Fruit Flies like a Banana

If you have fruit in your kitchen you’re going to have Fruit Flies. That would be great if you were a scientist studying genetics, but since you’re probably not, you’d probably like those fruit flies gone.

A few days after our jam making adventures last week a new round of fruit flies showed up, and now there are dozens flying around the kitchen. Here’s our go-to method for getting rid of fruit flies. I also remember a big fruit fly attack after we made applesauce last year.

Clean the Kitchen

Remove their food sources. Wipe everything down, pour boiling water down the drains, wash the compost collection bin and the garbage can. Mop the floor. Washing with bleach does a good job killing any fruit smells.

Build an Effective Fruit Fly Trap

We have many traps in the past involving vinegar, honey, bottles and saran wrap etc. and nothing really worked. Here’s the trap that finally worked, the paper cone trap.

The Paper Cone Fruit Fly Trap

All you do is put some over-ripe fruit in the bottom of a cup (bananas and melon work well at our house) and tape a paper cone into the mouth of the cup. Basically, the plan is to make the smell of your bait the most attractive smell in the kitchen.

The cone should have a small hole in the center of it. The fruit flies fly in, and most of them don’t get out. It’s not impossible for them to get out, but they tend to fly up to escape, and up isn’t the way out! (evil laugh here)

Every day I put it in the freezer for a couple hours to kill any of the flying fruit flies, then I put it back behind the sink for the rest of the day. You could microwave the cup to kill the fruit flies too, but then your fruit would cook and smell. I don’t change out the fruit until it starts to smell bad or liquefy.

When the fruit flies are gone or I need to change the bait I fill the cup with water and freeze it into a solid cup full of ice. The ice pops out of the cup easily and I throw the ice block into the compost bin.

Fruit flies short lives flash before their eyes as they realize they might be stuck forever