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Paul Donahue's been inventing contraptions since his boyhood in Berkeley, when he and his buddies zoomed down hills in a plywood "tank" -- unfortunately before they had figured out how to install brakes.

While working at National Can Corporation in Chicago, the now-77-year-old Palo Altan designed a machine that wrapped bundles of cans and a fiber-optic sorting system. In his free time, he came up with a blow poke to stoke fires.

Now, however, Donahue has moved on to bigger challenges. Or some would say smaller ones.

His latest gizmo -- the G'Bye Yellow Jacket Trap -- was inspired by a single yellow jacket that pestered Donahue at his Mountain View office for several hours in 1982.

"I finally got him," Donahue said, still proud.

But he had been bit by the drive to entrap the aggressive, social wasp with a searing sting.

Although he was running a data-export business, Donahue spent hours talking to entomologists worldwide and concocting a yellow-jacket attractant, a formula he finally perfected after five years.

Donahue isn't giving away his secret recipe, but he did share a single ingredient: Omega-3 fatty acids. Unlike some traps that use fruit juice or soda to snare yellow jackets, Donahue said he relies on their attraction to protein to feed young wasps back in the nest.

With the perfect, yet non-toxic, potion, Donahue then began crafting the trap itself.

He scrapped several designs before coming up with an 8-inch clear plastic cylinder that's as wide as a roll of wrapping paper with holes in the bottom. Inside sits a small plastic slotted funnel with its tip pointing upward.

Smelling the nectar, the wasps whiz into the holes and find themselves inside the funnel. Trying to get out, they then fly up through the funnel's tip, only to find themselves trapped in the cylinder. They soon expire from exhaustion, Donahue said.

His trap capitalizes on wasps' aversion to flying down, Donahue said. Although they could return through the holes they entered, they won't, he said.

Donahue is looking for about $50,000 of venture capital to kick off his company, Donahue Environmental Products. He's done his research: The molds could be crafted in China, shipped to St. Louis, Mo., for manufacturing and then assembled here by Veterans of Foreign Wars in California, he said.

But if the money doesn't come through, Donahue plans to dip into his own pocket to pay for the start-up costs. He said G'bye Yellow Jacket traps should be in Palo Alto Hardware by summer 2008.

Donahue said he plans to donate a large portion of the proceeds to charity.

"This has been just a tremendous amount of fun," Donahue said.

And he's already working on his next invention -- a mosquito trap.

When faced with a problem, Donahue said he often just "sees" the answer.

Describing his vision for the can wrapper, for example, Donahue said, "I can see it, hear it running. I can see how I made it, but I can't tell you what size gear or what horsepower of motor it needed.

"That's how you get started."

When he's not tinkering with inventions, Donahue enjoys spending time with his wife, Rosemary, his three children and their spouses and his eight grandchildren.