You can use many different kinds
of containers. One type would be a plastic
yogurt or sour cream container.
You could also even use a can, such
as an evaporated milk can where
you punch holes at the top.
Pretty much any kind of enclosed container
will work.
This case we're just using a yogurt
container. I'm going to pour about
an inch of oil in the bottom,
you can just use the most inexpensive
oil that you have, vegetable oil.
The purpose of the oil is that when the
ear wigs crawl into this trap they're
going to fall down in there and they're
going to coat their bodies with the oil.
It's going to suffocate and kill them.
We also need to add something that
has a little more smell to it.
Ear wigs are attracted to very strong
odors such as bacon grease, tuna juice,
moist cat or dog food- the juice that
comes off of that.
Pretty much anything some kind of
waste out of your kitchen, cooking
process you can use.
In this case I'm going to use tuna juice.
That is one thing that we've found
that they are really attracted to.
When you drain that oil juice off of your
tuna you can just collect it and then
add this in with the oil in your ear wig
trap.
Ok, the next step is you need to make
some holes in this trap so that the ear
wigs can come in.
So, I usually use a sharp implement, where
you can poke holes or I like to use a
soldering iron where you can just poke
some holes easily.
They aren't very large so the ear wigs can
easily climb in. I just make oh 5-6 holes
on the top and then I'm going to make
some additional holes right along the top
of the sides. This will give plenty of
ports of entry for them to get into the
trap.
Many garden plants, crops, such as peppers
eggplant, and many herbs are very
susceptible to ear wig feeding.
So a good place to put your ear wig
traps is to bury them in a garden spot
where you have a lot of these susceptible
crops.
So all you need to do is dig a hole.
We want to bury our ear wig trap, down to
where we put our holes on the side.
Ear wigs are nocturnal, that means they
come out at night to feed and to crawl
around. So, putting your trap out in the
evening, just before the ear wigs are
active is a good time. Then they will
climb in here and the next morning you can
check your trap and see how many ear wigs
you've caught. If it's starting to get
full, then you can pull the trap up and
dump it out and refill it with your oil
and tuna juice bait and put it back
in place.
Having a top on the trap is very
convenient to help keep out cats or dogs
or raccoons or other kinds of animals
that might be attracted to the oil and
tuna juice bait.
Another type of attractive trap for ear
wigs is something that gives them a hiding
place during the day. Corrugated cardboard
with these ridges is a great place for
ear wigs to climb down in and hide during
the day. Roll these up and just use a
rubber band or something to tie them off
and they make a great little ear wig hotel
So for fruit trees such as apricots and
peaches, where the fruit when it's close
to being ripe is very susceptible to
ear wig feeding, tying a few of these
cardboard rolls onto a trunk of a fruit
tree can make a great trap.
So the ear wigs come out at night to feed
on the fruit and the leaves. In the day
time they're hiding inside your cardboard
rolls. You can make up a number of these
and just have them ready. Then in the
morning you can come by when the ear wigs
have climbed back in after day light, you
can come by and collect them and just
throw them away and put new traps up in
their place. This is a way you can keep
the numbers down and the ear wigs from
climbing up into the apricot tree right
when it's getting close to the fruit being
ripe.
Another great way to keep ear wigs out of
fruit trees or corn stalks or raspberry,
blackberry vines, is to use a sticky
trunk band.
A simple way to do that is to use
Duct Tape. Put that as a band around
the base of the trunk.
Then to use a sticky material that can be
called insect trap coating or tangle foot
or tangle trap. There's a couple of
different ways that these products
formulations come in. One is a very
convenient aerosol spray can.
Where you just apply the tangle foot
with the can.
Another way is you can find it in tubs,
where it is like a gel formulation.
You can just use an applicator stick
and spread it around the tape.
The purpose of what you're doing here
is to create this very sticky barrier.
That when the ear wigs try to climb
into the tree they encounter the tangle
trap and they get stuck or it repels
them and they do not make their way
up into the tree.
A tangle foot/ tangle trap can be
purchased from garden supply centers
that cater to the more sophisticated
gardener or they can be purchased
from online supply stores.
The timing for ear wig trapping,
there are two main time periods.
One is in the late spring, early summer
when the over wintering adults are
active. They've come out of their over
wintering hiding sites and at this time
they are mating, breeding, and laying eggs.
So trapping the adults, in these traps,
at that time is a good way to really
help lower the population early in the
season. The other key time would be later
in the summer when you really start
to notice ear wig feeding injury on the
plants in your garden or before you
need to protect your apricot and peach
fruits from fruit injuries, or your
raspberries or blackberries.
Those would be the two key times for
putting out these cardboard traps.