It is a move that would have been unthinkable only a year ago.

Members of the Maine Blackfly Breeders Association are preparing to extend the olive branch to their longtime arch enemy — a shadowy group they call the “mosquito coalition.”

“In the interests of world peace, we going to meet in West Virginia when the Syrians are done,” said Marilyn Dowling of Jonesboro. “If the Israelis and the Syrians and the Irish and English in Northern Ireland can work together, so can we.”

But, said Jim Wells, the Hollywood Fly Association will not be included in the talks.

“They represent no-see-ums and other insects that are too small to pass a screen test,” Wells said dismissively.

“Those California people are really out there,” agrees Holly Garner-Jackson.

The three are the inner circle of the MBBA, an organization that has grown to more than 70 members in the past five years. While Washington County residents form the nucleus of the black fly support group, MBBA boasts members in a number of states, including California, Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Virginia.

Started by Peter Clarkson Crolius, who died in 1994, the Maine Blackfly Breeders Association carries on the tradition that Crolius began when he placed fictional ads advertising black fly brew in area newspapers.

Crolius, who lived in the Washington County town of Marshfield, was a 1954 graduate of Cornell University, the founder of the North Carolina Zoo and a manager of the Erie Canal Restoration Project in New York State. He helped establish the Ira C. Darling Marine Sciences Center at the University of Maine and set up Maine’s first mail-order business for commercial craftspeople.

Crolius was also chairman emeritus of the MBBA, a position he did not neglect to mention when he composed his own obituary shortly before his death.

One morning earlier this month, Dowling, Garner-Jackson and Wells met for a MBBA breakfast summit at the Bluebird Ranch Family Restaurant in Machias. Sporting purple T-shirts advertising Gritty’s Black Fly Stout and holding mugs emblazoned with “Black Fly Roast Coffee — the buzz that just keeps going”, they talked of new projects and toasted the past year’s accomplishments.

Garner-Jackson said holiday sales of black fly house ornaments for Christmas and Hanukkah were brisk. Shoppers also liked the tiny black fly mobile homes complete with tires on the roof and propane tanks painted on the side.

Wells, a retired clinical psychologist, and Dowling, an illustrator and sign painter, are busily constructing more housing, including six- and eight-unit Black Fly Condos.

“These grew out of our deep concern for the large number of homeless black flies in our area,” said Wells, who manufactures the small wooden structures in his Machiasport workshop before sending them to Jonesboro for Dowling to decorate.

The completed items are sold in Garner-Jackson’s art shop — the Woodwind Gallery in Machias.

Second in line after housing is the black fly’s need for recreation. Dowling said. The group believes black flies devote their time to sucking blood because they don’t have much else to do.

MBBA is in the process of constructing Black Fly Country Clubs, complete with pro shop, Black Fly Candle Pin Bowling Alleys, and a number of quaint hangouts they call Ye Olde BlackFlye Inn and Tavern.

“We don’t think they should drink and fly, but we don’t want to know what goes on at the inn,” said Garner-Jackson.

MBBA has its own black fly breeding facility — a top-secret installation in Jonesboro — and the population at the hatchery is climbing into the billions, Dowling said.

But the group is growing concerned about the food supply for the young insects now that salmon fishermen are barred from the rivers. Another blood drive may be needed and volunteers may have to fill in for the salmon fishermen by standing around in the rivers, they said.

Meanwhile, MBBA is planning its second annual convention at the Bluebird on Feb. 30. The event will be an important one and they’re lining up millennium speakers.

For all of its fun, the Maine Black Fly Breeders Association also has a serious side. For the past two years, Dowling and Garner-Jackson have been top fund-raisers for the Down East AIDS Network through their participation in the group’s annual Walk for Life. This past year, the $1,700 the MBBA team brought in was a close second to a group in Bar Harbor, they said.

Last fall, MBBA sponsored Priscilla Reinersen, a professor at the University of New Hampshire and former national women’s canoe champion, and Barry Fifield of Gray in an international three-day canoe race in Canada.

Reinersen, now a member, said she was thrilled to represent MBBA and bring their cause to the attention of North America.

MBBA is actively recruiting and say they welcome people from all walks of life as long as they can complete the initiation process.

Dowling said applicants must dress in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt and spend at least 15 minutes in the Jacksonville Cemetery on Memorial Day without swatting.

“And no bug dope,” adds Garner-Jackson. “Black flies don’t need drugs.”

Wells said using black fly bite tattoos in an attempt to fool the judges is strictly prohibited.

“Counterfeit bites won’t make it,” he warned.