Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mindmetoo]

Last couple summers I've noticed an increase in fruit flies. I eat bananas for breakfast but keep them wrapped in plastic and keep the waste sealed. Still, like the Yangs in Star Trek, they just keep comin'.

Anyway, a bit of research on the net and I hit on this solution:

http://www.saskwastereduction.ca/images/vermi-trap2.gif

Basically just take a jar, bait it with some banana, and the put some tin foil on the top. Poke a couple small holes in it. The flies find their way to the banana by smell but can't find their way out. Not sure they want to even abandon this heaven in the first place.

So after you capture a lot, plug up the holes save for one, fill it with water, give it a good shake, drown the flies, dump the water, and set out your trap again.

It's not the final solution, of course, but it has the effect of keeping the flies isolated in one location where you can easily kill them, instead of chasing them around your apartment with bug spray.

[aimmah]

Good tip!

I've also heard that if you put out a glass of wine they'll drink themselves to death.

[hanguker]

Thanks. I hate those little buggers! It's my fruit!

[dogshed]

Wrapping bananas in plastic is not recommended. It increases the
concentration of ethylene which signals the bananas to produce more
ethylene. The best way to ripen bananas is to hang them by the
stems.

There's a good chance that fruit fly eggs were already in the skin
when you bought the bananas and wrapping the bananas in plastic
makes them hatch sooner.

[butlerian]

For the first day since I came to Korea, I opened my door today in the afternoon/evening because it was cooler outside and to let some fresh air in. Never again. I'm now infested with fruit flies.

[jdog2050]

[butlerian]

Come to think of it, they also like maggoli too. I'll use that tomorrow to get rid of them.

[mindmetoo]

[tzechuk]

So we could be eating fruit fly egg ladened bananas???????????????

[steroidmaximus]

I find whenever I buy fruit or vegetables from the emart in town I end up with way more of 'em. Their warehouse must be vile.

[mindmetoo]

[Gemfinder]

one my roomates in college left bananas wrapped in a plastic bag in a bowl...and then moved the bowl into her cupboard and forgot about it. We had no idea what was drawing all the fruit flies in.

They're strongly attracted to vinegar too. So I took a regular plastic zip lock container, poured apple cider vinegar on the bottom, put a banana peel on top of that, and put on a thick layer of honey. Drizzle honey all over it and on the rim of the container and on the insides and anywhere the fruit fly could land or crawl. The fly lands on the honey and gets stuck or drowns. My setup killed 18 in an hour and a half.

She finally found the problem and there must have been hundreds of fruit flies in the bag. It took one more batch of honeyed, cidered, banana peel to clear the rest out. Good luck.

[dogshed]

I made a trap and it worked much better than I thought it would. I'm actually amazed. My first one just had tape for a lid but now I've made a better one.
There's a brand of banana milk that comes in a clear plastic bottle. I used
one of my needle files to make a hole in the lid. -Jeff

[Rteacher]

Why unnecessarily kill them? If you can trap them in a can, just throw it out ...

[mindmetoo]