As we make our way through all of the tomatoes and peaches in our kitchen, we're noticing fruit flies hovering around the garbage can full of pits and skins. The bad news: These suckers can create hundreds of offspring within a week or two. The good news: AT: Re-Nest posted an incredibly simple way to get rid of them. See a close-up picture of a fruit fly and get the instructions for its demise, below...
Those red eyes are a trademark of the fruit fly -- yuck.
Fruit flies can come into your house already on the fruit or fly in through windows and doors. They feed and reproduce on soft, decaying fruit and vegetables, which is why you might also see them swarming around your fruit bowl once stuff starts to ripen. We see them most often near our garbage, and we have one friend who composts and freezes her scraps before adding them to the bin, in order to kill any fruit fly eggs.
Re-Nest posted a genius solution for trapping and killing fruit flies, which involves a cone of paper over a shallow glass of vinegar. There's even a pdf template for the cone!
Click here: Fruit Fly Death Trap from AT: Re-Nest
Related: How To Use Up Overripe Fruit
(Image: Flickr members shioshvili and Max xx, licensed for use under Creative Commons)
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I think they are cute :)
As a molecular biologist I cannot but respect them: the fruit fly is one of the most studied organism with regards to genetics and development of the body plan, we learned a lot thanks to these tiny flies!
What I usually do is to put vinegar in a small, shallow bowl, but then I put oil or butter on the edge of the dish. When the flies land, they get stuck.
So you're saying we actually can catch more flies with vinegar?? ;)
The glass and paper cone method is 100% effective in our house if we ever get fruit flies.
You can also fill a small glass halfway with apple cider vinegar and add a few drops of dawn dish soap - no template necessary!
would a funnel work in place of paper cone?
that is what i have been doing, and it works wonderfully! i made one just last night. i use a piece of paper out of my recycling bin, rolled into a cone over a disposable plastic cup. i add a few drops of dish soap to the apple cider vinegar so that flies get stuck. within a day, all the fruit flies that were all over my kitchen are completely gone!
@ plch
Amen! I have mad respect for the flies. An awful lot of research into everything from genetics to cancer biology rests on their tiny, tiny backs.
That being said, I'm not going to let them infest my fruit bowl. Thanks for the vinegar tip.
i usually put a bit of wine and dish soap in a glass. it does the trick.
..a drink before dieing...was that a movie?
yep, soap trick works great, this is also amazing fast---with the cider vinegar the 6 or so fruit flies were on the glass within minutes and gone to fly heaven in like an hour.
this is all well and good, but what about PREVENTION? For two of the worst culprits:
Scrub melon like canteloupe or sharlynn with a teensy bit of soap and a vegetable scrub brush. You need to scrub & get the soap to foam up a bit over the whole melon. Rinse well.
When you buy bananas, they come in a bunch. the piece that holds them together come with fruit-flies pre-installed. just cut it off and trash it immediately. If you buy them loose, just cut off the stems so there's only 1/2" of stem left.
I use a little pour of pickle juice for the cone in a jar thing. You can also cut the top off a bottle, two thirds of the bottom, one third is the top. Push the mouth end into the base, creating a funnel effect. You can rinse and refill to reuse it.
Tricks of the FruitFly Trade-
1. apple cider vinegar water in small shallow dish
2. a bit of leftover wine in the bottle with a 'cone' for them to drown in
3. i bought those "fly tapes" hung them up to catch the loose ones.
4. clean out the dish disposal in sink - they breed in there.
5. when all else fails (and you have guests coming over) - spray the heck out of them with meyers spray all over the kitchen until they die. the less of them - and they breed fast
another good tip is to pour vegetable oil down the drain. fruit flies like to breed in the damp, dark area. the oil coats the drain and prevents the eggs from sticking. ew.
Btw, Michael Bittman has a great post on what you can do with overripe (or bruised, or otherwise un-ideal) fruit: http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/saving-the-peaches/.
My husband taught me the paper cone trick--the dish soap tip I found elsewhere. And I love it; I keep one near my compost pail and empty it maybe twice a week (and replace the cone).
I find that the brand of vinegar you use matters; the lighter the vinegar the longer the bugs live. I'm not sure why that is, but I have way better experience with Heinz cider vinegar than I do with store brands (or a lot of the Canadian brands I've encountered).
Vinegar of (my fav--) kombucha in a bowl or mug with a drop of dish soap. It changes the surface tension of the water, and when flies land they drown instead of being able to walk on water.
I have tried all these different methods, and none have ever worked for me. oh well. I put my fruit in closed brown paper bags to ripen, then into the fridge to keep.