How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies with Homemade Traps

Many dread summer time due to pesky fruit fly infestation. Not only indoor areas, but gardens can also get affected by them. Homemade fruit fly traps offer an easy solution in this regard. Here are a handful of tutorials to guide you on how to make them.

1. DIY Funnel Fruit Fly Trap with Apple Cider Vinegar

Things Needed

• ½ cup Apple cider vinegar
• Two drops of dish wash soap
• A piece of ripe or overripe fruit (optional)

Instructions

1. Heat the vinegar and pour it into a mason jar. You can also cut off the upper third of a two-liter plastic soda bottle, pop bottle or water bottle and use it as your jar.
2. Add the dish washing
3. You can drop in a piece of ripe fruit for adding extra temptation to the fruit flies.
4. Fix a funnel at the mouth of the jar. If you don’t have a funnel, you can roll a paper into a cone shape leaving a half-inch opening at the bottom. You can even use the cut part of the bottle as described in step 1 as your funnel.

Apple Cider Vinegar Fruit Fly Trap

Since Apple cider vinegar is made from fermented apples, the fruit flies will be appealed to go down the funnel to reach the liquid. The dish wash soap breaks the surface tension so that the flies just can’t sit on the surface causing them to sink. If some flies don’t sit on the vinegar after entering the jar, they cannot find their way out, and will eventually drown. Still, if they don’t drown, you can place the arrangement in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Tips

• If you want to make it without apple cider vinegar, you can use any other variety such as malt, rice or even the regular household (white distilled) vinegar.
• In case you want to use no vinegar at all, replace it with orange, peach or apple juice.

2. Homemade Banana Fruit Fly Trap

Things Needed

• Overripe banana
• Plastic or Saran wrap
• Warm soapy water
• Toothpick

Instructions

1. Place a couple of pieces of the banana at the bottom of a glass jar. A jam jar works fine. Your bait is ready.
2. Cover the mouth of the jar with the plastic wrap. Use a rubber band or tape to secure the edges.
3. Use the toothpick to poke tiny holes in the plastic.
4. Place the jar in the common fruit fly infested areas of your house.
5. Set one such jar just outside the door or window on a warm sunny day since that is usually their point of entry.
6. When a considerable number of flies have been trapped, immerse the jar in a bucket of warm soapy water for 10 minutes to kill them.
7. Rinse the jar and repeat the procedure.

Banana Fruit Fly Trap

Tips

• You can replace the ripe banana with any overripe fruit.
• Though ripe fruits work best for this method, honey, sugar water, maple syrup, molasses or lemon juice is also quite effective. Just leave a little of any of them in the jar and follow steps 2-7.
• You can poke a tiny hole in the center of a coffee filter and stuff it in the jar to tape it in place instead of the plastic wrap.
• One way to conveniently kill the flies is to put the flycatcher in the oven overnight, leaving its door partially open. In the morning, close the door and turn on the oven to get rid of any flies accumulated in the trap.

3. How to Trap Fruit Flies with Yeast

Things Needed

• Glass
• Warm water
• 1 tsp sugar
• Active dry yeast
• Plastic wrap

Instructions

1. Half-fill the glass with the water and sugar.
2. Pour in the yeast.
3. Mix nicely to bring it to bubble.
4. Cover the glass with a plastic wrap.
5. Poke small holes in the wrap.
6. Place it in the affected regions.

4. How to Make a Fruit Fly Trap with Vegemite

Things Needed

• 1 heaped tsp vegemite
• 500 ml warm water
• 2 clear plastic bottles

Instructions

1. Cut one bottle into half.
2. Take another bottle and cut out a hole in the upper part of its body. Make sure the hole has the same diameter as the mouth of the first bottle.
3. Insert the uncapped mouth of the top half of the first bottle through the hole in the second.
4. Stir the first two ingredients nicely to dissolve the vegemite.
5. Pour it into the arrangement keeping the level below the junction of the two bottles.

Fruit Fly Trap Using Vegemite

This one is more suitable for your garden, backyard or any other outdoor location with fruit fly infestation.

5. How to Kill Fruit Flies with Milk, Sugar and Pepper

Things Needed

• A pint of milk
• 2 ounces of ground pepper
• ¼ pound of raw sugar

Instructions

1. Combine the ingredients in a saucepan and let it simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Pour the concoction into a shallow dish.

The flies will be attracted to the mixture and will drown quickly.

Milk, Sugar and Pepper Fruit Fly Trap

6. Catch and Kill Fruit Flies with a Beer Trap

Things Needed

• Any beer
• Hammer
• Nail

Instructions

1. Fill up half of a mason jar with the beer.
2. Create around 3-5 holes in the metallic lid of the jar using the hammer and nail.
3. Screw back the cap.
4. Leave it in the infested areas
5. Dump out and refill the beer every few days.

Tips

• Replacing beer with a pinch of red wine or balsamic vinegar is also a good idea.
• You can use a similar method for drilling a hole into the cap of a soda or wine bottle having about an inch or less of its leftover content. Sodas, especially colas, work well in sticking the fruit flies.

Venus flytrap Plant as a Natural Fruit Fly Catcher

Place a carnivorous Venus flytrap plant on your kitchen counter alongside a tomato bowl. The fruit flies gather around the plant attracted by the smell of the tomatoes. Even if they turn out to be too light to trigger the snapping mechanism of the plant, they tend to get stuck to the fly-attracting juice secreted by the living trap.

Plant Fruit Fly Trap

In case you are making the traps for bars or restaurants, make sure to place them in places away from public view. Though it might feel a bit taxing to clean out the traps after accomplishing your mission, these organic solutions are worth your efforts.