At your wit's end? Here are some more… unconventional methods to rid yourself of midges. Bog myrtle is a plant found throughout the Highlands which is apparently effective at repelling midges. Tie it to your hat for maximum protection (but don't tell anyone else what you're doing, just own it). The western highlands of the Scottish mainland, and also the Scottish islands. The Great Glen, Glen Coe, Fort William - any of the main nature/hiking areas - will have a problem with Scottish midges on warm, wet still days between May and September. For others, the bite could be a lot more worrisome. It really depends on the type of person who got bitten. Are midge bites serious?Midge bites are harmless but if the skin around the bite becomes broken it could become infected.

We do take precautions which may have helped last year eg, one of those citronella candles, the cloth bracelet things with the anti midge stuff soaked onto it ( Towsure ) and neither the missus or the kids or me have ever had so much as a bite. Even bought one of those electric " insectocutor " machines, never used it, waste of money and taking up space in the van.

You can use neem oil to keep midges out. Buy a bottle of this and add a few drops to a cup of water. The Highland biting midge has a wingspan of just 1.4mm and weighs just an 8000th of a gram each. With the aid of a microscope, the biting midge Culicoides impunctatus can be distinguished from the non-biting Chironomidae by: Pregnant females will let off this pheromone for other female midges, which explains why midges can appear all of a sudden in a huge swarm. The speed at which midges reproduce is temperature dependent. In the UK, you might get two or three generations a year. In the hot and steamy environment of Cameroon, where I’ve worked as a medical entomologist, you might see a new generation emerging every three weeks. Adult females lay their eggs in the water or on the margins of water. The eggs hatch into free-living larvae which go through several moults before they pupate. The adult emerges and sits on its empty case for a moment to open its wings before buzzing off. Midge’s primary nourishment comes from flower nectar and other high-sugar juices, such as plant sap.

Honestly, the way some folks goon and on about the old Midges, you'd think the were the size of Dinosaurs. When a female biting midge finds a potential target, she also releases pheromones to her other female friends to come join the party. Visiting west Scotland is still viable in the cooler months; September and May, in particular, can still have great weather conditions. East Scotland has much less of a midge problem, and even the Cairngorm National Parkis feasible in the summer months. Is there a best time of day for midges? The apparent boundary between air and water of ponds and other bodies of water is masked by a layer of lipoprotein leached from organic materials. Within this ‘membrane’ live all kinds of microorganisms – bacteria and so on. Some of it drops in from above and some of it rises up from below. Hundreds of species depend on the ‘membrane’ for food as well as on the prey that inhabits it. Changes to the structure and content of this membrane will affect all these species.Lowland areas with consistent wind and away from water are your best chances for midge free areas in Scotland. Coastal areas (West Coast beaches, we're looking at you) can often be midge free. Scotland's great outdoors is vast and expansive, so you should be able to find somewhere in the summer that's less likely to be a midge fest. WORST PLACES FOR MIDGES IN SCOTLAND?