BUGS!

[LeeRevell]

Here in not-always-sunny Florida, bugs are a given. But June is "The Month of the Yellow Fly" - vicious little biters about the size of a housefly, that are especially bad in the woods. I think they actually like Deep Woods Off, maybe it gives them a buzz.......
So when camping or boondocking out here in the National Forest, we need to take extra precautions for these little monsters.

 

[caseyc]

Thanks for the heads-up. I'm curious, is there any time of the year there aren't tiny critters trying to eat one alive??

 

[SoulRaven]

I go with a three way approach when boondocking in FLA in the winter.

Before you park in the area you want to set up camp you take granular Orthene and apply just maybe 1/4 teaspoon to each fire ant mound.

http://www.amazon.com/Ortho-0282210...403724252&sr=8-5&keywords=orthene+insecticide

Step two is a tank mix blanket spray application of your entire camping area with 7.9-percent Bifenthrin which is also labeled for indoor use.

http://www.amazon.com/Compare-N-Sav...724392&sr=8-5&keywords=bifenthrin+insecticide


Step three is a tank mix perimeter spray of a generic product with the agency name of Termidor with 9.1 % Fipronil.

http://www.amazon.com/Taurus-SC-9-1...F8&qid=1403724540&sr=8-3&keywords=termidor+sc

 

[Mac J]

Hey Mr.
Is the use of these products legal on public land?

 

[SoulRaven]

This is an East Coast thread.

The dew point is 72 right now at elevation in the Pocono Mountains.

The dew point is 82 right now in Punta Gorda Florida feels like it’s 117 degrees..

Without pesticides modern life could not exist except in the arid wastelands of the western states.

 

[Mac J]

I'm not judging, just asking if the use of pesticides, by campers, hikers etc. on the property of public lands is legal or not. So I know.

 

[Bdog1]

Those flys have a shirt season. Couple of weeks. They like the shade, so stay in the sun.

 

[SoulRaven]

No mention of prohibition of usage of pesticides per Chapter 40D-9 of the Florida Administrative Code.

Plan Ahead and Prepare
Bring plenty of water, sunscreen, insect repellant, a hat and good pair of sneakers or walking shoes.

 

[compassrose]

...Without pesticides modern life could not exist except in the arid wastelands of the western states.

I beg to differ. I AM in the "arid wastelands of the western states". To be exact, I am in Roswell, NM. We had a helacious storm here a few weeks back. They apparently have "instant mosquitos" in NM. A little rain and they are full grown blood-sucking vampires. After the first day of rain, the whole town was sold out of skeeter spray.

The flies here are tough! First off, you have to swat them several times or they will just pop back up alive. We drove to ABQ one day with a fly on the front windshield of the Jeep... on the interstate... a 75 mile trip. We came to a stop and the fly flew off. How tough does a fly have to be to hang onto glass for 75 miles?

 

[LeeRevell]

The Yellow Flies should be subsiding soon. The Skeeters have been fairly bad this year, as it's a wet year. But I have seen worse in prior years. The 'yard fogger' systems work well, and will keep the skeeters at bay for awhile. Spiders are a constant nuisance, especially the "Giant House Spider". Like a Hobo Spider but larger - up to a four inch leg spread - think Brown Recluse on steroids, though reportedly not as venomous. A .22 pellet pistol works well to bring them down..... ;-)
Winter here in the northern part of Florida can get chilly, down into the teens for a couple days. This gives us a reprieve from the crawlies and fliers. Camping is best done in winter down here. Summer is too hot and muggy.
Winter weather also slows down the gators and snakes.

 

[caseyc]

I used to think of wanting to visit Florida. But after reading everyone's posts about bugs and such, I'm thinking to pass on it! The only thing I don't like are the occasional mosquitos. But for some reason, the mosquitos don't seem to bite me, they bite my GF instead. So I'm constantly spraying mosquitos spray to keep them off my GF at night while sleeping if I have the windows down. The mosquitos actually aren't really a problem for me personally, especially the area I'm usually in. The other minor nuisance is when the occasional spider wants to take up residence on the rear fender of my van. I know there's a spider hanging out whenever I see spider webs. That's why I keep a can of Raid spray to spray down the exterior of the van every so often. But these minor inconveniences for me in no way compare to the things you guys are experiencing in Florida. Plus the hot and muggy summer heat would cause me to exit stage left in a hurry, haha!

 

[caseyc]

DEET, DEET, DEET!!! Got bottles of that stuff rated at 100%!

 

[compassrose]

What is it about spiders that makes some people freak out? I guess it is passed down from one generation to the next. I actually enjoy them, shoo them off if they get in the way. After all, they live off other bugs so serve a purpose in that respect.

