is it me or are the mozzie’s out of control?
this year nothing, nothing until 3 weeks ago - and now it’s like a plague
everyone is the same, the pharmacies are overflowing with gels/sprays/wristbands/who knows…
i’m considering cutting out the middle man and spraying myself with RAID
…
and don’t mention the frelons - we have a small squadron who come calling in formation at 21h00 (they’re french) every evening - they LOOK at you and move on to watch tv and confuse the dog
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I entirely agree, they are absolutely appalling this year.
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We are not plagued by the mozzies as yet, too dry, but rain is forecadt.
We have a frelon and wasp trap on our balcony and we are catching loads more frelons than you would have thought possible.
It has to be emptied and refilled every day.
I am with Jane on the mosquitoes this summer, there have been none here in the dry weather. I can’t remember when I last saw a wasp and there are far fewer frelons than usual. That’s a shame as I like the gentle giants. There are plenty of bees on the heather including the amazing carpenter bees. There have been too many flies at times but nothing like as many as last year. The animal population that has appeared to increase dramatically outside my house is lizards. It’s probably just the heat but they seem to be everywhere.
We don’t usually get many at the top of my hill because it’s windy and they don’t like it, but the diluvian spring has let them install mozzie maternity units all over the place and we are infested, especially with the black ones with white dots on their legs (moustique tigre??). Relatively very few of the usual brown ones about.
Lots of lizards, perhaps because of the lots of mozzies, ditto tree frogs, far more of them than usual, the hedgehogs seem to have had several litters and the lerot and loir population in my roof is booming and having ceilidhs every night by the sound of it.
no mozzies here but I do have a nursery of bats in my house and I imagine that, without them, we’d have a few since we’re near water. But flies … well the last few weeks have been frightful. Four Red Tops in the garden to combat the blighters and all full within a fortnight! I put up a couple of false wasp nests (Waspinators) around our verandah and they seem to work - we’ve had very few around the house … in previous years they’ve settled in the roof and it’s made sitting outdoors there difficult. So the Waspinators work. Hornets … I’ve seen a couple noshing away at the fallen plums but no signs of nests anywhere, although a friend woke up a few weeks ago to find a hornet on her arm which immediately stung her, and she has no idea how it got in. Plenty of lizards, and now we’re in the green-stinky-bug and black-hoppity-bug season so the chickens are having a field day running around after them.
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Plenty of mozzies here and if I get bitten on a joint they swell up and are very uncomfortable. We’ve just come back from Corbiere though and although I still had plenty of bites they didn’t swell up. Perhaps the ones we have in CMaritime are all Tigre’s 
Loads in the Tarn. We are having very damp nights (although no rain) and I’ve been eaten alive. They prefer my legs for some reason. Apaisyl Gel is fabulous stuff and stops the itching straight away.
Sorry everyone out there is getting bitten to buggery (what a strange turn of phrase), here in “la creuse profonde”, not seen a single one, much fewer flies, wasps and hornets than usual too. We have had whole squadrons of butterflies though.
Maybe they prefer richer areas 
There were less in the Auvergne than in previous years
I used to use apaisyl but the pharmacy put me onto Sedermyl.
I always carry a Dapis stick in my pocket.
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Teresa…
I have actually sprayed the area around my ankles with Raid…!..I seem to be susceptible to somthing that bites that is so small I can’t see it…and it gets to me indoors…tops of my feet start to itch and sometimes my arms and fingers…Haven’t got the mosquito problem, but I will probably encounter them whilst gardening…
Heavens… I thought is was just me… I tend to wear tiny socks that do not reach the ankle… just allow the shoe to be slightly more comfortable…
Well, something is nibbling at the bare flesh in that area… I never see anything… but… good grief… I dab vinegar etc… and that helps