Bee Catchers: An Artist Row Necessity!
One of the most challenging part of Artist Row are the presence of the wasps/bees that live at the market: after the Saturday food market, all of the delicious left-over food bits are sent down into the sewers below the maket where the bees feed and live with delight. Unfortunately for us, that means that depending on the weather, lots of our bee and wasp friends might attend our 2015 show.
In order to combat this, we invite all volunteers and artists to help provide homemade bee catchers. If each artist brings one, we will be able to cut down the number of bees dramatically!
The full tutorial is available here: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Wasp-Trap
Step 1: Take a plastic bottle and cut the neck off. (The neck is the cone part of the bottle including the cap.)
Step 2: Flip the neck upside-down, removing the cap first, and place the neck into the bottle.
Step 3: Tape and/or staple the top together or drill a couple of holes and keep them together by two screws, which you can even use to hang it up. Keep in mind that you will need to take them apart often to switch out the bait and remove dead wasps.
Step 4: Bait the trap. It should not reach the opening of the bottle––the wasps should have to completely enter the trap in order to access the bait. You can also do this before you attach the two pieces together. Some bait ideas include:
- Soda or juice (lemonade, etc.)
- Sugar and water
- Sugar and vinegar
- 1 tsp liquid laundry soap, 1 tsp sugar (to attract them), and water.
Step 5: Tape some string to the bottle, (or make holes and put the string through) and hang it up in an area with many wasps.
- Once the wasps go in they can't figure out how to get out, so they get trapped.
- Adding petroleum jelly or cooking oil along the steep edges of the trap can cause them to lose their footing and fall into the hole.
Step 6: Empty the trap regularly. Be sure the wasps are dead before removing them. Not only do you want to prevent a defensive sting, but living wasps that escape may return with their friends. Pour hot, soapy water into the funnel (the upside-down neck of the bottle) to make sure, or put a plastic bag over the trap and put it in the freezer for a few days.