I used the Scorpion for several months a couple of years ago when they were a new product. Didn't care for it much and quickly switched to the Dirt Devil Extreme Power 15.6 volt.

I found the Scorpion's 7.2 volt power and charge duration to be lacking for any significant ant gathering missions and the sliding power switch seemed to be poorly designed and failed after a few weeks of semi-daily use. I also had trouble with the charger contacts. I tried about 4 Scorpions before giving up on them. I really wanted to get a reliable one because I loved the weight and balance, and the price was reasonable, but I hated having the charge run down on me so fast and the constant dumping of the relatively small bin.

They may have redesigned the Scorpion since I used them last, and the average person may not be gathering ants to feed a dozen Horny Toads like I am. It is a big step up from the chimpanzee method I started with 5 years ago; but I have found the Dirt Devil EP to be quite powerful, has a much larger bin capacity, and longer charge duration.

I am hard on the vacuums, but using these indoor hand vacs to gather ants is necessarily hard on them when you are sucking up so much dirt and rocks anyway on a constant basis. They weren't designed for it. I have taken a two tier approach to gathering lately. I also use a nifty Dyson Root 6 handheld for my initial attack, clearing the immediate area around the colony entrance of excessive workers which may pose a stinging threat. This is where you gather up the most excess dirt and debris, and the Dyson is great for that, because it really does keep great suction throughout and I don't have to worry about debris. With the Dyson, I can usually just pass the crevice tool a few inches above the ground and suck up the ants, leaving most heavy debris on the ground. The other paper filter type hand vacs lose suction and have to be emptied into a seperate container to keep good suction on the vacuum. Only problem with the Dyson is that it has a lithium ion battery which doesn't last very long and when it decides it's under voltage - it just quits cold.

Once I thin the immediate area a little with the Dyson, I move right onto the colony entrance and place the bevelled crevice tool of the Dirt Devil right over the colony entrance. This sucks up a fair amount of ants in short order without sucking up excess dirt and debris that is scattered about outside the colony. I also prefer to gather the ants that are already in the colony entrance and may be emerging to head out empty handed, rather than gather up all the incoming foraging workers outside which are loaded down with food for the colony. I prefer to let the incoming trail foragers pass by as much as I can. I get a few hundred workers from a colony and then move on to another so they can recover.

I get close in for my work, but having grown up in Solenopsis invicta buren country, I find Pogos to be relatively slow to attack and I can usually quite easily find enough time to get any errant worker off me before they get above my socks to sting. I get stung only once every few months when I'm in the field. I get stung much more often back at the house trying to sift and sort them, so I usually dump my vac bins into tupper-ware and place in the fridge until they go dormant. Once that happens, I take them outside to a screen sifter where I get rid of the sand and smaller rocks and debris. Once that is done, I place the ants with any remaining debris into galss jars set on their side above another bin. The ants warm up, and I blow into the jars to get them stirring. They make their way to the entrance of the jar and fall out into the storage bin below, leaving most of the rest of the debris behind in the jar.



-----
freewebs.com/wichitafallsreptilerescue

groups.yahoo.com/group/HornedLizards

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Show Entire Thread ]