Those flies

[digitS']

This isn't a photo for me to brag about my tomatoes here in the South Window. Just to show the fruit fly trap. There is another one in the kitchen and they work wonders!

Fruit flies are also known as vinegar flies. Apple cider vinegar. For some reason, I began diluting it 50:50 with water maybe in a fit of parsimony, or because I didn't like smelling it so strongly, or to splash in to mix the drop of dishwashing soap.

Don't follow the instructions of poking holes in the plastic wrap with a toothpick. That idea was the only problem I had several years ago on the first try. I use a knife, just don't make the cuts very big. The flies won't be able to find their way out. Toothpick holes, they couldn't squeeze in and I thought it wasn't working.

If you want to release the flies outdoors rather than dumping their drowned bodies - you can use a jar with a mashed banana in the bottom and a cone of paper guiding them down to it. They won't find the small, low opening to the cone and won't find a way out. Problem I had with this trap was knocking the cone out of the jar and having the flies escape right back into the house!

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

i just put a cover a little off-kilter so they can get in there and they end up drowning.

 

[R2elk]

I was lazy and bought a fruit fly trap.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

I use wine and vinegar, with one drop of dish detergent. It gets alot of them.

 

[Marie2020]

Hello @digitS'

I sent you a PM then found this thread

I left a bottle of white vinegar without the top on . Fruit flies are crawling into the tiny hole on the bottle. So I have place it into my kitchen window too use as a trap

 

[digitS']

You may want to place some film with a puncture in it over the top of the bottle. Crawl in, they don't have the brain cells to find their way out.

(Of course, we risk an evolving population of flies with super size brains tormenting us in the future .)

By white vinegar, perhaps you mean the distilled type. I have wondered if that would work ... We always have a gallon of that around because DW doesn't like to see any hard water stains in cookware.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

(Of course, we risk an evolving population of flies with super size brains tormenting us in the future .)

now you're reminding me of _The Fly_ movie from ? 1960s or somewhere in there? i'm sure it would look very primitive by today's standards, but it sure bugged me way back then. which is strange because i never had any trouble watching the praying mantiss eat the flies it caught.

 

[Marie2020]

You may want to place some film with a puncture in it over the top of the bottle. Crawl in, they don't have the brain cells to find their way out.

(Of course, we risk an evolving population of flies with super size brains tormenting us in the future .)

By white vinegar, perhaps you mean the distilled type. I have wondered if that would work ... We always have a gallon of that around because DW doesn't like to see any hard water stains in cookware.

Steve

Oh please don't even think we will have files with super brains, lord above these nightmare mini vampires are bad enough

I forgot about the cling film, and have a glass in my living room that I will clingfilm as soon as I finish writing in here.

 

[Zeedman]

No fruit flies this year, probably because we don't have as many trays of tomatoes or fruit in the house; but they usually appear during peak tomato harvest. The best way we've found to keep their numbers down was a pair of sticky-tape fly traps, and hanging a fresh banana peel between them. We eat a lot of bananas, so there is always a fresh peel. It works really well... so well that I can scare them off the banana peel, and watch the flies migrate to the sticky tape. Obviously no genius flies (yet).

 

[flowerbug]

No fruit flies this year, probably because we don't have as many trays of tomatoes or fruit in the house; but they usually appear during peak tomato harvest. The best way we've found to keep their numbers down was a pair of sticky-tape fly traps, and hanging a fresh banana peel between them. We eat a lot of bananas, so there is always a fresh peel. It works really well... so well that I can scare them off the banana peel, and watch the flies migrate to the sticky tape. Obviously no genius flies (yet).

if they were genius flies perhaps you'd not know?