By Daniel McGonigle
Argus Managing Editor
A certain sense of satisfaction can be derived from the “fwump” sound created by the bugs being sucked through a vacuum hose and into a waiting pop bottle. For even the greatest lovers of animals find it hard to feel empathy for those pesky Asian Lady Beetles when they congregate and take over our homes in October and April.
“I hate to say it as a lover of animals but it’s fun,” said Dane Wolf inventor of “The BugBottler.”
The idea just hit him
Wolf had just finished working out in his family’s home in Caledonia when he was making his way down a hallway. A lady beetle struck the young inventor on his head while making his way to his room.
“There were a number of these things flying around and I got hit on the forehead,” said Wolf. “It was like the proverbial apple falling on Newton’s head.”
Using the common tool of choice, Wolf began to suck up the pesky insects using the family vacuum cleaner. However, as happens, the vacuum began to smell of the bugs defense mechanism.
“When they sense they are in danger, they shoot their own blood from the joints in their legs and that is the odor that is created when you kill one,” noted Wolf.
Wolf knew that the bugs created the odor and he was very careful in how he handled sucking up the insects.
“The smell was overpowering and I hadn’t crushed a single bug,” he said.
Not seeing having the vacuum cleaner reek of Asian Lady Beetles’ as a viable option, Wolf set out to create a solution.
 Enter The BugBottler
“I became really interested in wanting to live a day without running into one of these things,” said Wolf calmly.
So he sat down and sketched out several designs which at times were very crude in their nature and structure.
“Some of those early renditions resemble Darwinian’s descent of man,” laughed Wolf. “They began as a very hunched over looking man and as each design progressed they began to look more and more like today’s modern, upright, walking man.”
He put together a bunch of supplies several items found on his uncles farm, of course, duct tape, and an old Mountain Dew pop bottle.
How it works
The Bug Bottler was designed to fit any standard vacuum cleaner. You attach one end to the hose of your vacuum, and place an empty plastic beverage bottle to The BugBottler side-duct retention and collection nozzle. Then you let your vacuum do the work. Simply turn on the vacuum cleaner and suck up the bugs. Once finished, you detach the plastic beverage bottle from the unit and screw the cap back on. You then dispose of the contained bugs.
Once Wolf had his design in place, he contacted patent attorney Peter Sawicki and he did a patent search. When it was found that no product like it existed in the market place, Wolf began to research possible options for bringing his solution to the bug problem to the masses.
“I wanted to keep it so the product could have that ‘made in America’ label on the package,” he said. However, after touring several manufacturing plants, Wolf just found the costs were too great with making The BugBottler here in the states. So his final design specs ended up being sent to China where they were molded, packaged and made.
A shipment of 10,000 of the units is bound for Caledonia as we speak and should be arriving here sometime this week. Once they’ve arrived, Wolf said he plans to market and sell them in several different ways.
“They are available locally at True Value,” he said of where the units can be purchased in Caledonia. “We’re also looking at going door-to-door and doing some sales that way. And of course, on-line.” His website, wolf-industries.com, is still under construction.
Wolf said he sent five different possible specs to an engineering firm and the final design, which, again will be available for purchase very soon, was settled upon.
Not just an inventor
When this reporter visited with Dane Wolf over the phone for this article, the student at Boston University didn’t just talk about bugs or inventions. The biology major hopes to one day work in the medical field. He is interested in a number of things including reading, writing, soccer, architecture, traveling Europe (which he did prior to beginning college), and he is self-taught on the piano. He said of his studies at BU, “I enjoy living here. I am drawn to the city in a metaphysical level. It appeals to me very much. Culture, the arts, education, those things are very important to me, and Boston has all of that and more to offer.”
The Caledonia native graduated from high school from Aquinas in La Crosse. And oh, as if inventing products to rid our homes of unwanted insects, playing classical piano, studying pre-med at Boston University among other interests weren’t enough, Wolf has also designed and made his own furniture since he was a youngster. He has also written several books and short stories which he’d one day like to see published.
Back to the beetles
In response to the growing Aphid problem the United States government introduced the Asian Lady Beetle to this foreign environment back in the 70’s. The idea worked initially as the beetles did a marvelous job of controlling the Aphid population. However, each female lives approximately three years. Three times a year, she can reproduce some 600-800 additional Lady Beetles through larva. So in one female Asian Lady Beetle’s lifetime she can reproduce as much as 7,200 beetles.
“They have no natural enemy here,” noted Wolf. “And they view our homes as they would a cliff wall. That is why you see them congregating in the corners and in windows. They would do the same in their natural habitat in the crevices of the rocks.”
The beetles burrow inside of the walls in our homes and lay low until winter passes. They migrate and gather usually each October as the weather begins to change. They leave their nesting locations inside our interior walls each April as the weather begins to improve. The beetles are a world-wide issue and can be found in all 50 states with the exception of Hawaii. “There is a pretty big market for The BugBottler,” said Wolf.
The device is also effective on other insects including spiders, box elder bugs and invasive ants.
You can contact Daniel McGonigle at
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