# Feeder insect trap



## cloud jaguar (Oct 22, 2008)

My 6 year old boy brought home instructions from school about how to make an insect trap - I built it with him and it works fine! Yesterday we caught 4 houseflies and one yellowjacket hornet in short order.

To make the trap:

1) Drain, empty and wash a 2 liter soda bottle.

2) Cut the bottle about 1/2 inch below where the funnel shaped part on top meets the rest of the bottle.

3) Invert the funnel part so that it fits within the bottle base and trim to size when the inverted funnel part of the bottle is centered.

4) About 1/4 inch down from the top of the bottle trap (the edge you cut), use leather punch or office hole punch make a set of holes on opposite ends of the bottle.

5) Put a 20" of string though both parts of the bottle trap and tie.

6) Bait, hang and wait.

When bugs get trapped in there put the whole contraption in the freezer for a bit like usual.

Now your trap should look like a soda bottle with the top cut off and inverted, held together loosely by a string when hung. When you unhang it hold the loose top on so that it does not free the flies prematurely!

Two things about this method:

1) caught flies probably ate turd and are unclean so don't touch

2) this is not a sustainable feeding method for more than a couple of mantids and your haul will be minimal when it is cold i think.

My kid loved capturing the flies and feeding them to the mantids!


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## MantidLord (Oct 22, 2008)

Arkanis said:


> My 6 year old boy brought home instructions from school about how to make an insect trap - I built it with him and it works fine! Yesterday we caught 4 houseflies and one yellowjacket hornet in short order. To make the trap:
> 
> 1) Drain, empty and wash a 2 liter soda bottle.
> 
> ...


Thanks, I'll try when it gets warmer.


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## pedro92 (Oct 23, 2008)

Any picture instructions?


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## cloud jaguar (Oct 23, 2008)

Chameleonaire, there is the link I see on the bottom of the page with trap instructions:

http://insected.arizona.edu/flyrear.htm

~Arkanis


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## pedro92 (Oct 25, 2008)

Arkanis said:


> Chameleonaire, there is the link I see on the bottom of the page with trap instructions: http://insected.arizona.edu/flyrear.htm
> 
> ~Arkanis


Thank you very much.


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## Katnapper (Oct 27, 2008)

Thanks, Arkanis, for this idea... I will definitely try this when we get back to Spring again!  

I've used a similar trap (quart jars with paper funnels taped to the top, filled with about an inch or so of vinegar with sugar and fruit scraps) to resolve a kitchen fruit fly outbreak one time. But never really thought about using that method to catch larger flying food for the mantids. Can't beat it for catching the little flying buggers, so it ought to work pretty good for the bigger variety too!


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## darkspeed (Oct 31, 2008)

Stick the absorbant pad they stick under the fresh meat you buy from the supermarket (usually glued to the styrofoam plate it comes in) and you will attract more flies than you need... leave it open for a couple days and you willl end up with a housefly culture.


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## cloud jaguar (Oct 31, 2008)

DARKSPEED said:


> Stick the absorbant pad they stick under the fresh meat you buy from the supermarket (usually glued to the styrofoam plate it comes in) and you will attract more flies than you need... leave it open for a couple days and you willl end up with a housefly culture.


Thanks Darkspeed, for the idea of using that as bait! The success of that first day's trapping must have been a fluke because since then I have caught few.

These are the baits I used:

HONEY on paper towel: zero (not even a melanogaster)

CRUSHED GRAPES: black ants, melanogaster, some bitty black gnats

MOISTENED DRY CAT FOOD: zero

WET CAT FOOD: yellowjackets (best technique i found for these is a lump of wet cat food at the back of a ziplock sandwitch bag held open with a little stick. Wait for them then close).

TURD: (joking  

COOKED CHUNK OF "pollo gizado" mmmm! : housefly (after 2 days)

I dont know if it is the approaching cold or my poor choice in baits - but these have proven slim pickings. The good snacks have come from a rose bush teeming with hoppers by my office - my secretary and i pluck them off during a lunchtime walk.

I am guessing that flies must only like rotten, stinky, foetid, ichorous, and stenchful things, and not fresh trieats such as I have tried.

What I really want is to capture Hidei so that I can culture them - i have a virgin culture waiting for them. Where? and what they like to eat? any special fruit like guava or monkey fist?

I would sure love to culture black flies (those super nasty bloodsuckers that leave welts the size of texas and i am alergic to) so that i could revel at the sight of their demise.

