Forget it, CS. I've been to the Carolinas and Louisiana. I've seen cockroaches, wasps and hopping brown spiders that I wasn't sure couldn't carry me away in my sleeping bag. I'll be just fine with tiny gnats you can barely see and go away when I get rid of over ripe fruit. I also don't think any of your bugs could survive the Great Lakes - and that would be just fine with me.  No, I don't want to knit little sweaters for them either.

You may notice that they also buzz around you and your friends without the allergy - not so much.  I went to dinner with friends who wanted to eat outside at the restaurant.  I know not to wear perfume, etc that will draw bees, etc.  I told my friends I would prefer to eat inside because of the bees.  We sat outside.  The bees -nowhere but around my head, my arms, my back.  We went inside.  They saw the problem.

Temple wrote:

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I am Shocked! Shocked, I say, Catherine.

To think that someone who has worked in the helping professions would be perfectly fine with the knowledge that there are little critters going sweaterless in the South.

My oh my.

That it's come to this....

Temple

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LOL  I needed a grand laugh this morning.  Thank you for the gift, Temple. 

Boston, MA

nooooo not flies. A gnat it not much bigger than a pencil point. When they're flying around your face, if you breathe in deep, you'll such one up your nose.

LOL @ G2B. I haven't tried the vinegar trick, but if it works, I'm all for it.

 A friend told me to rub a bounty dryer sheet over my face and head. I did that and had a trail of gnats a mile long following me. Thank goodness the season for gnats is ending.

South of Paradise

East of the "Sweetest Place on Earth"

North of the "Mushroom Capitol of the World"

West of "Boathouse Row"

missmeliss wrote:

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Well I've just googled gnats and apparently they are native to north Australia. interesting because I've never heard them called that before, I think we call them "those stupid tiny flies that get in the fruit".
I know lots of folk who say it's good to wash your fruit in vinegar to remove pesticides. Sounds like an invitation for the stupid tiny flies that get in the fruit to move in!

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We call gnats "fruit flies," too.  So, perhaps we have that term and gnats in common in both countries?  And thanks for the tip, CS, on what not to do if you don't want to play Pied Piper to the Georgia gnats.   

Around here gnats aren't the same as fruit flies. I have attached a picture that we just happened to take the other night by the wife's hummingbird feeder. It turns out that hummingbirds not only love sugar water and nectar, they eat gnats too. However, they just left to head south a couple of days ago. So now you can see the gnats just swarming around the feeder.  There were probably thousands of them in front of our porch the other day, in 4-5 distinct swarms.

They are much larger than fruit flies, you wouldn't be able to see fruit flies in this picture.  This was texted to me by my wife, so it isn't the best picture either.

How do these threads turn into biology lessons?

Kenny