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Post by simosg on Jun 27, 2012 10:22:09 GMT -8
I have made my first experiences with a bait trap now. There are two things I have never read in this case:
1) Due to a large amount of ants at my trap I have sprayed ant-poison at the limb the trap was suspended and also at some parts of the trap. After this I have taken all leps out of the trap, there was no reaction to the ant-poison, excepting fluttering around when I was spraying. Some hours later I have controlled the trap again. The ants where dead, and also most of the leps which got into the trap after spraying the poison. So preparing the trap with ant-poison seems to be a good way, if you can't controll the trap every day or if you want to avoid noctuids without hairs at their thorax. Apart from that I would not do this, if I could control the trap more often, because there are leps killed, which I would have let go.
2) It is hard to get noctuids out of thre trap, they are fluttering around till I get them and are loosing hairs. I don't want to use poison if it is not neccessary, as I mentioned above. I have the idea to spray them a little with cooling spray to immobilize them. Has everyone tried this?
Best regards, Hannes
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leptraps
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Posts: 2,397
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Post by leptraps on Jun 28, 2012 4:11:02 GMT -8
I have been designing and using bait traps for over 40 years. Here is my method for keeping ants and mice and any other creature that enters the bait trap via the tether or rope secured to a tree.
Mix the following:
Small 2 oz. jar of Vaseline.
Small bottle of Tabasco sauce
1/4 cup of insecticides (I like Ortho)
Mix thoroughly. Use rubber gloves and rub your tether or rope with the mixture.
The Vaseline will hold the mixture together and reduce the speed of evaporation of the insecticide. The Tabasco sauce with give mice a hot foot, also lizards and any rodent that may travel the tether/rope to visit the trap. I once found a mouse thrashing about on the ground under my trap attempting to lick and kick the out souce off of his paws. I was mean spirited and let him suffer...........
To prevent hornets and other insects from chewing the screen. Soak the trap in insecticide, let it dry thoroughly and then set it out. Nylon Coated Fiberglass screen will retain the insecticides for a month or more. When checking your trap, empty out the specimens and spray the trap with Raid Cock Roach Eliminator. Again, the screen will absorb the insecticide and refresh the material that was soaked.
Do not allow the insecticide to come in contact with the bait, bait container or the platform. To prevent the insecticide from being absorbed by the wood platform caused by rain run off from the screen. Simply wash your platform with Rain X. The is a water repellent that is used to reduce water puddling on the windshields of cars.
Bait Traps made of PolyPro Rayon Mesh (Netting) will not absorb any of the above mentioned materials.
I have collected 22 species of Catocala to date this year. And the season is early......
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Post by jshuey on Jul 16, 2012 5:47:46 GMT -8
There are two simple things you can do to reduce the number of ants that get into a trap. One - replace the top hanger chords with mono-filament fish line. This is so thin that ants don't walk down the line to enter the trap. In the attached photo, the fishing line is almost invisible. Two - make sure that the trap is not touching any leaves of surrounding vegetation. Ants will use adjacent plants to enter the traps. In six weeks of collecting with 12 of these in Brasil last year - I had ants get into the traps just twice. By the way - these traps are essentially the same collapsible traps that BioQuip sells (I bought a dozen directly from the Chinese manufacturer though). I modified them by making the internal funnel opening much larger to accommodate Morpho and Caligo. And I switched out the hanger from a broad rope to the fish line. It takes about an hour to modify each trap - so not too much work. I've used these now in Brasil and the Dominican Republic for a few weeks - and they performed pretty well. But mostly - I love that they weigh almost nothing and collapse into a small purse size package for travel. Attachments:
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Post by simosg on Jul 16, 2012 10:00:09 GMT -8
Thank you for the fish line tip.
Hannes
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Post by Christof on Jul 17, 2012 4:17:44 GMT -8
There are two simple things you can do to reduce the number of ants that get into a trap. One - replace the top hanger chords with mono-filament fish line. This is so thin that ants don't walk down the line to enter the trap. In the attached photo, the fishing line is almost invisible. Two - make sure that the trap is not touching any leaves of surrounding vegetation. Ants will use adjacent plants to enter the traps. In six weeks of collecting with 12 of these in Brasil last year - I had ants get into the traps just twice. By the way - these traps are essentially the same collapsible traps that BioQuip sells (I bought a dozen directly from the Chinese manufacturer though). I modified them by making the internal funnel opening much larger to accommodate Morpho and Caligo. And I switched out the hanger from a broad rope to the fish line. It takes about an hour to modify each trap - so not too much work. I've used these now in Brasil and the Dominican Republic for a few weeks - and they performed pretty well. But mostly - I love that they weigh almost nothing and collapse into a small purse size package for travel. It seems you are collecting in Brazil? Would you kindly let me know how you managed to get a permit? Sorry to ask you this, but it seems so awfully difficult to get one! |
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Post by jshuey on Jul 19, 2012 7:08:35 GMT -8
It seems you are collecting in Brazil? Would you kindly let me know how you managed to get a permit? Sorry to ask you this, but it seems so awfully difficult to get one! It was indeed pretty difficult to accomplish. But I work for The Nature Conservancy, which has a record of major conservation engagement in Brasil, I partnered with SPVS (Sociedade de Pesquisa em Vida Selvagem) to conduct research at one of the sites they own and manage, I had a sponsor at the Federal University of Paraná to push the application through, and I hired several graduate students from the university to help me. Without a lot of help from friends, it would not have happened. As it was, we did not get the permit in our hands until we were on site for the third (and final) sampling effort. We had to store all the specimens from the first two trips at the University and hope that the permit came through - which of course it did and I was a very happy guy! John |
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Post by papilio28570 on Aug 13, 2012 17:54:23 GMT -8
Add some port wine or German beer to your bait. The alcohol will sedate the bugs and make them much easier to handle.
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Post by simosg on Aug 14, 2012 10:12:09 GMT -8
I have done red wine into the bait, probably to much. It didn't ferment. I have read here that naturally fermented baits ar emor powerful than baits with attached alcohol.
Hannes
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