Chiggers anyone?

Berry bugs are some kind of mite, mainly found in the East of Scotland and the Carse of Gowrie. As kids on holiday at my granny's in Fife, we were usually covered in itchy bumps, as was our boxer dog. The rasps were worth it though.
The 'chiggers' I knew in East Africa were a tropical flea, the female of which burrows and lays eggs beneath the host's skin, causing painful sores.
I got one in my foot once and it had to be removed in A&E.

Skin so Soft works for me, I spray it on in the morning before I go out, and it keeps them off.

One piece of advice, though:

If you know where these horrors are getting on you (in my case it started at my allotment, though these days it's my lawns too), strip and have a hot shower as soon as you can afterwards, and either wash the clothes or hang them out in the sun to kill the critters.

It seems that they don't bite you straight away, and doing the above made a huge difference for me.

MiniMoon

I know them as harvest mites. Horrid bitey little things.

Me too.

These invisible menaces started late here this year - I didn't get my first bites until a couple of weeks ago, and it's usually earlier than that.

I only started being bitten by them - or at least having visible red itchy spots - about thirteen years ago. It took me ages to work out what was responsible, because apart from not being able to see the culprits, the spots were not appearing until the day after they had climbed aboard me, so I didn't make the link. I actually suspected bed bugs for a while,

To begin with, I would count the bites, but I gave up after I had over fifty at once, and as is typical, the vast majority of them were in places where clothing is tight (around the sock, bra and knicker lines, for instance) or in joints where skin folds, such as behind the knees.

I find the itching lessens once I have scratched the top off them and put on a plaster with a liberal amount of oil-based germolene

Ditto about scratching, elegran, then I slaster on Tiger Balm. Works with mosquito bites too.

Tiger Balm is great for itchy bites. We have a jar of it in every room.

Interestingly, I've only had a couple of dozen tick bites this year so far. This time last year I'd had over 90.

But the clegs and ants are doing their best ?

The latest I read about them, SueDonim is that they are not nearly as invasive (!) as was originally believed. Just as itchy, though. The itch goes away after about 4 days (but by then you have another load of them)

I find the itching lessens once I have scratched the top off them and put on a plaster with a liberal amount of oil-based germolene (from a yellow tube - not the pink tube, which is water-based)

I truly, truly, truly wish I hadn’t Googled that. ???

I know them as harvest mites. Horrid bitey little things.

Elegran oh yes we did.

I know about Scottish rasps! Yummy. Also we are busy picking our autumn rasps at the moment (in N.Yorkshire) so that’s another factor. Interesting to hear the different names for the little critters,

Thanks for the heads up - they sound horrid. A place I visit frequently will be cutting the meadow soon so I shall be prepared.

Elegran - Scottish raspberries are lovely. They don't seem to get squashed in the box as some others do. An annual treat, thank you.

Elegran

I know about Scottish raspberries! Very nice they are too. ?

Trombicula. Also known in east Scotland as berry bugs, due to their prevalence in the raspberry season For the last month I return from the most fleeting visit to the garden with several new itchy lumps to drive me mad.

(I bet you Sassenachs didn't know that vast raspberry crops are grown in Scotland, mostly for jam and canning.)

Hugely prevalent in France when we lived there, known as aoûtats, they get into washing hanging out to dry too, so it needs a good shake before it’s bought in.
Fortunately we don’t get them with our UK lifestyle.