Patent Application
20230301291
Insects of the order Diptera, sometimes referred to as “true flies,” including house flies, horse flies, stable flies, bottle flies, flesh flies, black flies, sand flies, and mosquitoes, are often significant disease vectors, nuisances, and pests. For example, the house fly, Musca domestica L. (Diptera: Muscidae), is one of the most important hygiene pests worldwide. True flies are not only a nuisance, irritating people and animals and leaving regurgitation and fecal spots on surfaces, but they are also vectors of pathogens that may cause serious diseases in humans and animals.
Similarly, insects of the order Hymenoptera, which include flying insects such as sawflies, social wasps, and bees, are also significant nuisances and pests. Social wasps, including paper wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets, are a significant hazard to people and animals engaged in outdoor activities due to their painful and potentially deadly stings. Such flying insects can be prevalent in rural settings and in very well-developed residential areas. Pestiferous insects from other orders, flying and otherwise, are also known, for example in agricultural and greenhouse settings and in other commercial venues, including, for example, meat packing factories, food processing facilities, and livestock ranches.
Significant efforts are directed to combating the problems caused by pest insects, including the use of chemical control means such as pesticides, which may be annoying and/or harmful to persons or non-target animals. Many insects such as house flies and the like have developed resistance against commonly used insecticides due to typically high reproductive rates. Moreover, insecticides that are effective against pestiferous insects may not be an attractive option to persons having concerns regarding personal health effects, environmental effects, and the like.
As a part of environmentally sound pest control strategies, insect traps baited with benign semiochemicals and/or with visual attractants (for flying or walking insects) have been quite successful at attracting and trapping target insects and are known in the art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 9,015,988 to Zhang et al., which is hereby incorporated by reference.
Insect traps that use an adhesive to capture flying insects, for example fly paper, fly strips, and fly ribbons, are well-known in the art, and are sometimes referred to conventionally as “sticky traps”. Insect traps that use an adhesive to entrap insects have obvious safety and environmental advantages, for example they do not require the use or widespread application of toxic chemicals. For example, certain adhesive traps commonly referred to as “yellow sticky cards” (also called “yellow sticky traps”), are well known adhesive traps for combatting damaging insects, and are typically an important part of an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program in agricultural settings. Yellow sticky cards are widely used for monitoring and/or mass-trapping target pest insects such as fruit flies, fungus gnats, whiteflies, aphids, leaf miners, thrips, psyllids, leafhoppers, buprestid beetles, etc., in both greenhouses and field crops. A cylindrical pillar device that is suitable for use as a sticky trap is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. D700,269 to Chapin et al., issued on Feb. 25, 2014. Such adhesive traps are suitable for catching various flying insects including, for example, pestiferous social wasps, carpenter bees, biting flies, and nuisance flies.
Typically, sticky traps are coated with adhesive covering all or a portion of planar surface of the trap. The adhesive is exposed for entrapping insects that crawl, walk, alight or otherwise engage the adhesive surface. Although adhesive strips, sticky cards or pillar/stick traps have found success, a risk associated with traps that rely on an exposed adhesive to entrap flying insects is that nontarget species, including for example, birds, bats or other small animals, may inadvertently become ensnared by the adhesive, which can result in injury to the nontarget species and/or destruction of the trap. The exposed sticky surfaces may also create an annoyance to users, for example by transferring adhesive onto a user's hands/fingers or gloves when handling the traps, or adhering to clothing, tools, or other implements.
Prior art solutions for reducing the entanglement of nontarget species with adhesive traps have had some success, for example pillar/stick traps available under the Rescue® and TrapStik® trademarks for flies, wasps, and carpenter bees may be provided with fence-type guards. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. D831,782, issued on Oct. 23, 20218; U.S. Pat. No. D846,059, issued on Apr. 16, 2019; U.S. Pat. No. D873,949, issued on Jan. 28, 2020; U.S. Pat. No. D915,544, issued on Apr. 6, 2021; and U.S. Pat. No. 10,980,224, issued on Apr. 20, 2021, which are hereby incorporated by reference. Adhesive traps with bird guards have had significant success in reducing the inadvertent entanglement of birds and bats; however, in addition to the added costs, bird guards may also reduce the numbers of target insects captured by the trap due to the physical blockage of visual attractors on the traps, and/or the particular landing activity of the target insects.
There remains a need for insect sticky traps that minimize or eliminate the bird/bat by-catch, improves the user experience in setting up the trap, and keep high trapping efficacy of the target insects. An adhesive insect trap that prevents or reduces the entrapment of nontarget species, and that allows the user to handle the trap without accidental contact with the adhesive feature of the trap, without requiring blocking guards or the like, is disclosed.
This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This summary is not intended to identify key features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.
An adhesive trap is disclosed that includes a corrugated panel defining a plurality of channels connected by convex peaks, the peaks having a width. A pressure sensitive adhesive is applied only to the plurality of channels, and the convex peaks of the corrugated panel are free of any adhesive.
In an embodiment the pressure-sensitive adhesive comprises a bead of adhesive, and in some embodiment the bead of adhesive defines an outward-facing planar surface.
In an embodiment the pressure-sensitive adhesive comprises a thin adhesive layer.
In an embodiment a linerboard is fixed along a face of the corrugated panel.
In an embodiment the plurality of channels have a height that is between 1/32 inches and ½ inches inclusive.
In an embodiment the corrugated panel comprises between 98 corrugations per meter and 433 corrugations per meter.
