These are the devices that have a bottle of propane and a small flame to send out a plume of warm steamy CO2 and a bottle of octenol, which is the alcohol that cows exhale when they digest cellulose. The results can be spectacular and there are claims that they do work over a period of time because they de-populate the area within midge or mozzie flying distance of the machine.

Here: http://www.midge-terminator.co.uk/

I’m wondering if they really do work and if a couple sited around a campsite would really reduce the midge population and allow the owner to claim “midge free” or at least “midge controlled”, which I’d have thought would add quite a lot of value to a campsite.

They use them in the highlands a lot and they are pretty effective.

I am a very effective midge magnet 🙁

I am a very effective minge magnet*

The above statement may not be 100% true 😕

Even Harry Potter couldn’t defeat the midges…

But the midge magnet could!!

My immediate neighbour here in western Yorkshire Dales has used one for several years. Despite showing them showing me an impressive catch of midges at this time of year, they still can’t sit outside during optimum midge conditions (such as we had over the weekend). So they may work, but not convinced they’re effective enough!

catches 250,000 a day!!

£520.00 though… 😯

sounds great, how do i fit one in my bivi kit?

I guess they are less effective when it’s windy because the wind will bring new midges into range. The ideal condition would be completely still.

We just need more bats trained to fly around campsites 🙂

guess they are less effective when it’s windy

but then again, aren’t midges as well? I thought they need pretty still conditions to come out? anything above 4-5mph winds will see them off won’t it?

My car is a midge magnet, but only when moving.

The big one can remove millions a day 😯 does that have an effect on the food chain?

Rothiemurchus campsite has 3 and I’ve never had a midge problem there. Glenmore doesn’t (or didn’t) and it was hell there. Annecdotal obviously, but I know where I stay now…

We used to have a midgeater, a bigger, similar thing that works in the same way, at our old house. It was a pile of rotting stone in the bottom of a dank, gloomy valley: midge heaven. It certainly caught billions of the little **** but you still couldn’t hang about outside when they were really biting, it’s not like it vacuums them all up instantly. They just keep on coming.

does that have an effect on the food chain?

I doubt it. If there was anything that actually ate midgies it’d be overrunning the highlands by now…

Is that terrified looking family running down the hill to escape the midges or the midge terminator?

Rothiemurchus campsite has 3 and I’ve never had a midge problem there. Glenmore doesn’t (or didn’t) and it was hell there. Annecdotal obviously, but I know where I stay now…

This is wonderful news as we’re off there next week.

The big flaw here is that it is based on there being a finite number of midges – which is absolutely not true!

If evolution was kind, some big floaty whale animal would evolve to swim through the air, sucking up all the little buggers like krill.

The big one can remove millions a day does that have an effect on the food chain?

No, somebody told me that the midges are actually the consequence of an environmental disaster – most of Scotland was forested with deciduous trees many centuries ago and the resident birds and bats would have eaten most of the midges. However pastoralists and later industry and shipbuilding caused all the trees to be cut down and now all that remains is about 1% deciduous and a few more percent commercial forestry.

You can often find rotten old tree stumps if you dig around in the peat in remote parts of Scotland.

The big flaw here is that it is based on there being a finite number of midges – which is absolutely not true!

The midge magnet works by reducing the numbers of breeding mozzies or midges within flying distance. Once you’d achieved that, which takes a few weeks, the population would take a few months to recover if you switched the magnet off. Winter frost does the job around November.