I have a special beech tree in my yard that sustained excessive defoliation last summer from winter moths despite my attempts to spray it with Bt or Dipel. This fall when the flightless females are climbing their host trees to lay eggs among the branches, I banded the trunk of the tree with Tanglefoot.  Click on the above black box to start a movie of a 3 hour time lapse at 1 minute increments to watch that during that time, of the hundreds of females climbing the trunk, possibly 3 made it past the tape to climb higher.  On previous evenings I have noticed that when they do prevail to climb over the tape, they become stuck on the bark further up and are eaten by ants or birds the next day.

This is the third application of tape and Tanglefoot this fall.  Last night’s activity of Winter Moths was the heaviest so far. The males seem to be attracted to the scent of the Tanglefoot and flew directly into it. It reminds me of the cartoon where an attractive woman is trying to get across a muddy street and the man lies down in the puddle to have her walk across his back and step on his head to reach the far curb.