Ant-

That was a super read...I for one enjoyed it thoroughly

Thanks for posting here!

Roland

Allergies are an an ever increasing problem as we put mor e allergines in the environment.We can react anything ,natural or otherwise. I'm very allergic to chemicals .I tracked down one after a shooting match the hard way. It had no smell but produced incredibily intence migraine that lasted close to 8 hours !!
Be careful and try to stay away from unfamiliar things.

My mom suffers badly from both mosquitos and black flies. She swell up pretty badly and during our trip to the valley in 2010 the tsetses beat her up pretty badly.

Dang
I hope she got through it okay?...did she have some antihistamine cream/ointment to aid in some relief?

Though I can handle mosquito bites its the tsetse fly bites that have my attention to any adverse reaction because of my known allergy to bee stings

Also, I should've added and questioned...Mopane Bees as well

Thanks for posting!

Roland

Mopane flies which are indeed actually bees are stingless so you should be OK there.

FWIW, although they don't make much honey because they're so small, what they do make is fabulous!

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
Mopane flies which are indeed actually bees are stingless so you should be OK there.

FWIW, although they don't make much honey because they're so small, what they do make is fabulous!

Thanks mate much appreciated

FWIW, one way to reduce the number of tsetse fly bites to the legs is to wear slightly extra long trousers and high boots and tuck the trousers into the boots before lacing them up and it'll also help keep the ticks off as well.

I also used to often wear a very light camo mesh jacket made of material similar to mosquito netting...... it's not the whole answer but does reduce the number of times you get bitten considerably. I think I bought it from Cabela's and IIRC it wasn't dramatically expensive.

Other things that help and are worth considering are one of those wildebeest tail fly swats you can buy in the native markets and hotels etc, light gloves, shemagh or light scarf and for post bite, one of those little electric zapper pens...... I actually carry a larger version that is supposed to be used for arthritis in the hands so presumably a higher voltage but it works a treat on tsetse fly bites.

BigUglyMan,

Looks like your Mother got hammered. I wouldn't be surprised if she takes some kind of anti clotting medication such as warfarin which unfortunately often seems to make the effect of the tsetse fly bites worse.

quote:

Originally posted by Frostbit:
Are they present in any numbers near the Niassa Reserve, Moz?

If you go to the east of the block C along the Luambeze,then Yes.