"sms" wrote in message
...

I knew that I recalled a device for keeping ants off of fruit trees, but
the person at Home Depot who knows everything about gardening (the old guy
who used to work at a Japanese nursery) said there was nothing).

The device is this
http://www.bayergarden.co.uk/en/data/Products/b/Boltac-Greasebands.aspx
but they aren't sold in the U.S. (though you can order them from the
U.K.).

Does anyone know how these are constructed and how to make your own?

The web page claims this sticky band uses "Non-drying adhesive, pesticide
free."
Sticky bands were widely used in England in the 1950s, probably made the
same way as fly paper (coiled sticky strips such as hung in farm kitchens,
common in a country that had no screened windows.)

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)