BDN health blog quotes Dill in post about black flies
Jim Dill, a pest management specialist with University of Maine Cooperative, was quoted in a Bangor Daily News blog post about “little-known” black fly facts. When black flies bite they inject an anticoagulant to prevent blood from clotting, which can cause a mild to severe allergic reaction in some people, Diane Atwood wrote in her Catching Health blog post. “People who move to Maine often have moderate to severe reactions to black fly bites for their first two to three years in Maine,” Dill said. When it comes to protection, Dill said repellents work well. For gardeners, he also suggests wearing a hard hat covered with baby oil. “A light-colored, oil-covered hard hat seems to help attract them and they get stuck in the baby oil,” he said. He added that black flies breed in clean running water and the populations remain about the same from year to year.