How to get rid of fruit flies using a basic trap
My lovely friend Bryony came over yesterday and sympathised with me about the huge number of fruit flies swarming around the kitchen as she had a similar experience last week. The children and I had returned from a long weekend away while Bealers was doing a long mountainous camping trip to find the plate of onions rescued from the garden had become a breeding ground for the aformentioned insects.
I thought I was doing a great job chasing them around with my spider vacuum and catching a few at a time but I feared they were multiplying faster than I could expel them. Luckily Bryony had a simple solution which has worked an absolute treat. Her advice was to first find the source (hers had been a rotten banana which must have escaped when she was putting groceries away under her kitchen cupboards, mine were the onions) then make a very simple trap using…
1. An empty plastic bottle
2. A small piece of banana skin (had to fish one off the compost heap)
3. A cone of paper (reused a drawing kindly supplied by Edie)
Put the banana skin inside the bottle, make a paper cone with a small whole to fit inside the bottle neck and fasten on using tape so flies can’t get out around the edge of the paper. Within a few hours the kitchen was clear of flies and they were all having a jolly old time feasting on the banana skin but couldn’t figure out how to get out.
I shall release them near to the compost heap where there is no shortage of rotten fruit to eat and new friends to mate with.
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:39 pm
What a great tip, will certainly be trying that next time!
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Fantastic, thank you. My Venus Fly Trap - purchased specifically to help rid us of fruit flies - has been spectacularly useless in this regard.
August 30th, 2007 at 9:15 am
I learnt this years ago - but I just cut off the top of the bottle, turn it upside down & wedge it back in - no cone-making required:-)
(we don’t get fruit flies here, so a bit of honey (or cola!) works wonderfully for European flies)
During one major infestation we were “collecting” about 1/3 of a 2 litre bottle per day!
August 30th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
NB: Having just returned from a week away in the caravan I am happy to report that the end of a bottle of red wine seems to be the best trap of all.
Just before we left as I was packing tea towels and the like I discovered the true source of the fruit fly infestation - a disgusting putrid rotting bag of slime was living under the sink at the back of the cupboard. It had once contained fresh potatoes but had mutated into a swarming mass of fruit flies and their corpses. Yuck! Had no time to deploy the bottle + banana skin trick (had no bananas either) so just cleared the mess away and left the dregs of a bottle of wine on the work surface as I’d noticed how quick the flies were to land in a bottle when it wasn’t even slightly empty.
we came back today to find kitchen clear of flies and loads of them floating in the wine. Surely not a horrid way to die if you’re a fly?
September 2nd, 2007 at 11:57 am
I tried the banana thing, but unfortunately they didn’t go for it. What they seem to like apart from wine and everything that’s a bit rotten, is lemon. Just squeeze a small amount of juice into a small flat bowl, (make sure to leave them alone in the kitchen) and you’ll see them heading towards it. Got this from a neighbour who tried this out during the summer. I did as well - Good luck!
September 4th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Blimey good advice all round. Will be trying a combination to see what works here. Now if you can just sort out the mosquitoes, mice, ants, cockroaches (only seen one thank goodness), cats and dogs - I’ll be sorted.