All you FL peeps!!!

I just got back from vacation at Vero Beach,Fl. There were these crazy swarms of black bugs that were paired together what seemed like the whole time while they were flying, walking, chillen, etc. The people working at the resort said they were called Love Bugs. Is that just what their nickname or is that their real name. I have been to Vero beach many of times over the past 10 yrs and Ive never noticed them before. These things were everywhere when you looked out the window it looked like little black clouds flying all over the place. Is this a yearly thing or something along the lines of every 5 or 10 yrs that they really hit the area in high concentration numbers. Also when they do come how long do they stay around for? I know they are at least around for more then 2-3 days cause it was still like that when I left FL on Sunday. Or is it a longer time frame of weeks or even months? Thanks for all the info in advance. While I was on vacation trying to figure what these damn things were I was thinking to myself that when I got home I would ask the almighty BBS cause I was sure somebody on here would know the answer. Thanks again Dave

 

Yep, love bugs. They show up every year for a few weeks, flying around like a million little mile-high clubs.

Wash the guts off of your car/bike as soon as possible; it's horrible for the paint (and gross).

 

Who vacations in Vero Beach, FL? You a big fan of baseball training camp?

 

Ah, love bug season. It's times like these I'm glad I have boxes of Honda Polish and Cleaner. Flying around, minding their own business, getting their sex on, only to then find themselves and millions others splattered all over a car, bike, or truck.

 

Gatorade and Love Bugs - two things to come out of the University of Florida. They were genetically engineered to eat leaf litter and now have become an epidemic of sorts. Sometimes we get them 2-3 times a year, sometimes (rarely) not at all. Its said that the amount of rain and the amount of leaf litter there is determines their breeding cycle.

 

A good number of years back a few of us had the misfortune of riding back across the alley through what looked like plague level swarms of these things. We stopped at a self serve carwash to hose off the bikes and it smelled like a bin full of dead fish. Just nasty. Helmets were nasty for weeks thereafter too.

 

You're half right.
Gatorade yes, lovebugs no.

 

Yep, last couple of years havent been too bad. This year is making up for it. :wow::down:
Cheers, Lee S.

 

This year is making up for the past years and any future year. I've gone through a pack of tear-offs the past two weeks just from riding around 441.

 

I remember a year those things descended on Daytoona during a 200,never enough tearoffs and missed my pit in for 10 laps till they let her get closer to the track to wave the board in my face

 

They haven't been all the bad in my parts of Fl this year. Usually come twice a year (spring/fall). Wash them off the paint ASAP or your paint job will suffer!!! They don't taste all that great. Welcome to Florida.

 

Those are Flying Fornications. They eat nothing, are eaten BY nothing, serve no purpose whatever.

I've had to race in them before. Tear-offs x 20

 

I'm not kidding, this works. When you wash your car, take a dryer softener sheet (once used is ok) and dip it in the soap and use it to wash the bugs off. My FL native mom (RIP) showed me this, don't know where she got it.

 

Luckily the severe drought has kept them down around here.

 

Hey Travis. Tell everyone what your nickname is at Jennings.

 

i wipe down the front of my vehicles with a wd40 soaked rag. Then they will blow right off when ya wash it. Some people have used Pam cooking spray..but i don't cook.. Yea, 2 times a year for a few weeks is pretty typical. Nasty friggin things, at least they don't bite!

 

Oh My GAWD. I have a 32' Renegade open Fisherman with twin Verados and we took t out a few weks ago and I tried cleaning it when we got back that night and there was probably 10,000 of them fuckers stuck inside the hull after I hosed the inside of the boat down, so I came back the next morning and I can usually put the cover on the boat in 5 minutes. It took me an hour because i'd hose it down, pull the cover a foot, hose it down, pull the cover another foot. UGH.
Plus we have to wash our front ends every day cause the love bugs eat at your paint over night if left on

 

Oh ya, and as soon as their done "screwing" the male dies LOL