Friday, September 20, 2013

traps not working

I've got my three vinegar traps laid out, but they ain't trappin' nothin'. It's not as though the traps don't attract the fruit flies—they do. But the flies never fall for them. I watched, riveted, while several fruit flies landed on the outside of my traps, crawled up and into the bowl-shaped entrance... then crawled back out and flew away. Fuck.


_

5 comments:

Charles said...

You apparently have the smart fruit flies in your house.

Maybe you need to put some alcohol in the traps so they get drunk.

Kevin Kim said...

What is there to say about creatures so leery of crossing the limen?

Charles said...

Most likely they have too much invested in their current positions within the social structure.

That's it: you're dealing with aristocratic fruit flies.

C. Bishop said...

hi Kevin, you need to put a drop of dishwashing liquid in with the cider vinegar, it breaks the surface and the fruit flies fall in and drown.

Kevin Kim said...

C. Bishop,

Thanks. Another commenter gave that same advice (even though the YouTube "Produce Guy" didn't), and I followed it. Still no dice. The problem is that the fruit flies have to go into the trap, but they don't: they stop at the threshold and then fly back out. Most frustrating.