I'm allergic to the suckers! Those evil green eyed jumping spiders have stalked me just to bite me. Plus a brown recluse bit me a couple years ago. I did a search online to figure out what bit me when the hole in my leg appeared. I was horrified to see that doctors CUT and CUT and CUT, not heal. Veterinarians use cortezone shots as they get bit all the time by brown recluse. So I bought a tube of 2% cortezone cream from Wal-Mart and packed the hole with it twice a day. The sore kept growing for a couple of days but then started to heal. I did have to keep cleaning out the dead stuff during the weeks it took to heal up. I have a barely visible scar on my leg. Thank you internet!

I don't mind spiders outside, but I don't want them inside. We used to have a "pet" orb spider in SC. It lived on our front deck and collected bugs attracted to the porch by our outside light. It was beautiful.

 

[SoulRaven]

There are insects in pockets (and spreading quickly into blanket coverage) in Florida right now that have no known control by pesticides. They can be suppressed with monthly applications.

These ants are attracted to magnetic fields such as electrical boxes. They gather in such numbers the short out the boxes and will start fires. They have multiple queens per colony.

http://staugustine.com/news/florida-news/2013-07-20/crazy-ants-are-spreading-florida#.U6xNx5RdW2E

---

My application of three insecticides may be overkill to the environmentalist wacko crowd but pesticides even the evil DDT has saved the lives of millions of humans.

Many RVs are traveling bed bug colonies. There are many places for these bloodsuckers to hide and escape into the environment. How do I know what pestilence has been introduced into the campsite I am about to occupy?

Bed bugs are very hard to kill with insecticide. The only way to kill them off is with special high temperature electric heaters, running a good 30 minutes that can sometimes due to spontaneous combustion burn your house or RV to the ground.

 

[LeeRevell]

I had a 'pet' orb weaver spider outside my bedroom window one year. She was fascinating to watch. She had a different preference for bug meals than the house spiders. She wouldn't tolerate a roach in her web! She stay clear of it and 'fling' it out! The house spiders eat roaches.
I don't mind a spider that sits in a corner or a window eating bugs. But when it tries to cozy up and get intimate, it gets flushed!!

Florida gets a bad rap on bugs - it really ain't THAT bad.....

 

[offroad]

Terrific discussion thread. Add that in SC coastal area I get no-see-ums that fly into the house and just bite me for weeks. Found that building a yeast-sugar fly mosquetto trap worked well to capture these guys. The are attracted to the carbon dioxide from yeast fermentation. Went fly random fly in the eye to none at all. And no poison!!

Have a bottle of permethrin to wash my clothes but have yet to try it. Did see some set up large fans with a capture screen, as supposedly you can just pick up flying insects with a air pressure differential via a fan. Traps them long enough for them to die. Who wants to try that ?

 

[akrvbob]

offroad, can you tells us how to make the yeast trap? It sounds like a winner!
Bob

 

[decodancer]

I lived in Florida for 40 years and there's only one bug that I cannot even stand to look at. Something about a three inch long Palmetto bug flying into your face or crawling up your pant leg keeps me a Northerner for the rest of my life. Pull down a palm frond and watch as hundreds of them appear, it's a nightmare for sure.
I'm another one that bugs don't appear to like, everyone around me is getting eaten alive and I don't get a single bite. I know that Avon skin so soft is a good repellant, Florida golfers use it all the time and people even put it on their pets. I don't care for the smell myself.

 

[Seeker]

I use to be just like some of you with the arachnophobia. If I found a spider I could not kill I'd call for the wife and she would catch it and put it outside.

I had to quit working around a year ago for health reasons. Used to being very active I get bored easy so always looking for something to do. One day I caught a brown widow spider and put it in a critter keeper. I would catch bugs and feed the spider and it was great entertainment watching it capture, web the prey and carry it to its nest to feed. It even made egg sacs that hundreds of baby spiders emerged from several weeks later. These slings (baby spiders) escaped into my garage as I did not seal up the holes in the critter keeper and I did have to kill some of them.
This soon became kinda a hobby as I have never had pets so easy to take care of. I now have wolf spiders, house spiders, brown and black widows and several different species I feed. I actually have too many now and may just let them go so I don't have to bother with it anymore.

I did get a bad bite from something that I thought was a recluse bite several years ago before I ever kept spiders but it could have been from some other kind of insect as Florida is not recluse territory. Doctors are too quick to blame a wound on recluse spiders when they don't know what caused the bite.

Please try to overcome your fear as I did of spiders and just move them elsewhere away from you as they keep the population of bad bugs at bay like nothing else.
A SEEKER

 

[offroad]

offroad, can you tells us how to make the yeast trap? It sounds like a winner!
Bob

I just used the various YouTube instruction videos. You take a two liter soda bottle. Cut it in half and reverse the stem end into the bottom. Fill with sugar water made with packet of yeast and Pure Cain sugar (yeast can't eat it that fast). Cost $5 to make with all ingredients. Made three bottles. 24 hours later no gnats. Don't use pure sugar as the yeast burns that up too fast and you have no carbon dioxide once the sugar is burned up.