Sticky Ball Update - New Approach(es)

Today's post is from Dennis - the much anticipated Sticky Ball Update!

At the end of roughly 1 month we had collected approximately 16,000 biting flies (yellow flies aka Doctor flies; black flies; and horse flies).  At the end of roughly 2 months, we had collected an additional 11,800 flies for a cumulative total of over 26,600 flies.  You read that correctly - twenty-six thousand six hundred!  At the end of 3 months, I quit counting.  Counting flies and renewing the glue was becoming a full-time occupation; I gave up research when I retired.  The science behind these traps has already been performed and the traps validated, and the studies replicated.  I was not generating new concepts and data by counting flies.  Tallying the captured flies was not hypothesis-driven.  (OK – science bit over – continue reading.)  My real goal was to renew the balls quickly and to try to minimize the biting fly populations by capturing additional flies.  

That's a whole lotta flies!  Time to refresh the sticky ball.

 So I have taken to using a 2 ½ inch wide putty knife and scraping the old less sticky glue off the balls with the attached flies, then reapplying a coat of Tacky Trap, re-inflating the balls if needed, and getting them back up quickly.  

Mostly Doctor Flies, but also some small, annoying flies.  They come right off with the putty knife.

I have had some balls capture over 1500 flies in a month period, and this takes about 2 hours per ball to remove and tally the flies, then re-glue and remount the balls outside.  When you have about 30 glue balls set out, it takes a lot of time to do this! When I scrape the balls, it takes maybe 15 minutes or so per ball, and I can have coffee in between balls if I wish.  I can get the balls back into action quickly, although I will run through Tacky-Trap more quickly.  Quote from Wilma "A sticky ball not hanging outside is a sticky ball not doing its job!"

Half-cleaned ball.  Note the color coordination.  ;-)

I did get some useful information from the tallying activity however.  I have identified 3 geographic “hot-spots” where we collect approximately 3 times as many flies than the average ball.  This finding is going to be used for a different collection approach that hopefully will be less time-consuming.  I re-contacted Dr. James Cilek, who did a great deal of the pioneering work in this area, and said I might try a different type of trap.  There are various types of fly traps you can search for online: Horse Pal; Nzi; Epps; French Box Trap). He provided copies of papers in which a two tier box-trap had been used successfully (for example see J. E. Cilek and M. A. Olson 2008. Effects of Carbon Dioxide, an Octenol/Phenol Mixture, and Their Combination on Tabanidae (Diptera) Collections from French 2-Tier Box Traps.  Journal of Medical Entomology Vol. 45  Issue 4: pages 638-642).  The trap involves a black ball hanging from a plywood box in which the biting flies are attracted to the black ball, travel upwards in the box and are collected ultimately in a two-liter soda bottle at the top.  No glue involved.  So I will be setting these up in the “hotspots” shortly.  We will still be keeping the glue balls, however, to deplete the population locally as much as we can.  Stay tuned for a report later in the season with results from the non-sticky traps.

But for now you may want to watch this Bette Midler performance on Youtube with the DeLago Family Trademark of "Balls" coming in at 3'40", although the whole thing is simple wonderful.  :-)