The invention relates to an insect catcher for catching and destruction of insects, including flying insects such as flies.

The invention also relates to the application of insect catcher.

Insects often pose a nuisance, for example in farming, where not least flies can pose a big problem in animal facilities.

The flies are bothersome for both animals and humans but can also be disease carriers of serious diseases and are therefore sought to be eliminated from modem animal facilities. Several types of fly catchers exist, based on different techniques, including types which try to attract the flies with a special light, in order to subsequently kill the flies, when they search towards the light, by having the flies pass a high voltage network, on their way, with a sufficient voltage to kill the insects.

It has been found, however, that there are some drawbacks of this known technique, including that especially houseflies can not be attracted efficiently by the hitherto known fly catchers, which apply light as means of attraction, which means that the hitherto known insect / fly catchers can not reduce the number of flies to an acceptable low level.

US 5099598 A (CARTER) describes an insect catcher, especially for catching ants. The insect catcher includes means for heating of, for example, a heating element, which is able to generate a temperature between 87 °F and 95 °F (30,5 °C to 35 °C) in order to attract insects (ants) to the insect catcher. The insect catcher furthermore has means for heating of for instance a heating element to a temperature high enough to kill an insect (ant), for example 400° F (204° C).

It has however been found that the known insect catcher has the drawback that the number of insects, which become attracted by the insect catcher is not large enough to keep the number of insects down to an acceptable level.

It is therefore an object of the invention to improve the known technique and application.

The object of the invention is achieved by an insect catcher of the in the introduction to claim 1 stated type, which is characterized in that the insect catcher includes at least one core, which in at least one area can generate a temperature of at least 60 degrees Celsius and where there is at least one area, in connection to the area, which can generate a temperature between 20 and 60 degrees Celsius and where the core is placed in connection with an insect killing device. In this way it thus becomes possible to efficiently attract and kill flies, since they seek towards those areas of the insect catcher's core, which is placed in connection to the area with the highest stated temperature.

Further appropriate embodiments for the insect catcher are stated in claims 2 to 8.

As mentioned, the invention also relates to the application of the insect catcher for catching and killing flies including in buildings such as homes and animal facilities.

Hereby it becomes possible to achieve an acceptable reduction of the fly occurrence in for example animal facilities with a subsequent lowered risk of outbreak and contagion from serious diseases.

The invention will now be explained more fully with reference to the drawing, in which:

Fig. 1 shows a principle sketch of an insect catcher, which by application of a heated core attracts especially flies, where the core is enclosed by a high voltage network, which kills the flies when they come in contact with the network.

In fig. 1 is with 1 shown a principle sketch of an insect catcher according to the invention. The insect catcher 1 includes a core 2, which has one or more built in preferably electrical heating elements whereby the core can be heated in at least one area 3 to a temperature of at least 60 degrees Celsius and where there in connection to the area 3 is at least one area 4, which can be heated to a temperature between 20 and 60 degrees Celsius.

Tests have shown that especially flies including houseflies can efficiently be attracted by the stated temperatures, where the flies seek towards the highest temperatures in such a way that they will land and / or place themselves in the areas 4, which are connected to the areas 3 with the highest temperatures, but which have a lower temperature, preferably between 30 and 40 degrees Celsius as indicated on fig. 1.

From the carried out tests, it has been found to be appropriate that the core 2 in at least one area 4 can generate a temperature between 20 and 60 degrees Celsius preferably between 30 and 50 degrees Celsius, more preferably 40 degrees Celsius. It is a special characteristic of the insect catcher 1 , that the core 2 is placed in connection with an insect killing device. In fig. 1 is shown a preferred embodiment of an insect catcher 1 where the insect killing device consists of an electrical high voltage network 5, which kills the insects when they come in contact with the network.

The in fig. 1 shown high voltage network is from safety considerations enclosed by a protective network 6, which prevents that for example children can touch the high voltage network 5.

The insect catcher 1 is in fig. 7, in the shown preferred embodiment, provided with a reservoir 7 for collection of killed insects.

The reservoir 7 consists, in the shown embodiment, a part of the bottom of the insect catcher 1 , and can be manufactured such that it can easily be dismantled in order to remove insect remains. From fig. 1 is furthermore seen that the insect catcher 1 is provided with a top 8, which is preferably waterproof and that the insect catcher 1 is provided with items 9 such as screw eyes or rings for hanging of the insect catcher 1. The insect catcher 1 can be provided with energy from the grid, batteries or from renewable energy sources such as solar cells.

Other types of insect killing devices can be connected, than the one shown in fig. 1 , which are based on an electrical high voltage grid.

For example, the insect catcher can be provided with adhesive agent based killing devices or devices which apply chemical and / or biological killing techniques.

The insect catcher can be manufactured from environmentally friendly reusable materials.

It is a part of the invention that the insect catcher 1 is used for catching and killing flies including in buildings such as homes and animal facilities. The insect catcher 1 can have other shapes than the one shown in fig. 1 and can be built from for instance modules and the insect catcher 1 can be manufactured with accessories, which automatically cleans the insect catcher 1 of killed insect remains. The insect catcher 1 can furthermore be controlled by for example a computer, whereby the created temperatures in the core 2, can continuously be adjusted with a view to continuously optimise the efficiency of the insect catcher 1 as a function of for example geographical placement, time of year, lighting conditions, humidity and / or insect species, which is primarily desired to be killed.

With the invention, it becomes possible to reduce the number of flies, including houseflies, in a simple, efficient and inexpensive way to a hitherto unachievable low level in for example animal facilities.