On warm summer days, you don’t even have time to turn around and tiny flies swirl around the fruit in a bowl. How to get rid of fruit flies or at least reduce their raids as much as possible?
If fruit flies appear at home, act quickly. Sufficient cleaning, disposal with the help of traps, but also a biological weapon in the form of a carnivorous plant or a proven grandmother’s advice will help.
What can you do to rid your household of annoying flies?
All you need is a forgotten glass of wine, a trash with fruit or vegetable scraps or one overripe banana, and then dozens of uninvited visitors are hovering around your kitchen.
What are fruit flies?
There is over 1,500 different species of flies, with representatives occurring around the world.
Individual species differ in body color, size, behavior, food and method of reproduction. It is a small insect with a body 2 to 4 mm long carrying two wings and three pairs of legs.
Specifically, the common fruit flies grows most often 2 mm, its body is yellow-brown, but it may turn brown to black.
A detailed look reveals a distinctive distinctive sign, red eyes.
Why do fruit flies show up at home?
Overripe or fermenting fruits, remnants of vinegar, wine and similar delicacies are sure to attract. Their scent means a clear invitation to the feast for fruit flies, they like everything that is sweet and fermenting.
Likewise, the abrasion of rotting plants in pots or picked flowers in a vase is very tempting for them, not to mention the foul-smelling leftovers from the trash can.
The sensitive sense of smell attracts flies, they arrive from the outside environment and multiply quickly.
It is also possible that you bring their eggs straight with the fruit from the store or from the garden. Then you can’t help but wonder how fast the fruit flies population will grow and how many will soon appear.
The fly hatches from the egg in a few days
Fruit flies reproduce quickly and efficiently.
The rate of development depends, among other things, on the temperature (at 18 ° C, larvae will take twice as long to develop as at 25 ° C).
The female is able to lay up to 300 small eggs (they are only about 0.5 mm long) directly on the fruit.
Within twelve hours, the larvae hatch from the egg (at 25 ° C) and begin to feed on the fruit and microorganisms that contain the decomposing food. The larvae grow and gradually change, eventually pupating and in four days the adult hatches.
Females are able to mate in as little as 12 hours after they hatch from the pupa, and soon after they are ready to lay eggs.
Adult fruit flies live up to nine weeks.
It all depends on several factors, the temperature is important (the warmer you have at home, the faster the fruit flies multiply), but also the availability of food, the number of adults, etc.
How to get rid of fruit flies?
Although the presence of fruit flies does not directly endanger your health, their presence does not arouse enthusiasm. Tiny flying flies bother the environment with their presence, in addition, they not only degrade food, but also transmit bacteria, mold, rot and yeast. How to get rid of fruit flies in household?
Avoid further multiplication
The most important thing is to find a place of insect reproduction and destroy it.
So you have to find out what attracted the fruit flies and where they group. Process any overripe fruit immediately, if it is already spoiling and rotting, all you have to do is throw it away immediately.
Store other pieces of fruit in closable jars and check them regularly.
Also wipe the fruit juice stains and wash the bowl where the fruit lay.
Take out the garbage and rinse the container thoroughly, or wash it with warm water and dishwashing detergent, do not forget its exterior or its immediate surroundings.
Check the kitchen counter and the sink and everything around it for leftover dried sticky juices, a forgotten wine glass or an empty morning smoothie container.
If necessary, clean the sink drain of settled organic residues.
Air attack
Disposal of adult fruit flies is complicated by their small size and large number of flies.
When you find a flock of flies, do not hesitate, prepare a vacuum cleaner and simply vacuum them, you will get rid of a large number of individuals at once.
Then open the windows and create air flow, flies do not like the air flow and do not like frequent ventilation.
Fly trap
Set a trap on the flying flies, in which you lure them to the smell of vinegar or fruit juice, but they will no longer find a way out.
You can buy them without problems in household stores or drugstores, and their price is usually around a couple bucks.
The advantage of such traps is that no insecticides are used to kill flies, you only pour a bait solution inside (for example sugar water with vinegar), fruit flies fly into the trap attracted by the bait, they remain trapped and die.
You can then use a similar trap repeatedly, wash it, refill it and it is ready for another fight with flies.
Traps are also available, including refills, which you can easily replace and continue to use the catcher.
The advantage of this product is the long life of the bait solution, it lasts in a functional state for up to one month, it does not spoil or smell.
You can also use a various home-made traps.
Pour vinegar with a little sugar into a small glass and add dishwashing detergent. This will change the surface tension of the liquid and the fruit flies will drown in the liquid.
A home-made flies trap also works
If killing little creatures is against your mind, you can make a simple and reliable trap at home, in which you catch the flies and release them later.
All you need is a bowl or cup, food foil, rubber band and toothpick.
Put a piece of fruit on the bottom of the bowl, or drip a little balsamic vinegar, a teaspoon of wine or beer, in short, anything you lure the flies to.
