Top 3 DIY Fruit Fly Traps

6 years ago
by Heather Whitney

Content:

You’ve probably seen a swarm of these little bugs. Always fly around the bowl of fruit in your kitchen. While looking around your almost spotless kitchen you probably wonder how these weird flying bugs got there. 

Fruit flies are those devious little red-eyed insects that take refuge in your fruit bowl, garbage can, and anywhere else that suits their fruity appetites. Ever left a glass of wine or beer alone for a few minutes only to see a few of these weird flies swimming in it? Well, turns out that they love your alcoholic beverages just as much as they love overripe fruits.

But where do these things come from? How come there is so many of them? How do you get rid of them for good? There are many questions people have when it comes to dealing with a pest infestation of any kind. While many live under the assumption that only really dirty kitchens have flies, they would be quite surprised to know these flies are everywhere.

Fruit flies can be found in restaurants, supermarkets, garbage dumps, farmer’s markets, homes, and anywhere else there is food lying around. Like their house-fly cousins, they aren’t too picky in their food selections and living quarters.

So how can you give these nasty fruit flies the boot for good? With this simple guide, you will be able to figure out all of little the intricacies of the tiny fruit fly, how to identify one, how to prevent a fruit fly infestation, and how to make a homemade fruit fly trap that actually works on fruit flies.

Fruit Flies: The Ones Who Love Your Favorite Fruit Pie

Nothing like having plans to make a wonderful peach cobbler, banana pudding, or try out grandma’s old berry jam recipe just to have a swarm of bugs rain on your parade. It is safe to say these flies love all things sweet about as much as you do.

However, these insects aren’t above sniffing around your garbage bin, swimming in your garbage disposal, treating the local mop as a flies-only jungle gym, or soliciting your dish sponge as their new home either. Fruit flies will even take on the challenge of living in your sink’s drain, compost pile, and other odd places too. Not even that juice spill under your fridge is safe from a fruit fly.

If these little opportunistic flies can smell it, they will be on it faster than a New York minute.

But before you start cursing the fruit flies long list of ancestors, these little guys do have some uses, just not in your home.

While you may not think much of these pesky flying armies of grossness, they have been used to help scientists understand genetics. This fact alone has led to many medical breakthroughs for both flies and humans. In fact, fruit flies share many disease-causing genes with humans making them great test subjects for illnesses such as type 2 diabetes. They are even used in space for experiments.        

Looks like their sweet tooth came in handy after all. But before you ship these flies off to the moon you might want to determine what they look like first.

What Does a Fruit Fly Look Like?

fruit flies

If you have ever taken a gander through a biology book, you will know the little annoying fruit fly has a few peculiarities with its overall appearance. Unlike other species of fly, the fruit fly can actually have a few distinct eye colors: white, red, and yellowish-brown. They can even have variations in their wing shape.

Overall, the common fruit fly is a 3 – 4 mm long insect with a brown or tan body.

Some species of fruit fly will exhibit other color patterns depending on the species in question. There are over 1,500 different species of fruit fly and each can have its own behaviors, appearance, and breeding habitats.

Lifecycle of a Common Fruit Fly

There is a reason scientists love these little pests so much. Beyond their genetic capabilities, fruit flies have very short lifespans and odd reproductive behaviors. A fruit fly lives approximately 25-30 days sometimes longer depending on the species of the fruit fly.

They spend a few days to a week in their developmental stages. Like other insects that go through metamorphosis, the fruit fly has stages of development. A fruit flies’ life cycle consists of an egg stage, larval stage, pupa stage, and adult stage. The length of their life cycle depends on food availability and temperature.

Most female fruit flies can produce a wide range of up to 10 – 500 eggs at one time. Before a female fruit fly lays her eggs she will first go through the courting ritual with male fruit flies. Once she finds one she likes, they mate. Female fruit flies can have multiple mates to ensure quality offspring.

Typically, a female fruit fly will prefer to lay her eggs near a reliable source of food and water.

Are Fruit Flies Dangerous?

