Subject: Wine-roping for moths

From: Patrick Roper <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 22:21:25 +0100

Making and using wine-ropes to attract nocturnal moths.

Quite a few of you have come back asking about wine-roping as a method for
attracting night-flying moths, so here goes with a brief description.  I am
grateful to Dr. Paul Waring, who runs our UK Rare Moths Project, who gave
the information to me.

Dissolve as much white granulated sugar as you can in the contents of a
bottle of red wine.  If the wine is warmed gently in a pan it will dissolve
more sugar to produce a saturated solution.

Empty the mixture into a plastic tub with a lid.

Cut some one metre long lengths of thick absorbent string (cotton washing
line, if boiled first to remove chemicals, is good) and submerge these in
the liquid in the tub.  When not in use the wine-ropes can be kept like this.

When they are well-soaked, the wine-ropes can be laid over bushes, hedges
and the lower branches of trees etc. as it gets dark and, if conditions are
suitable, moths should quickly arrive to feed on the ropes.  The alcohol, if
you haven't boiled it all away, quietens the moths and they can easily be
observed, particularly if you use a red light.

Wine-ropes can be used under all the conditions where one might use
sugaring.  Warm summer nights with a slight breeze are best, but it is worth
experimenting.

As far as is known, wine-roping does not harm the moths and, according to
Dr. Waring, simply provides a good meal rather like oozing tree sap or aphid
honeydew.  The ropes can, of course, be collected up and put back in the
plastic tub ready for next time.

In Britain wine-roping attracts several of the Catocala moths that are
seldom found at light traps and also one of our largest Noctuids, Mormo
maura, (The Old Lady) which is also rarely found at light.

Happy wine-roping to one and all - oh, and by the way, I'm still waiting for
an explanation as to why the Genus Catocala is of so much interest to North
American lepidopterists.  Do you have lots of species?

It would be interesting to hear how you all get on with your wine-ropes in
due course.

Patrick Roper
Butterfly Conservation

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South View, Sedlescombe, Battle, East Sussex TN33 0PE, UK
Telephone:  (01424) 870208; Fax: (01424) 870208
Email: [email-masked]
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From: Matti Ahola <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 1995 01:48:51 +0300

>It would be interesting to hear how you all get on with your wine-ropes in

Hi Patrick!

I have used this method since 1982 in many countries from Cyprus to Canada
and from Canary Islands to North-Europe with nice results. I can warmly
recommend wine and sugar for the catching of all Lepidoptera including
Micros, not only for Catocala.
I think this method is very old. The first time I saw using the rops at the
end of seventies.

Matti Ahola
[email-masked]