~Arkanis


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## darkspeed (Oct 31, 2008)

Arkanis said:


> I am guessing that flies must only like rotten, stinky, foetid, ichorous, and stenchful things, and not fresh trieats such as I have tried. What I really want is to capture Hidei so that I can culture them - i have a virgin culture waiting for them. Where? and what they like to eat? any special fruit like guava or monkey fist?
> 
> I would sure love to culture black flies (those super nasty bloodsuckers that leave welts the size of texas and i am alergic to) so that i could revel at the sight of their demise.
> 
> ~Arkanis


For houseflies, bottle flies and pretty much all other blood flies, rotting flesh or rancid blood works best (like the liquid that drains off of a pkg of fresh chicken). Using an absorbant medium such as instant mashed potato flakes helps to keep the flies from drowning in the blood while they attempt to mate and lay eggs in the stench.

As for wild fruit flies any fruit juice absorbed into the same potato flakes works equally well... as does any soft bodied fruit like peaches, plums, banannas etc... the trick is to make sure the fruit is over ripe. Adding yeast to the fruit juice helps increase the attractive odor the fruit flies are looking for, and induce mating and egg laying.


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## The_Asa (Nov 1, 2008)

This may sound a little gross...but if anyone has young children, the diapers will attract tons of flies.


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## nasty bugger (Jan 15, 2009)

Cool trap. Thanks for hte idea/plans.

I was thinking about just putting a light in a milk jug and just plug it, but your's sounds a little slicker, and I use that idea.

I was thinking of hanging it near a horse boarding area, and that should produce alot of flies.

The idea about the blood for the Hydei is also appreciated, Darkstar.


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## kamakiri (Jan 15, 2009)

nasty bugger said:


> The idea about the blood for the Hydei is also appreciated, Darkstar.


I think there's a misunderstanding here ^ Hydei is a fruit fly and will be attracted to rotting fruit, not rotting meat or blood.


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## rosenkrieger (Jan 15, 2009)

These are cool trap types. I used ones like this around my back yard to start my Blatta Lateralis feeder colony.


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## [email protected] (Jan 15, 2009)

Is it safe to feed your mantis wild caught bug's?

(I mean i guess they do it in the wild)


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## cloud jaguar (Jan 31, 2009)

Sure it is safe to feed them wildcaught food Chase  However, if there is any chance the wildcaughts have been exposed to bug killing poisons - like if your gardner uses DDT or something, definitely avoid feeding them those or your mantids will get the tremors and die.

I feed them captive bred foodstuffs mostly, but they sure do love the occasional wasp, bee, moth, butterfly, spider, earthworm or whatever from the garden


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## PhilinYuma (Jan 31, 2009)

kamakiri said:


> I think there's a misunderstanding here ^ Hydei is a fruit fly and will be attracted to rotting fruit, not rotting meat or blood.


That is certainly the received wisdom and is a good rule of thumb (for some reason, folks on this thread have been talking about hfs and ffs), but a few days ago, I infested my kitchen with "wild" mels from two contaminated cultures and have found that they like: the oil on the the handle of my deep fryer, Boyardee's Mini Ravioli, soft butter, slow cooked rump roast with garlic, lemon and tarragon, braised onions, thickened pan sauce with balsamic vinegar, pot sticker mix with pork sausage, soy, garlic, ginger, chopped Nappa cabbage and whipped egg whites, roasted but more especially raw chicken, blue cheese and Swedish meat balls. Mostly, though, they like a cheap, or rather "inexpensive" Californian Chardonnay that I reserve for cooking (and yes, it's drinkable if you're into domestic wines).

I hope that clears things up!


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## revmdn (Jan 31, 2009)

Domestic wine?! They must have no taste!


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## Katnapper (Feb 1, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> That is certainly the received wisdom and is a good rule of thumb (for some reason, folks on this thread have been talking about hfs and ffs), but a few days ago, I infested my kitchen with "wild" mels from two contaminated cultures and have found that they like: the oil on the the handle of my deep fryer, Boyardee's Mini Ravioli, soft butter, slow cooked rump roast with garlic, lemon and tarragon, braised onions, thickened pan sauce with balsamic vinegar, pot sticker mix with pork sausage, soy, garlic, ginger, chopped Nappa cabbage and whipped egg whites, roasted but more especially raw chicken, blue cheese and Swedish meat balls. Mostly, though, they like a cheap, or rather "inexpensive" Californian Chardonnay that I reserve for cooking (and yes, it's drinkable if you're into domestic wines). I hope that clears things up!


Accidentally infesting your kitchen with fruit flies = Domestic whine  :lol:


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## Dinora (Feb 4, 2009)

Chase said:


> Is it safe to feed your mantis wild caught bug's?(I mean i guess they do it in the wild)


I'm scared to - I live in the SE part of Houston and am very close to a large body of water - as a result we have alot of mosquitos so our city is constantly spraying for them.


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