I have this memory from 20-odd years ago brfore leaving Germany of summer evenings sitting outside and listening to the crickets.
I know about the current decline of insects, I remember tje front of cars, trucks, trains and planes being black with insects, you used to be able to buy insect removal spays and scratchers but now the local Aral doesnt even carry them in stock.
So now I am sitting outside in silence with a cuppa and thinking: “where are the crickets”?
I haven’t heard crickets for ages. Strange that you don’t have them, but you have fireflies, which are bioindicators, or canaries in a coalmine. https://www.ipb.ac.id/news/index/2026/06/fireflies-are-becoming-increasingly-rare-says-ipb-university-expert-a-warning-sign-of-deteriorating-environmental-quality/
I was curious because the sound of the crickets in summer is omnipresent here and after a week or so I just don’t hear it anymore - just tune it out.
However, having googled it, it seems they go quiet over a certain temp, and when the air is too dry. Maybe they’ll kick off again in the coming days when it’s cooler.
The fireflies have become rare, they used to be numerous but now a swarm consists of five or six indidlviduals.
Maikäfer and their smaller cousins the Junikåfer used to be in their millions, havnt seen a single on on ages.
On the otherhand the nasties are thriving, the Bremse and the mosquito, those annoying and tiny blackflies that swarm you in their hundreds, desperate to get in your eyes, mouth, ears and nose, take a breath and you get five of them kamikazi-ing in.
Took my tshirt off for a swim yesterday and it was if I had rung the dinnerbell.
We get quite a few maybugs and junebugs. Alpine lore has it that a strong maybug season is followed by fewer junebugs. I hate them both–the Rosenkäfer (maybugs) damage my lilac flowers before I can cut them all, and the junebugs are just gross, hiding out in the wisteria until I trim it and they fly into my hair. Ugh.
I was caught by these monsters TWICE this weekend. The bite on my elbow is now hot and swollen. One bit me on the calf, too, but I must have brushed it off swiftly enough that it didn’t finish the job. Horrid.
I find heating a spoon, or something similar with a lighter, just enough to ouch, and apply it to the bite in little taps untill you can stand it stops the itch and relieves the swelling.
1 Like
It wasn’t really itchy, not like a mosquito bite. I see the original bite site but it has caused the whole outer elbow to swell and it’s noticeably warm to the touch. I’ve taken an anti-histamine this morning to see if that helps a bit.
Had to google because I read…“the brakes”. Yeah, horse flies…awful creatures. In Greek we even have an exclamation “did a fly sting you?”, referring to a person going crazy in an instant with no apparent reason. I didn’t understand it until I was bitten by one myself and jumped like someone stuck a serrated knife in my back…as this was what happened, as I found out later, over a damn t-shirt to boot. Saw one yesterday, thankfully haven’t seen many in CH so far. What we around our flat are European hornets. Thankfully doesn’t appear to be a protected species in Switzerland - but it is in eg Germany.
1 Like
European hornets are protected in Switzerland just the same. If you see an Asian hornet, I think you can despatch that without too much guilt, and you should report it because they damage bee populations.
European hornets are pretty docile and will only sting if provoked, then it’s apparently like being stuck by a red hot nail.
EDIT - for the curious, I was recently reading about Justin Schmidt, an entomologist based in Arizona, who stung himself with different insects so you don’t have to. All just find out where they sit on the pain scale.
1 Like
I asked chatGPT because the simple google search was inconclusive on their protection status. Either way we try to keep them out rather than go to war!
Many dead bees on the pavement these last days, probably from the heat. We put a little dish with sugar water outside but didn’t see any takers.
1 Like
There is a difference between the Pferdefliege and the Bremse
Horseflies are the nasty buggers with triangular wings and the Bremse looks like a grey and hairy housefly.
@ShirleyNot, hilarious. I’ll vouch for the yellowjacket sting–intense itching and pain. But nothing beats a spider bite, with a 6" x 3" massive swelling and necrosis at the bite site itself. Got me one last week, and it won’t heal for another week.
1 Like
That is a fascinating study, talk about taking one for the team. On a scientific note. Is the human response to an insect sting described by a bell curve or is it non-parametric? Anecdotally we seem to have many who are hypersensitive and many who seem pretty immune to for example mosquito bites. Horse flies flies hurt everyone.
Next time get some Diphenhydramine hcl 2% (double strength) in gel form–it actually blocks histamine at skin level.
Edit: I forgot to mention the gel one puts on toothache–it contains lidocaine and deadens a really bad bite or sting for a while.
1 Like
My guess is that it starts with a base-line of sudden pain, because that’s what it’s meant to do, but the reaction and sensitivity likely varies. I got stung by a bumble bee when I was in high school and, while it was immediately noticeable (I accidentally crushed bee, sting and venom sack between my knees under the desk in maths) I can’t say it particularly bothered me much more than an annoying tingling after that.
I had my first experience of them a couple of years ago. I kept feeling painful ‘nips’ and didn’t realise what was happening at first.
The worst thing is that the files are aggressive and simply shooing them away didn’t work, they kept coming back to bite.
Let me tell you a little story abou insect bites…
Many years ago as crew on board a ship plying the south Atlantic and South America I contracted a very mild form of malaria, easily cured and after a few interesting days in sickbay I was back at the grindstone.
It never bothered me again
That was in the eighties, queue forward to 2019 and I returned to a well paying job in Germany after a hiatus of 20 years.
First in the Rheinland near Düsseldorf and I remember being bit by a nasty little critter and got the works, pain in the joints, swelled up like a balloon, lost toe nails and fingernails, sick and nauseous and unable to do my job.
Went to the doc who did the bloodwork and could not find a reason, sent to a specialist who also drew a blank but he sent me to a another doc in Duisburg who’s office was in the middle of the red light district in the harbour and who specializes in STD’s, but who is also a Tropenmedizner, a specialist for tropical ailments.
Makes sense in a harbour.
He found that some biting insect, probably a Zebra-Mücke had taken a swig and my body, unused to the Zebra-Mücke had freaked out, it had remembered the 1980 bout and reacted as if I had Malaria with all the works.
As there was nothing there to cure, he could not give anything to make it go away so it took six months to clear and I still have nerve damage.
The butterfly effect was that as I was still in the trail period I lost the job and ended up on the couch of my ex-wife.
Whar did I learn: One little fly has the power to change your life.
3 Likes
I got one back in march and it’s still not healed properly.
I had a dermatologist appointment this afternoon for her to take a look but it was cancelled as her father died. I hope it will be healed properly soon.
1 Like
You have a couple of seconds between them landing on your skin and the bite - best to dispatch them as shooing them means they simply return. Insect repellent seems to have no effect.