Agitated Giant Thrips: how to properly deal with them?

Question

The number one cause of death on my Fortress is: attack by flying insects.

As they don't activate the Cage Traps, because they don't touch the ground, which are the possible ways to deal with this frequent menace?

Version: 0.50 (Steam).

What has been tried so far:

1. Order squads to kill the insects: they kill the insects easily because they are armored, armed, and well-trained. But they can only reach the insects after some of my civil dwaves were already killed by just one insect, so some live loss is inevitable this way, and I lose important skilled dwarves this way;
2. Call the civil dwarves to an emergency burrow: they are able to hide deep in the fortress, were the insects don't reach easily, but, like item 1, they take some time to get there and some live loss is inevitable this way.

Answer 1

You can use schedules to set some military dwarves on patrol outside where your workers have to go. With schedules you can make squads rotate too, so it isn't always the same one on duty. Basically with 3 squads, you could always have 1 on guard duty, 1 resting, and 1 training at all times.

Answer 2

First your fortress entrance should be sealed in a way that prevents even flying enemies to enter, ideally via a construction that can be opened and closed on demand as a draw bridge. This means you only run into problems with dwarfs going outside.

Second dwarfs should have few and in the long run no need to ever go to the surface. Random dwarfs can be confined to 'inside the fortress' with burrows. An underground forest is a big engineering project that requires lightly flooding a big underground space to create mud after the water evaporates. This gives you wood and allows grazing of animals inside the fortress. One can even build a 'green house' by covering an area with glass to grow outdoor plants inside.