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Fighting Back! (Stinkbug Trap)

  • Thread starter Zath
  • Start date

Zath

Enthusiastic Enthusiast
Been looking around for ways to combat these invasive little sap-sucking asterisks...and stumbled across this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwUuHhWYvDA


Except...I decided to modify it slightly, and in my humble opinion, create an equally effective trap with superior insecticidal potential. Therefore, I've decided to make a photographic tutorial. (Also because it's fun to build stuff and take pictures...)

Uncle Sam wants YOU......to KILL STINK-BUGS!

Get yourself:

A plastic bottle (I used a 1-liter)
Scissors
Cardboard (preferably thin, single-layer stuff. I used the side of a beer case <.< )
Masking tape
Duct-tape (or can stick with masking tape, just might not be as sturdy)
Battery-powered LED cabinet light (I used a Sylvania "Dot-it")
Sharpie
Razor-blade, X-acto knife, box-cutter, laser-scalpel, etc.

materials.jpg


Using your sharpie, scribe a straight line near the top of the bottle;

scribing-line.jpg


...and cut that sucker (as cleanly as possible with few or no jagged edges)

bottle-cut.jpg


Now take your cardboard, cut to size with scissors, and tape it together in a tight tube around the bottom half of the bottle. Leave a bit of extra room for the light at the bottom:

cardboard-tube.jpg


Now invert the top of the bottle and insert into the body, and run masking tape strips down the sides (so the little sap-suckers can climb to their deaths):

scotch-tape-ladders.jpg


Fill the bottle with an inch or two of soapy water (to suffocate, drown, and otherwise befuddle the evil critters) into the bottle, place the tube over the light, and slide the bottle into the tube. Turn the light on before you go to bed, and turn it off when you get up the next day.

finished-trap.jpg


The little sap-suckers should be attracted to the light at night and investigate, resulting in a soapy death that's too good for them.
 
Interesting idea. Where do you plan on setting the trap up?
 
Not sure yet. I've made two so far, so one is going inside the growspace near the Nepenthes. Might put another one outside the door on the ground to try and catch some before they make their way inside.

No luck catching any last night, but it's not as if the house is infested with them. Just enough to irk me and cause damage to the Neps if I ignore them. :/
 
why kill them?
 
why kill them?

If attacking your Nepenthes isn't enough of a reason, they're an invasive species that doesn't belong in the country, and are attacking various food-crops en masse.

(Edit) This is referring to the Brown Marmorated Stink-Bug in particular.
 
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they're an invasive species that doesn't belong in the country,

Some would say that that also applies to those homo sapiens with European ancestry
 
Interesting, I rarely get any indoors here though they are plentiful outdoors. On the occasion that I catch one, it goes into a Nepenthes pitcher. They're way too strong for any sundew to hold on.
 
Where are the legs?
 
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