No flies on me

[mcbishop]

Mankind has always spent a lot of time discussing flies.

Given the Emperor Domitian's famed abilities at fly assassination (Suetonius, Dom. 3), recently paralleled by the American President ("I got the sucker" - presumably he meant the fly and not the former incumbent of his office), the BBC website has an interesting piece on the techniques available. Myself I have always favoured the scientifically based slow approach (exploiting the weakness of their compound eyes) and I find in the BBC article that I am not alone in this. Wasps, on the other hand, just feel the benefit of a 12-inch ruler. From this, you may detect that I am not a Buddhist :-) )

An alternative technique, employed in Syria (in the cafe at Resafa, if you must know), is to take the prophylactic approach and hang transparent plastic bags full of water from the ceiling which, for some reason (a whole different discussion can be had as to why this works), flies don't like. I am not sure of the views of wasps on this - I have never asked any.

I also remember reading a long debate that was had by pilots in an RAF mess during WW2 about how a fly landed on a ceiling - did it fly along parallel with the ceiling and then perform a half roll, or did it perform a half loop from lower down?

Sadly (and I have no idea why) these things matter!

Mike Bishop

[Jona Lendering]

An alternative technique, employed in Syria (in the cafe at Resafa, if you must know)

I have been there too! I've seen it as well! But what have we seen? An old trick that is customary in the Near East, or an invention by a pub owner in Resafa? I have seen it nowhere else.

[martijn.wijnhoven]

An alternative technique, employed in Syria (in the cafe at Resafa, if you must know), is to take the prophylactic approach and hang transparent plastic bags full of water from the ceiling which, for some reason (a whole different discussion can be had as to why this works), flies don't like. I am not sure of the views of wasps on this - I have never asked any.

Interestingly, this exact same technique is used in Mexico. I tried it one time myself but it didn't seem to work as the flies kept landing on the water filled bag.

Cheers,

Martijn

[Iagoba]

I have also ssen that here in southern Spain. Seems that the plastic bags are Arab legacy :mrgreen:

I have heard that it´s a loosely copied wasp trap. A bottle with beer works fine to get them drunk, so they cannot escape and then they drown...

A plate with beer also works fine for snails and slugs BTW. Drunk to death.

[Robert Vermaat]

A plate with beer also works fine for snails and slugs BTW.

It seems to have a wholly different effect on humans though...... :mrgreen:

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

A plate with beer also works fine for snails and slugs BTW.

It seems to have a wholly different effect on humans though...... :mrgreen:

Hmmm, I wonder how you would fare if you jumped into a vat of beer, the absorbtion through membranes plus the obvious Celtic reflex of downing as much as possible in as short a time as possible :? ? ?: Any volunteers? :twisted:

[ParthianBow]

Brings to mind the old Irish joke:
Did you hear about the Guinness worker who fell into a vat of 'the black stuff'?
It took fifteen men to pull him out!

[Titus Juventius Tertius]

Whatever happened to good old bug spray and a fly swatter? We don't need these ninja techniques.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Or shooting them with a pellet rifle, eh? Now, thems was the days. :roll:

[Iagoba]

I´m more traditional...I once (just once, really!) killed one with this...
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1,8 Kg. and 1,2 m. (4 pounds, nearly 4 feet) of cold, Toledan steel (really!) now it´s more "battle worn" due to it´s weekly use in trainings, but...

The fly just stopped in the wall, and I aimed a point attack. One hit, one kill 8) but there is still a mark in the wall. :roll:

[PhilusEstilius]

Mike Bishop may well not be a Buddhist but to kill wasps !! I find him even worse than Domitian all one needs is a glass and a piece of paper to catch and then release them poor little creatures.

[M. Demetrius]

Must be different from Texas wasps, Brian. Here, if you start to come close to them, they rare back and get ready to sting repeatedly. And then YOU go outside, and they own the house. Kill or be killed around here. They're not exactly an endangered species...

[mcbishop]

Mike Bishop may well not be a Buddhist but to kill wasps !! I find him even worse than Domitian all one needs is a glass and a piece of paper to catch and then release them poor little creatures.

'Them poor little creatures' kill bees. No contest in my mind. 'Even worse than Domitian?' I don't recall having had any senators executed, but it is always possible that it has slipped my mind :twisted:

Mike Bishop

[M. Demetrius]

I don't recall having had any senators executed, but it is always possible that it has slipped my mind

Well what about MPs? Are you skirting the issue sir, in an attempt to distract us from the truth?? :lol: :lol:

I do catch and release honeybees. I like 'em. They rarely sting, but they get most of the blame for stings. And of course, each worker bee only stings once. Wasps can sting a fellow ten times and still be peeved. Ow.

Do you have those little black and yellow striped demonic wasps over there? Paper nests, evil disposition? (Or their red cousins, which are even bigger?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polistes

I have found for those that instead of battling them, just take a long stick (lanceae work just fine) and knock the nest down, then stand completely still. They don't seem to figure out that it's the hand that is the enemy, not the stick, so they buzz around the stick for a while, then just leave the area. No home to defend. "Nothing to do here, mates, let's go to the pub." And the problem is averted. Sometimes those nests can get as big as your hand, and be filled with fifty of those devils, along with emerging brood. Yikes. If they were a foot tall, we'd never have made it as a species.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

We get a species that for me is difficult to tell from a bee, but totally different to a bumble bee!
There is also a wood wasp, which I don't recall seeing here, but is quite big by all accounts.

In Greece, there are these narrow waisted things things that fly around with a sting a good inch long!! hock:

I was stung by a bumble bee once....thought it was a dried up leaf in my collar......poor thing! :roll: