bucket light trap

[chrisw]

I bought a bucket light trap from Bioquip before they closed shop. I have used it a couple of times in the back yard as a live catch trap.
I would like to set it up as a kill trap when I bring it to Arizona in a couple of weeks. I have tried filling a small plastic jar with ethyl acetate, drilling a hole in the lid and using a tiki torch wick to bring out the fumes. This did not bring out enough of the ethyl acetate fumes to kill anything.

Does anyone have any suggestions for making a suitable wick?

[Chris Grinter]

I just use a rolled up paper towel. Use a few sheets, roll it tightly, make sure it touches the bottom of the jar and you can fray the top a little to help evaporation. Works perfect and easy to swap when it's covered in scales.

[Chuck]

In a pinch you can do as I do and pour rubbing alcohol in the bucket.

[KKarns]

Hey Chris, As my interest is in beetles, I just put in soapy water so I'm not much help if you don't want wet moths! I came up with something to significantly increase my catch of beetles after my first use of a bucket trap in Arizona. I checked on the trap that was set-up at Madera Canyon well after dark and noticed the large number of beetles that were landing just short of the trap. I purchased some black plastic shallow pans and placed six around the base of the bucket half filled with soapy water. I caught more beetles in these pans than I did in the trap itself.

[Marsdenda]

I use 1/2 pint paint cans. You can cut a 3/4 by 3/8 hole in the lid and cut a sponge to fit down in the can it will let out the ethyl acetate all night even in the warm Arizona desert. If you get the screw top cans they are even easier as you can get extra caps and put the sponge in one cap and use the other to seal the full can of ethyl acetate until you are ready to set up the trap then switch caps to the one with the sponge. Make sure the sponge goes all the way to the bottom of the can and the part of the sponge sticking out of the can should be about 2" by 2" if it is too big it gives off to much evaporation of the ethyl acetate and too small not enough.

On a good night in Southern Arizona your trap can be full, especially in the Hylas lineata are abundant.

Dave

[chrisw]

These are all great ideas. Thank you everyone. I especially like the idea of placing small pans of soapy water around the outside of the trap to capture beetles.

[jhyatt]

Kill efficiency depends a lot of wind velocity. On a really breezy night, the ethyl acetate fumes seem to get blown out of the trap and reduce efficiency. I generally use two paper-towel wick acetate jars in a trap made from a 5-gallon bucket.
jh

[Chris Grinter]

One thought on breezy nights (or traps that get sphingids that really pump air around), you should go to lengths to reduce airflow in your rain drain. The Leroy Koehn traps are nice but have a giant gaping hole in them and require 2-4 acetate cups to work. But if you wad-up some newspaper in the drain that'll help reduce airflow. Here in CA I can guarantee it won't rain most of the year, so I completely block my rain drain with a screw in PVC cap. Even a hot winy night will only consume 1/2 jar acetate. My rain drain is also a small funnel that screws into the bottom of the trap, so much more effective at reducing airflow.

And if you use sponges don't forget to clean them. Lep scales will build up and prevent wicking.

[biscuit153]

Anyone prefer to use liquid ammonia versus ethyl acetate as killing agent in BL trap? Or why not? I appreciate the wick idea - I will have to try that. I have generally used a small jar covered by a piece of screening to contain my killing agent (usually liquid ammonia household cleaner)

[mswisher]

I have used Hot Shot No Pest Strips to good effect.

[adamcotton]

I have used Hot Shot No Pest Strips to good effect.

I didn't realise Vapona worked that quickly.

Adam.

[Chuck]

Hey Chris, As my interest is in beetles, I just put in soapy water so I'm not much help if you don't want wet moths! I came up with something to significantly increase my catch of beetles after my first use of a bucket trap in Arizona. I checked on the trap that was set-up at Madera Canyon well after dark and noticed the large number of beetles that were landing just short of the trap. I purchased some black plastic shallow pans and placed six around the base of the bucket half filled with soapy water. I caught more beetles in these pans than I did in the trap itself.

Thanks for the tip!

Last night I wanted to see what the UV would draw, so skipped the MV and put the 18W UV bucket trap out. The bucket is translucent, so the glow of the bulb lights up the whole bucket; I've often wondered if this was a problem.

20 minutes after starting the trap I found a Cerambycid on the deck a couple meters away, and thought about your post. So I grabbed a foil pan, set the bucket into it, and filled the pan with soapy water.

Mirroring your report, I got more insects in the pan than in the bucket.

Note that "dead" insects in the soapy water may not be. I brought a few Arctiids to the office to set, and after drying out a bit they "came back to life" and tried to crawl away. Given the flight time, they'd been in the soapy water several hours yet were still alive.

Does anyone want mixed, unsorted by-catch? The bucket (and now soapy water) method leaves hundreds of smalls of all orders.

Chuck

[Jshuey]

I have used Hot Shot No Pest Strips to good effect.

I didn't realise Vapona worked that quickly.

Adam.

It's worth noting that handling vapona by hand is dangerous - the toxin is easily absorbed through the skin. I had a friend who sampled weekly using a combination of ethyl acetate (for quick knock down) and vapona (for the kill), and she developed irreversible tremors from the vapona contact. At minimum, where rubber gloves.

John

[KKarns]

Hey Chuck, Glad the set-up worked well. Right...I run the soapy water with the catch through a sieve and then dump the mess into a zip lock and add alcohol. This of course preserves the bugs and also does the final kill, if anything is still hanging on! I can then sort the catch at my leisure.