If your bait is liquid, put it only a drop, or put only a soaked napkin in the bowl. Larger amounts of fluid would drown the flies.
Drag the bowl with food foil, which you seal well around the perimeter with an elastic band so that the insects cannot escape through it. Make two or three holes in the foil with a toothpick or knife and place the trap close to the place where the flies occur.
They‘ll be trapped in an hour or two. Then take it out, remove the foil and give the flies freedom.
You can also make a similar trap from a taller glass and a sheet of plain or waxed paper. Roll the paper into a funnel with a very small outlet and insert it into the bait jar.
Spray or lamp disposal
Glue strips are used not only against fruit flies, but also against other types of unpleasant insects.
In addition to fruit flies, it will also deal with the occurrence of aphids, moths, squirrels and other small pests on houseplants.
Hang the glue strip near the place where the fruit flies occur. They gradually stick to the sticky surface of the trap and, in addition to them, other insects flying in the household.
It is also possible to use one of the freely available sprays against flying and crawling insects to kill fruit flies, which works almost immediately after application.
If the presence of insects bothers you in the long time, consider purchasing an electric insect trap at a price of approximately 40 US dollars. The device eliminates UV radiation of the appropriate wavelength and attracts flying insects with light.
The insects fly into the lamp and then are killed by an electric shock, or caught on a glue board.
Just insert the catcher into the drawer and he will take care of everything himself.
Biological disposal by a carnivorous plant
Carnivorous plants are a good liquidator of small flies, but also mosquitoes and larger flies.
In addition, these natural insect traps are beautiful and fascinating, and you don’t have to worry about growing them.
Place them on the window sill, where the sun shines a lot and the plants have no shading, give them enough water and they will reward you for their care.
But you still haven’t won. Although carnivorous plants are able to catch many small flies, do not rely only on their hunting abilities.
Prevention and thorough cleaning will guarantee you a clean, fly-free household much more reliably.
Try the grandmother’s advice as well
In addition to consistent cleaning and extermination of flies in various ways, you also have other options for expelling fruit flies from the apartment.
Arm yourself with a sufficient amount of clove and spread the spices on porcelain bowls or plates. Then place them around the apartment in places where flies most often occur.
Its pleasant aroma scents the apartment, but it doesn’t smell much to the flies.
Peeled garlic is a slightly less pleasant helper. Peeled garlic cloves or directly crushed garlic located in strategic locations will help drive out fruit flies.
Flies do not like the smell of some essential oils (mint, lemongrass or eucalyptus). Drip a little fragrant essential oil onto aroma lamp, or mix with water and fill into a spray bottle. Fruit flies will soon move to a place where it will smell better to them.
The flies in the pot can also be fruit flies
You went through the whole apartment, you liquidated and cleaned all the suspects, but are the flies still taken somewhere? Check houseplants in pots.
Tiny flies flying out of the pot can be sciaras, but also fruit flies. The plants probably have too moist a substrate, they rot and thus attract fruit flies to lay eggs. Let the soil in the pots dry a little and place one of the traps near them.
The vermicomposter, which is increasingly appearing in city flats, can easily become a hatchery of fruit flies.
Cut the organic residues into smaller pieces that the earthworms can handle more easily and try to cover or slightly bury the biowaste in the composter (for example, a layer of sawdust or coffee grounds, or ready-made compost can be used).
Fruit flies are also useful
Fruit flies get many nicknames, mostly quite unflattering. Annoying, annoying, unwelcome, it’s all fruit flies for many of us.
However, these small animals can also be useful. In the first place, they are of great importance to science.
They played an important role in genetic research as a model organism for the study of heredity. Their rapid reproductive cycle and large number of offspring make them an ideal object for genetic studies and so they are still used in molecular biology laboratories.
Fruit Flies: Questions and Answers
Fruit flies have multiplied in my refrigerator, how do I get rid of them?
Answer: First, catch the flies with bait in the form of a bowl with vinegar, cover it with a transparent foil pierced with a fork and place in the refrigerator. Subsequently, it is advisable to wash the inside of the refrigerator with an appropriate cleaning detergent to disinfect the refrigerators.
Can fruit flies lay eggs in houseplants?
Answer: Yes, if the substrate is too moist, fruit flies can multiply in it just like mites.
Can flies appear even in winter?
Answer: Yes, they can.
Fruit flies fly around my coffee machine, are they attracted by the smell of coffee?
Answer: Yes, flies likes smell of coffee grounds, so do not leave leftovers in the cup or in the coffee machine for too long.
Can fruit flies bite me?
Answer: No, they don’t have a big enough system for that. If the flies bite you, they are not fruit flies, but another kind of small flies.
I need to catch flies quickly and I can’t buy a trap or make it, what can I do?
Answer: Use a vacuum cleaner, you certainly have one at home. Flies are slow and relatively easy to vacuum. Repeat if necessary several times.
