Re: Fruit fly trap question
Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2017 9:32 pm
An update if anyone goes the fruit fly route.
I took some plastic container a sandwich came in from the store (like this http://www.uscasehouse.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/940x587/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/3/4/3424XX_11.JPG ), put a piece of banana inside and left it on my porch!
Lots of fruit flies go inside and multiply forever, a banana and being outside seems to give them access to whatever they need. When you close the container and disturb it, they try to escape and the only route is to try and squeeze through the outer rim (which surprisingly they can indeed fit into while its closed).
This puts them in a position to be easily smooshed on demand as they try to wiggle through, then you can just open it up (outside hopefully) and let all the other ones escape temporarily, collect the smooshed ones, and put the container back where it was for the others to come back and multiply.
With this strategy its really easy to get as many fruit flies as you want without worrying about any poisons of a fruit fly killing trap. I (probably comically overfeeding) give my colony of ~30 camponotus like 20+ fruit flies per day or every other day, just to make the queen think theres infinite food and therefore might as well lay as many eggs as she wants!
Lots of brood so its all good here!
I took some plastic container a sandwich came in from the store (like this http://www.uscasehouse.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/940x587/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/3/4/3424XX_11.JPG ), put a piece of banana inside and left it on my porch!
Lots of fruit flies go inside and multiply forever, a banana and being outside seems to give them access to whatever they need. When you close the container and disturb it, they try to escape and the only route is to try and squeeze through the outer rim (which surprisingly they can indeed fit into while its closed).
This puts them in a position to be easily smooshed on demand as they try to wiggle through, then you can just open it up (outside hopefully) and let all the other ones escape temporarily, collect the smooshed ones, and put the container back where it was for the others to come back and multiply.
With this strategy its really easy to get as many fruit flies as you want without worrying about any poisons of a fruit fly killing trap. I (probably comically overfeeding) give my colony of ~30 camponotus like 20+ fruit flies per day or every other day, just to make the queen think theres infinite food and therefore might as well lay as many eggs as she wants!
Lots of brood so its all good here!