Design Discussion

Design Notes For Anyone Wanting To Improve The Trap

The following are thoughts and questions I've considered as I've designed the trap, and reviewed the steps, and looked at what came before. To a large degree, I've been working in the dark - there are no examples of actual traps, only small images of the on Youtube videos and Japanese vendor's pages, and the schematic drawing and comments in Matsuura's paper. He refers to another author, who did work on the design, but I was unable to find a source for his paper. Likely it's not on the interent.

At this point in time, the state is installing only syrup traps, and has apparently installed 900 of them. I am assuming that is based on the advice of Japanese entomologists who have worked with the hornet.

The downside of this of course- is that a syrup trap only can produce a dead hornet. Where ever that hornet is found, the nest could be anywhere in the ground within 8 km of that location. How they ever found the Nanaimo hornets I have never understood- it's not like you can triangulate from  dead hornets, or sightings.

But a hive trap captures live hornets- and when alive, can be used to find the source colony. A big plus for quickly locating them. Or- and Matsuura discusses this in his paper as worth exploring, but not tried, it can be poisoned, and sent back to kill  the mother hive. There are more options, in any case.

So- getting the trap built so it actually works could be important. I've done my best to copy, and not invent, what I have seen in the Japanese traps, but I have lots of questions. Using Sketchup, I was able to import a photo of a Japanese trap, and build it so that I could check dimensions. This helped a lot- and I corrected a few of them after doing so.

Improvements come in two types. Improvements to improve the function of the trap- it's ability to catch hornets, and to allow the bees to enter and exist freely, and improvements in the way the trap is built.

Here are some thoughts:

1.) The dimensions of the trap I think are very close to to what the Japanese use. About 12" deep, and 6" tall, with a 4" wide cage.

(to be continued...)