Best (safest) ways to kill fruit flies

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…aside from nuking them from orbit (only way to be sure…)

at work, we have a problem with Drosophila Melanogaser (fruit flies), dunno where they came from, but the “kitchen” area is thick with them, they’re all over the store and pissing me off…

we had a short circuit on friday evening, and the circuit that the refrigerator (and the microwave, and the A/C…) was plugged into overloaded and tripped the breaker (which happens to be next door in our neighbor’s office, who had left early for the weekend…

…i keep telling my cow-orkers that we can’t have that many devices o

so, we have an unplugged 'fridge sitting in a hot office (no A/C, remember…) for the weekend…

…the garbage can of coffee grounds and half eaten food doesn’t help either…

so, we come back from the weekend to a large number of Drosophilla, partying up on the decomposing food, getting buzzed on caffiene from the coffee grounds, and generally running up a bunch of unauthorized long-distance phone calls…

they…need…to…die…NOW!

first step, close off the food supply, and make sure my cow-orkers aren’t leaving food around for them to eat/breed in

second step, have the cow-orker who blew the circuit clean out the fridge

third step, profit! err… build a small fruit fly trap (small soda bottle with the top cut off and inverted into the bottle, small hole in the cap, drop in a piece of banana), tape the trap closed, and wait…

final step, grab the vaccum, and suck the remaining little buggers up…

so, what’s the quickest (non chemical) way to kill the little buggers?

2

That’s weird. I could’ve sworn when I opened this thread that it was titled “Best (safest) ways to kill kittens”.

3

on one circuit, if we need to microwave food, we have to unplug the A/C… and this circuit is the only one the AC can run on, everything else is overloaded and immediately trips the breaker (located next door)

4

I’ve had problems with fruit flies a couple times, and what’s always worked is this: Get a small glass, fill it halfway up with juice (I’ve used both apple and orange and they both worked) then put a piece of saran wrap over the top, secure it with an elastic band or something and poke some holes in the top. Leave it near where there seems to be a lot of flies. In a couple days you’ll come back and see a glass of juice with a thick layer of dead fruit flies on top. It’s like what you did with a banana, but they aren’t drowning in the banana like they will in the juice, they’re just eating and leaving.

5

I did the trap thing at work, and succeeded in causing a local extinction event. So what you do, periodically, is put your trap full of flies in the freezer (I assume your work fridge has one). Out of deference to your coworkers’ sensibilities, hide it inside a bag first. A couple hours at zero degrees, and… you get the picture. It’s said to be a nice way to die.

6

The only caveat I’d suggest for the trap concept is that I don’t know how durable the eggs that fruit flies lay might be. There are a number of species that cannot tolerate cold which produce eggs that can tolerate sub-freezing temperatures. If your trap is disposable (eg a cheap plasic cup, not a good glass bottle.) I’d suggest instead of freezing it, seal* it in a dark plastic bag, and leave it in the sun for a few days. Solar radiation is quite good at sterilizing all sorts of annoying biological contaminants. (This is the green solution for disposing of ‘invader’ plant species to ensure that all spores, eggs, or seeds have been rendered infertile.)

BTW, MacTech: A point of information - the species name in scientific naming is not capitalized: so it’s not Drosophila Melanogaser, but rather Drosophila melanogaser.

*Sealing must be done carefully, of course. I suggest something called a ‘double j-seal.’ This is the method used in the Navy to seal plastic bags of radioactive waste. Begin by twisting the end of the bag into an impromptu rope. Bend this rope over so that it now looks something like the letter j, and then tape the end so that it can’t straighten out or come untwisted. Then place the bag into another bag, and do the same thing again with the end.

7

You’ve got some pretty tough fruit flies in Rochester I gather… :dubious:

8

Does this work as well as banana? I would have thought that the flies are attracted to the gaseous byproducts of the decomposition process, which in my experience are much more promient with a rotton banana than with a glass of orange juice.

9

Last year someone on the 'Dope suggested doing this and adding a drop or two of dish soap; the little buggers are attracted by the juice and fall in, and can’t get out because of the soap. Works like a dream.

10

Call me old-fashioned, but I use flypaper. Hang it up above the trash and any other fruit fly hangouts, and give it a week or two. Works like a dream, and no “toxic waste” to dispose of.

11

the trap is working, slowly but surely, i just needed to give it time to work (yeah, yeah, yeah, patience, how long’ll that take?) right now i’d say about 90% of the Drosophilla are entrapped, and the remaining 10% are trying to figure out whether free food/breeding grounds are worth the loss of their freedom…

…and eventual nuking in the microwave, it’s the only way to be sure…

12

Well, I can’t nuke 'em from orbit, now can I? (Some moron borrowed my TARDIS, and hasn’t brought it back, yet. Bastard.)

13

The attraction isn’t why you use juice. A decomposing banana is probably better at getting the files into the trap, but they can get out the same way they got in. They get stuck in the juice and drown.

14

You can always go after the rest with a spray bottle filled with soapy water. They’ll drop like flies and then you can just wipe them up and crush them before they dry off.

15

Okay, how about this idea…

one of my co-workers is a smoker, if he was to put a cigarette butt in water, i understand the nicotine will leach into the water, creating an effective insecticide (nicotine is an insecticide)

put the nicotine-enhanced water in a spray bottle and have at it, should kill 'em right?

(with my luck, we’ll end up with a bunch of grumpy, chain-smoking fruit flies going thru nicotine withdrawl…)

as far as the trap goes, i haven’t seen many trapped flies escape, primarily because their “thought process” seems to be;

10: If Predator = True; Then fly straight up; Goto 30
20: If Obstruction = True; Then land and walk straight down; Goto 30
30: If Food = True; Then land, feed, mate

16

FYI this works with wasps too, but I’ve used a jam (jello in American) jar with holes punched in the top of the metal lid instead of the saran wrap (which I assume is cling film in English). Also, a bit of the jam/jello/juice smeared around the holes seems to entice the wasps nearer.