Julie, Regarding your concerns about dead insects in traps attracting other insects, this is true, but only from relatively short radius. Dermestid beetle larvae such as varied carpet beetles and many others do feed on dead insects on the edges of sticky traps if they are already living close to the trap. These dead insects are not drawing insects in from more than 1 meter away. If you already have the larvae in a close proximity to the trap, the dead insects can give them another food source and the old traps should be swapped out with clean traps as you stated. They are not likely drawing in beetles from other areas though.
On your second question, we performed a study by forcing air across a new webbing clothes moth pheromone lure with a fan and onto several different textiles at a distance of less than 1 mm away for a 1 month period. We used antique wool, new wool, linen and synthetic textiles in the study. After the exposure, we asked hundreds of clothes moths that we released into a large arena if they had a preference for any of the textiles. We found no increased attraction of the pheromone exposed textiles. We have not performed this study with other materials though. I will leave it up to the conservators and chemists in the group to talk about absorption of semiochemicals into different materials. From my experience, I have never seen a transfer of enough pheromone from a lure to an object that will attract insects to it as long as there is not direct contact between the two. I certainly would not recommend direct contact and there should be no need for that in a monitoring program Best regards, Pat Kelley ________________________________ From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Breitung, Eric <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, January 7, 2019 4:13:31 PM To: Museumpests Subject: RE: [External] - [pestlist] Concerns of Using Pheromone Traps I’m guessing that ‘volatile fat soluble’ should be ‘volatile and fat soluble’, so volatile enough to make it from the trap to the object and soluble enough in the artist’s material such that it becomes more likely to stay on the art than to return to the gas phase, leaving the object. From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Monday, January 7, 2019 1:51 PM To: Museumpests <[email protected]> Subject: [External] - [pestlist] Concerns of Using Pheromone Traps Hello Pestlist Community, I recently came across a correspondence between a predecessor and an adviser in the museum pest field that highlights potential dangers of using pheromone traps that led this person to not recommend them. Concerns were: 1) Pheromone traps attracted not only the target insect but other insects that were attracted to the smell of the target insect. 2) Volatile fat soluble pheromones can be absorbed by materials and artifacts that then make them attractive to insects (including people/clothing). They mentioned that this was all thoroughly researched and supported by literature (message is from 2012). Point #1 could be improved by regularly replacing traps with pests on them. Point #2 I'm less sure about, as I am unfamiliar with whether the pheromones we use are 'volitile fat' or not. I don't like the idea of becoming a walking moth lure, but having not read this anywhere else I'm doubtful if it's indeed true. I would love to hear thoughts about either of these points. Regards, Julie Collections Care Assistant Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Museumpests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/pestlist. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/9d0417a9-b3a8-4e5a-a327-64edce3b3bc8%40googlegroups.com<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/9d0417a9-b3a8-4e5a-a327-64edce3b3bc8%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Museumpests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/pestlist. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/BN7PR05MB62746AAFA0A4778656156118E3890%40BN7PR05MB6274.namprd05.prod.outlook.com<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/BN7PR05MB62746AAFA0A4778656156118E3890%40BN7PR05MB6274.namprd05.prod.outlook.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Museumpests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/pestlist. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/DM5PR1401MB19462A65A8E1B35B591006ECF88A0%40DM5PR1401MB1946.namprd14.prod.outlook.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