Outside of being a real pain in the neck to get rid of, these fruit-loving insects can be a potential health hazard. Fruit flies are known carriers for E. Coli, many types of pathogens, and other types of bacteria. These pesky insects are known to contaminate food, toothbrushes, cups, dishes, utensils, and other items that are placed in the mouth.

Other than their ability to replicate quickly and contaminate food, fruit flies are harmless. They do not possess a stinger and they can’t bite you either.

How Does the Fruit Fly Get into Your Home?

clean kitchen

Fruit flies will go where ever they smell sweet ripe fruit or garbage.

This means clean kitchens are also on their list of go-to hot spots for happy living. Fruit flies generally enter homes by either sitting on the food you have purchased or coming in through an open door or window.

Fruit fly infestations usually occur during the late spring into late summer. This is because of the mass availability of their preferred food sources.

However, once they are in your home they can continue to reproduce all year long with the only limitation being temperatures below 25°C.  

Other Types of Fruit Fly Prevention Tactics to Try in Your Kitchen

airtight containers

While there are much homemade fruit fly traps you can try, you will also need to ensure no more future fruit fly infestations occur.

To do this you will need to follow a few rules with your home.

  • Store all fruit and vegetables inside your refrigerator. If you don’t want to store garlic, potatoes, and onions inside your refrigerator, you can keep them in tied up in transparent bags to ensure the fruit flies don’t make a home in them.
  • Make it a habit to keep your windows and doors shut. Fruit flies are small enough to slip through mesh screens.
  • Use your air conditioner as often as possible or install a central dehumidifier in your home. You can also have a portable dehumidifier around your home. Either way, this will make the temperatures and air conditions undesirable for the fruit flies to reproduce.
  • Use either bleach wipes or all-purpose cleaners on all of your home’s surfaces including the refrigerator, stove, microwave, toaster, counters, and garbage bin. Make sure to clean your trash cans as often as possible to prevent decaying food bits at the bottom.
  • Make it a habit to clean out your garbage disposal and other kitchen appliances as often as possible.
  • Make sure you replace your kitchen washrags, sponges, and mop heads as often as possible.
  • During summer months you will need to make an easy to follow cleaning schedule for your bathroom, dining room, and kitchen. Mop and clean all surfaces after cooking and once before night, take the trash out twice a day, clean out trash cans weekly, and wipe down all appliances used, and clean up any spills immediately.
  • Seal up all cracks in the bathroom and around the kitchen. This is due to the fruit flies habit of finding a place to breed their young and any moist crack is perfect for them.
  • For large infestations of fruit flies, you may need to call in a professional exterminator to help you handle the problem. They will be able to provide you with other tips to handle your particular case of fruit flies.
  • Keep all dried goods in airtight containers
  • Leave no food, drinks, or open containers of any kind out.
  • Make sure you clean out all bottles, cans and other containers before you throw them away.
  • Use a bacterial digester to clear up garbage disposals and sink drains. Bleach is not as effective in the long-term prevention of slime build-up.

Top 3 DIY Fruit Fly Traps to Try in Your Home

When it comes to dealing with a fruit fly hoard you might be searching for just about any commercial or homemade fruit fly trap out there.

While you could use poison, they are oftentimes not very safe and make for poor homemade fruit fly traps when you have children and pets.

1.) The good old vinegar in a jar trap

Use a cider variety of vinegar (apple, balsamic, or red wine) and pour a little at the bottom of a jar, bowl, or any container you want to use.

Cover the top of the container with some plastic wrap. You can use a rubber band to help keep the plastic wrap in place. Once you have the plastic on, poke a few small holes into the plastic wrap.

This is so the fruit flies can crawl in and not be able to escape. The vinegar is there to attract the fruit flies.

2.) Soap and water trap

Take a bowl and fill it with a few tablespoons of vinegar. Add a couple of drops of dish soap.

Once the flies sniff out the vinegar they will try to land, the soap will cause a break in the vinegar’s surface tension causing the fruit flies to drown.

3.) Get a few Venus Flytraps

Nothing beats getting rid of flies like mother nature’s methods.

Venus flytraps are an extra homemade trap method you can use alongside others and they make for great décor in the kitchen.

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