In an embodiment the corrugated panel comprises a tubular pillar, for example the tubular pillar may have a circular, hexagonal, triangular, or rectangular cross section.
In an embodiment the plurality of channels are parallel channels.
The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of this invention will become more readily appreciated as the same become better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
An adhesive trap configuration is disclosed that provides one or more corrugated surfaces or panels, wherein the adhesive panels are easier to handle and are less likely to entrap larger, non-target animals or to be damaged by inadvertent interaction with larger animals or the like. As used herein a corrugated panel (or corrugated sheet) is defined conventionally as a panel “shaped into wavy folds or alternating furrows and ridges” (see, www.dictiionary.com). The adhesive trap construction disclosed herein may be applied to a variety of pests, for example arthropods (e.g., insects), arachnids (e.g., spiders), reptiles, amphibians, small mammals (e.g., rats, mice, etc.), and the like, providing a new tool for combatting pestiferous and/or disease-vector critters.
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Optimal sizes and shapes of the corrugated flutes may also take into consideration typical human finger sizes to minimize user entanglement, as well as glue application requirements, coating area, etc. Common sizes of single-face corrugated flutes (paper cardboards) are A, B, C, E, and F flutes. Flute thickness (height), wavelength (pitch) as well as paper (or plastic) thickness for flutes and flat linerboard are variables that can be adjusted to be optimized for different target insects and/or applications. For sturdy plastic, glass or fiberglass corrugated surfaces, no linerboard is needed (see,
In some embodiments the corrugated panel is flexible, and configured to wrap around a fixed object, for example the base of a tree, or a movable object such as a movable container or post. For example, the corrugated panel may be formed as a flexible elongate panel, and configured to be installed as a spiraled wrap around the movable or fixed object. It is contemplated, for example, that a corrugated panel may include adhesive in the channels of both sides of the panel and wrapped around the base of the object. In some embodiments it may be preferable to install corrugated adhesive panels in alternating arrangements with adhesive applied on opposite sides of adjacent panels. The particular pattern of the adhesive placement may be configured to the specific behavioral characteristics of the pest targeted by the particular application.
In exemplary embodiments, the adhesive may be any pressure sensitive adhesive (“PSA”), or other type of glues that will adhesively ensnare a target insect. It is contemplated that the adhesive may be applied using (i) one or more spray heads (air spray or airless spray), (ii) wheel/roller systems, (iii) jetting systems, (iv) slot applicators/extruders, and/or (v) brush and/or trowel systems, for example. Other adhesive application systems as are known in the art may alternatively be used, including applying or printing narrow strips of adhesives or adhesive tapes into the furrows. In another embodiment an adhesive is applied to the entire surface and non-adhesive blocking strips are applied over the peaks of the corrugations that block the adhesive from adhering to the peaks.
In one method of making the adhesive trap with the desired glue area/thickness and patterns, glue is applied to the furrows in strips as a thin layer of adhesive membrane, e.g., thickness range from 1-40 mil, to cover a bottom ¼ to ½ or ¾ of the valley-ridge sloped surface area, in the grooves, leaving the corrugation top section (upper ridge section) with no adhesive. For example, the non-adhesive portions may comprise ¼ or more total corrugation area. In some embodiments, an adhesive may be applied as a thick bead having a diameter, for example, ⅓ to ½ or less of the groove height. Although uniform spacing of the corrugated surfaces are shown, it is contemplated that the corrugation spacing may be non-uniform. In some embodiments the ridge sections may be non-parallel, for example expanding in a fan-like arrangement.
Regardless of the corrugation types (sizes), the glue area along with the thickness of the glue in the groove should be sufficient to ensnare or capture target pests but restricted to the channels of the corrugated sheet or panel such that the corrugated panel may be handled by a user without contacting the adhesive directly, and to avoid or reduce the risk of contact by feathers or body parts of non-target creatures such as birds or bats. For example, the selected corrugation sizes or combination of corrugation sizes, and the glue area/thickness may be selected to engage multiple insect legs (at least 3) of a target insect no matter where the target insect lands on the corrugated surface.
It is contemplated that the corrugated or fluted panels may have color and/or pattern combinations providing a visual attractant for target insects, such as flies and/or social wasps. Examples of visual attractants on flat surfaces are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,015,988, to Zhang et al., which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. It is believed that the three-dimensional characteristics of visual attractants on a corrugated surface will improve the efficacy of the attractant to target insects. In some embodiments the inner surface
In some embodiments the corrugated panel may be formed as an elongate flexible ribbon or tape that may be wrapped in a spiraling arrangement around an existing structure, for example a tree, fencepost, light post, power pole, or the like. For example, it is contemplated that spacers (not shown) may be fixed to an inner surface of the elongate flexible ribbon or tape, such that the flexible ribbon is spaced away from the structure, to provide access insect (or other pest) access to space between the structure and the ribbon. An adhesive applied only to the side of the flexible ribbon facing the structure would provide a non-adhesive outer face, and an inner surface that does not adhere to structure.
While illustrative embodiments have been shown and described, it will be appreciated that various changes can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Prov. Patent Appl. No. 63/323,230, filed Mar. 24, 2022, and claims the benefit of U.S. Prov. Pat. Appl. No. 63/389,215, filed Jul. 14, 2022. The entire disclosures of said applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63323230 | Mar 2022 | US | |
| 63389215 | Jul 2022 | US |
