The most effective spotted lanternfly trap is a circle trap, a funnel-style device made from plastic-coated insect screening that wraps around a tree trunk. It uses no sticky material, poses no risk to wildlife, and can capture large numbers of both nymphs and adults as they crawl upward to feed. You can build one yourself for a few dollars or buy a commercial version. Sticky band traps also work but come with significant drawbacks.
How Circle Traps Work
Spotted lanternflies are climbers. Nymphs and adults walk up tree trunks to reach leaves and branches where they feed. A circle trap exploits this behavior by wrapping a skirt of insect screening around the trunk, creating a funnel-shaped tunnel. As the insects move upward, the screening channels them into a dead-end collection container at the top, where they die.
The design was originally created for trapping pecan weevils, which also climb tree trunks. Because spotted lanternflies are much larger, the collection container needs to be bigger, but the basic mechanics are the same. The lanternflies naturally move toward light, so they keep pushing upward into the container rather than turning around. As the container fills, its weight shifts captured insects away from the entry point, keeping the opening clear for more to enter.
Building a Circle Trap
The core material is plastic-coated insect screening, the kind sold at hardware stores for window repairs. You’ll also need two thin pieces of wood (like furring strips), a stapler, some wire, and a collection container. A clean peanut butter jar works, but a sturdy plastic bag is the better choice. Bags are easier to swap out, let light through (which draws the insects upward), and spare you from emptying a jar of dead, rotting lanternflies.
The screening wraps around the trunk to form a cone or skirt, with the wide opening at the bottom and the narrow end leading into your collection container at the top. The key details that make or break the trap:
- Skirt coverage: The opening at the bottom should wrap as far around the trunk as possible so lanternflies can’t bypass it.
- Overlap: A section of screening should overlap itself to prevent insects from escaping through gaps.
- Tight back: The back of the screening must sit snug against the bark. Any gap becomes an exit.
- Open tunnel: Use a piece of wire, stapled to the screening near one of the wood strips, to hold the outer part of the skirt away from the trunk. This keeps the funnel entrance open so insects can actually walk in.
Adjust the wire to fit your specific tree. You want the tunnel to stay open and unblocked from bottom to top. If you’d rather skip the DIY route, commercial circle traps are available online (sometimes listed as “circle weevil traps”) and just need a larger collection bag added.
Sticky Band Traps and Their Risks
Sticky bands are strips of adhesive material wrapped around a tree trunk. Lanternflies walk onto the band and get stuck. They’re cheap and simple, but they catch a lot more than lanternflies. Songbirds, squirrels, and beneficial insects all end up trapped in the adhesive, which is a major drawback.
If you do use sticky bands, keep them narrow, 5 inches or less, to reduce wildlife catches. You also need to add a wildlife barrier. The recommended approach is to cut a strip of flexible window screening about one and a half times your tree’s diameter and three times the width of the sticky band. Pin the screening to the tree above the band with push pins, pleating it outward so it stands away from the trunk and doesn’t stick to the adhesive itself. This creates a cage that keeps birds and larger animals off the glue while still allowing lanternflies to reach it.
Chicken wire was once suggested as a barrier, but it’s no longer recommended. The mesh openings are too large to keep out small birds and beneficial insects. Window screening is the current standard.
Where to Place Traps
Spotted lanternflies feed on more than 70 species of plants and trees, but their strong preference is tree of heaven, a weedy invasive species with long compound leaves and a distinctive sour smell. If you have tree of heaven on your property, that’s your first-choice trap location.
Some landowners use a “trap tree” strategy: remove most of the tree of heaven in an area but leave a few standing. With fewer options available, lanternflies concentrate on the remaining trees, where traps (or insecticide treatments) can kill them in large numbers. This works especially well in areas with heavy infestations.
If you don’t have tree of heaven, place traps on whatever trees show the most lanternfly activity. Maples, black walnut, willow, and birch are all common hosts. Look for the telltale signs of feeding: sticky honeydew residue on the trunk and ground, sooty black mold growing on the honeydew, and visible nymphs or adults on the bark.
When to Set Traps
Timing matters. Spotted lanternflies go through four nymphal stages before reaching adulthood, and traps are most effective against the earlier life stages.
Put traps up in late April or May, as soon as eggs begin hatching. The early-stage nymphs (small, black with white spots) are active from roughly April through July. Fourth-stage nymphs, which are larger and red with white spots, appear from July through September. Adults emerge in late summer and persist through fall, mating and laying eggs before dying off at the start of winter.
Traps capture large numbers of nymphs because the young insects rely almost entirely on crawling up trunks. Adults, which can fly, sometimes bypass tree traps altogether. This makes circle traps less effective later in the season, though they’ll still catch some adults that choose to walk.
Circle Traps vs. Chemical Treatments
Circle traps are a nonchemical option, which makes them appealing for residential yards, organic gardens, and properties near water or pollinator habitat. They’re relatively easy to install and maintain, and they don’t introduce pesticides into the environment.
For heavy infestations, though, traps alone may not be enough. Systemic insecticide treatments applied to the trunk can provide months of ongoing control by killing adult lanternflies as they arrive and feed. These treatments work best against adults and should only be applied after a tree has finished blooming, to protect bees and other pollinators. Large trees with peeling bark, like mature silver maples, can be difficult to treat this way because loose bark prevents the chemical from reaching living tissue.
For most homeowners, the practical approach is to deploy circle traps in spring to catch nymphs early, then reassess in late summer. If adult numbers are still overwhelming, a targeted trunk treatment on heavily infested trees can fill the gap that traps leave.
Keeping Traps Working
Check your traps regularly during peak season. When using a plastic bag as the collection container, swap it out once it starts getting full or opaque with dead insects. A clean, translucent bag lets daylight through, which is what draws the lanternflies upward into the container. A dirty, dark bag loses that advantage.
Inspect the screening where it meets the bark. Wind, rain, and animal activity can loosen the fit, creating gaps that let lanternflies walk right past the trap. The back of the screening needs to stay tight against the tree, and the funnel tunnel should remain open and unobstructed. A quick adjustment every week or two keeps things working through the season.