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.
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What a great tip,will certainly be trying that next time!
Fantastic,thank you. My Venus Fly Trap –purchased specifically to help rid us of fruit flies –has been spectacularly useless in this regard.
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!
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?
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!
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.
Found this on Google,which is interesting,as it is on my RSS feed anyway.
I have donated a glassful of home made pineapple wine to try this out –we are plagued with the little critters. They were even in the *oven* this morning,for heavens’sake.
I tried a number of methods but in the end,the simplest proved the most effective –half a glass of sherry (using a sherry glass) with a small spoonful of honey and a shot of washing up liquid. No need to cover the top of the glass or use a cone –the flies walk down the inside of the glass jump in and within seconds they’re dead. A dozen drowned within half an hour in our kitchen (which was most of them!)
Thanks for the great advice! In the end this page was most useful because it prompted me to “go hunting”. Sure enough,I found a bag of potatoes had slipped off the back of the shelf and gotten lost behind the cupboard. It was full of mushy potatoes and dozens of the little devils! Out to the bins,and feeling much better. I also made a bowl full of 1/4 c lemon juice and a tablespoon of maple syrup. Microwaved it for 20 seconds (to get it to mix better). Swirled in a splash of dishsoap —I held it up near a fly and he immediately jumped in. DOA. I will leave the bowl out overnight and (fingers crossed) I will get the stragglers. Good luck to all!