A Sticky Situation

Once upon a time, I heard that deer flies were attracted to the color blue. In fact, I read that one trick to reduce the annoyance was to hang blue balls — Christmas ornaments, I believe —- covered with insect trap goo, from trees. Or, as one person related, to place a blue ball on a rod on his lawn tractor, just higher than his head, so that as he mowed, the deer flies would land on the ball and be trapped.

Not having blue balls, I was puzzled as to how I would get a similar result. Then I spotted an anti-freeze container in the garage. One gallon. Blue. Polyethylene. Time to check out the tale.

Tools. Some Tree Tanglefoot for making it sticky. $11 at Home Depot for a 15 oz tub; $10 at Menards. Two tubs sitting in my garage cabinet for years.

Brushes. I always knew that someday I would need these. $2.99 for a pack of 36 at Harbor Freight. Sitting on the shelf in the garage.

Ah, yes, the blue polyethylene. Empty containers have to go away somehow. The jug provided two 6”x6” pieces, which I hung in the pear tree and the cherry tree.

Then another thought materialized. What if other bugs like other colors? Back to the garage. A small Folgers can provided three 4”x4” red squares.

In the kitchen, a sour cream container was recruited for the white rectangles — 3”x4”.

So there they dangle in the wind. Red, white, and blue, fitting for the 4th of July. As for the white ones, they have printing on one side. Maybe some bugs prefer to read while they expire.

We shall see how this turns out. What kinds of bugs prefer red, what kinds prefer blue, what kinds prefer white, what kinds can read?