sugaring

[Bart Vanholder]

At 06:17 PM 5/25/97 -0400 Rob Thorn,  thorn.5 at osu.edu wrote:
>All of this talk about 'sugaring' has triggered my scientific curiosity.
>Does anyone know what ingredients of the common
>"sugar/molasses/beer/banana" mix actually attract the moths from afar?  If
>you alter or eliminate different ingredients, does that affect the species
>composition that comes to the bait?  It would appear from many of the
>mailings that certain species are keyed in to components of dung aroma, but
>are there other species that key on fermenting sap or rotting fruit (given
>the significant number of Spring or Fall moths that might use these as
>major food cues)?

I'm not into the chemical ingredients of all these nice/less nice smelling
baits, but I (and with me many others I adviced) add nowadays always a few
drops of Amyl-acetate (smells very nice) into my sugaring recipe. It
enhances significant the catch at the bait. I say always: Amyl-acetate makes
the difference. The recipe I use takes 5 minutes only to prepare. I mix 1/2
kg 'sirop the Liege', a thick mass (what is used on pancakes) with one cup
of simple sirup (= 1 part boiling water, 2 parts sugar). This untill the
mass is liquid enough to spread with a brush. In this I mix beer (and drink
the rest of the bottle myself). Then I add a few drops of Amyl-acetate to
some 20 ml of ethanol (or Rhum, or Wodka, or wathever available, even cheap
desinfectant alcohol works fine). I mix this solution into the mixture and
it is ready for use. 
Hope this helped a bit.
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Bart Vanholder
Belgian Migrant Lepidoptera Survey
Droeskouter 33
B-9450 Haaltert
Belgium
e-mail: bvholder at innet.be 
homepage Migrant Leps http://www.club.innet.be/~pub00644/
homepage Sesiidae     http://www.club.innet.be/~pub00644/sesiid/seslist.htm
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