Fruit flies enter the home on garden vegetables or produce purchased in the store. Once inside, they are attracted to fermenting plant material and may find their way to your houseplants. These tiny flies are too small and quick to catch effectively by hand, but there are several techniques you can use to trap the fruit flies in your plants and dispose of them.
These traps are made of yellow cardboard or other stiff material and coated with a sticky substance. The yellow attracts the flies, which then stick to the surface of the trap. You can make your own inexpensively with a yellow index card, or paint a piece of cardboard yellow and apply a layer of equal parts corn syrup and water that has been boiled down until it is sticky. You can also purchase commercial sticky adhesive to make your own traps.
Baiting with Vinegar
Vinegar makes an effective bait for fruit flies but doesn't do the trick on its own. Filling the bottom of a small container with vinegar and adding a drop or two of dish detergent creates an effective trap. The dish detergent breaks the surface tension so that the fruit flies will fall into the vinegar and drown. Covering the vinegar with plastic wrap with a small hole for the fruit flies to enter, prevents them from escaping once they have crawled in to investigate.
Baiting with Yeast
Adding a package of yeast and a teaspoon of sugar to warm water creates a feast for fruit flies. Covering the top half of a canning jar with black paper and coating the bottom with honey or corn syrup and suspending it upside down over the bowl of yeast mixture makes an effective trap. After the fruit flies feed, they fly upward toward the light and are trapped against the sticky sides of the jar.
Which method you choose depends on the products you have on hand and the likelihood that your trap will be disturbed. For households with inquisitive pets and small children, the inverted canning jar may be inconvenient. Fruit flies that do not drown in the vinegar or yeast traps may breed inside the trap and produce new fruit flies within a week to 10 days. These traps must be emptied and cleaned each week.
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