How to Get Fruit Flies in a Bottle
- 1). Remove whatever food seems to be attracting the fruit flies. This could be a bowl of fruit, a spillage, a garbage can that needs cleaning or something else. If you keep supplying them with food, the fruit flies will stay.
- 2). Clean all surfaces where food is prepared. Include the floor since food may have been dropped and not properly cleaned up. Make the environment as uninviting as possible for fruit flies.
- 3). Take a piece of paper and form it into a cone using sticky tape. The cone should be made in such a way that the pointed end has an opening of around 1/4 inch in diameter.
- 4). Place a piece of fruit and 1 tbsp. of cider vinegar into the bottle. An overripe piece of banana, peach or plum is ideal for this. You could even use a piece of the fruit that attracted the flies in the first place.
- 5). Insert the pointed end of the cone into the neck of the bottle using a piece of tape to hold it in place. The flies should be able to enter the bottle via the cone, but will not be able to get out. The trap is now prepared and should be located somewhere in the middle of the room where the fruit flies will find it.
- 6). Check the trap after an hour or two. With any luck, all or most of the fruit flies will be in the bottle. Cover the neck of the bottle by crumpling the cone and using as a cork. If you have a compost heap or access to one, add any remaining overripe fruit to it and release the flies next to it where they will feast happily.
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