ianws]

4 hours ago, tree monkey said:

?

 

Chap I knew found a tick in a similar location,  he couldn't face trying to remove it so waited until it fell off on its own

 

4 hours ago, rusty69 said:

Blimey, that was a bit drastic wasn't it?

We bought tick removal tools mainly for our terrier. Seemed to work very effectively and no pushing poison inside the wound. I’d have been happy using that. Not as sure about the alcohol or burning cigarette end options, especially the latter. 

[WotEver]

8 hours ago, Ianws said:

 

We bought tick removal tools mainly for our terrier. Seemed to work very effectively and no pushing poison inside the wound. I’d have been happy using that. Not as sure about the alcohol or burning cigarette end options, especially the latter. 

I have read (but never tried) that covering them with cooking oil suffocates them, causing them to let go. Like you, we use the little tools to remove them from our terriers. 

[tree monkey]

8 hours ago, Ianws said:

 

We bought tick removal tools mainly for our terrier. Seemed to work very effectively and no pushing poison inside the wound. I’d have been happy using that. Not as sure about the alcohol or burning cigarette end options, especially the latter. 

One time out of curiosity I tried the burning method,  all I can say is, bloody hell it hurts and quite frankly I couldn't get it close enough to effect the tick at all.

So that's a big nope from me

[bizzard]

Lady Barnaby takes her ease

knitting overcoats for fleas

By this kindness fleas are smitten

That's why she's very rarely bitten.

 

Spike Milligan.