[HN Gopher] Managing Kitchen Fruit Flies with a Little Shop of H... ___________________________________________________________________ Managing Kitchen Fruit Flies with a Little Shop of Horrors Author : zacharycohn Score : 71 points Date : 2023-07-21 21:58 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (blog.zaccohn.com) (TXT) w3m dump (blog.zaccohn.com) | ortusdux wrote: | I have some very happy pitcher plants in the window over my sink | for just this reason. I've been meaning to pick up some Triantha | occidentalis as well, a newly discovered carnivorous plant. Well | the plant is not newly discovered, but it took doping fruit flies | with N-15 and monitoring nutrient uptake to prove that it is | metabolizing insects. | | https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2022724118 | optimalsolver wrote: | Just buy some spiders and let them loose. | zacharycohn wrote: | Then you'll need a bunch of hummingbirds to eat all the | spiders. | | Then cats to eat the hummingbirds. | | Then wolves to eat the cats. | rufus_foreman wrote: | Principal Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a | godsend. | | Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when | we're overrun by lizards? | | Principal Skinner: No problem. We simply unleash wave after | wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards. | Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse? | | Principal Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've | lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake | meat. | | Lisa: Then we're stuck with gorillas! | | Principal Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When | wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death. | | Lisa: Hmm. | grepfru_it wrote: | This sounds like the start of a great children's book | rufus_foreman wrote: | There was an old lady who swallowed a cow... | digdugdirk wrote: | Who is Audrey and how did she hurt this person? | 542458 wrote: | Audrey II is the carnivorous plant from the musical the | article's title references. | | https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0091419/characters/nm0835925 | digdugdirk wrote: | Can't believe I missed the reference. Thank you. | [deleted] | lbeckman314 wrote: | "Audrey II is an invasive species to earth, originating 'past | the stars, and beyond the moon,' or about 490 light-years from | Earth on Kepler-186f. If you had a Falcon Heavy Rocket, a | cryostasis chamber, and were willing to leave behind everything | you've ever known on Earth, you could check out Audrey II in | its natural habitat where it is the dominant species. | | Otherwise, Audrey II can be purchased from local New York | florists for a paltry $1.95, post-eclipse." [0] | | [0]: https://carnivorousplantresource.com/the-plants/audrey-ii/ | acheron wrote: | A mean green mother from outer space. | nullwarp wrote: | My favorite way to tackle this is to use a bowl of bait and one | of those cheapo bug zapper rackets. | | I take the racket and use a rubber band around the button to keep | it "on" and then set the racket above a bowl of whatever bait I | need to use. | | I leave it there until the zaps finally stop. | | Has yet to fail me in clearing out a fly infestation. | squirtlebonflow wrote: | [dead] | NoZebra120vClip wrote: | Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. | | When I was a child, I liked lizards, rats, and frogs as pets, and | I also enjoyed the occasional Venus Flytrap from the nursery. I | considered some pitcher plants recently, but I had to weigh their | effectiveness against cockroaches, and the need to build a whole | tropical environment with lights, heat and humidity. | | Lastly, that brand of essential oil is the same one I purchase, | and it's great. I use them in a diffuser. | zacharycohn wrote: | Pitcher plants don't need a tropical environment! There are | many that are even from Canada. Ours is doing great in an | indoor Seattle environment just sitting on a windowsill that | only gets an hour or two of direct sun per day. | Jaygles wrote: | I am convinced fruit flies are some sort of multidimensional | being. I will sit in a room, observe three fruit flies in the | air, swat and kill those three fruit flies, then sit back and | observe no change in the number of flies in the air. | | They either throw out decoys when you swat them to fool us, or | there's a large queue of them waiting to take their turn to keep | the number flying constant | zacharycohn wrote: | Sounds like you need a multi-phasic trans-dimensional pitcher | plant. | nyjah wrote: | I'll add some tinder to the fire. | | I have an indoor bug zapper. I set it next to a window and it | gets the bugs that are inside. Does a great job. But always | intermittently some small fly will fly into it. Even when a | door hasn't been opened. | | I joke, but I'm semi convinced that 1 in every few billion | try's, the tiny flys make it thru the glass of the window. | Where else are they coming from ? lol. | yreg wrote: | Of course The Simulation has wallhacks. | squirtlebonflow wrote: | [dead] | AlbertCory wrote: | Depends on your home's location, I guess. I don't have fruit | flies. | | Where I am, pantry moths are the problem. One of the few | genuinely useful ideas I've ever gotten off NextDoor is this: Dr. | Killigan's Premium Pantry Moth Traps with Pheromones. | | The pheromones attract the moths, and the glue makes them stick | to it and die. You can put it out of site in a cabinet, and after | a few weeks it's covered with dead moths. | arijun wrote: | You can also mitigate pantry moths by rotating all their | potential food sources (like flour) through the freezer for a | few days to kill any eggs and larvae that might be there. If I | see a moth I will try to hunt down which food it came from (you | can sort of identify by seeing webbing which suspends bits of | whatever they're eating), and toss it. And then everything else | goes in the freezer to stop it from propagating. | | The other option is to put things individually into well-sealed | tubs or jars, to isolate any moths that might be there (they | will drill a hole through thin plastic, like ziplock) | | Honestly the trap method makes me a bit squeamish; if you're | continuously catching new moths, that means there're still eggs | and larvae in at least one of your bags of food. The idea of | eating that is a bit disturbing is to me. | iJohnDoe wrote: | The traps are there to help as well. Highly recommend. | | You still have to find the source as you describe. However, | if one of the moths flys out and away from the cupboard, they | still might lay eggs some where else. You want the new | hatchlings to go straight to the trap and get stuck. | UberFly wrote: | He mentions apple cider vinegar and dish soap. It's worked well | for me too but there are always a few flies that aren't as | interested in the concoction so yea only a 90% solution. I've | also found that many of these flies come in from the grocery | store in things like strawberries so we're careful to check | before they enter. Good article - would love to try these plants. | zacharycohn wrote: | Try adding wine! I started with apple cider vinegar and yeah, | it worked but a lot of them ignored it. Adding the wine really | upped the efficiency of those traps. | adriand wrote: | The best method is to put a bit of fruit peel and some beer or | wine or vinegar at the bottom of a glass (e.g. a pint glass) and | then fashion a cone out of paper, where the wide end of the cone | is the same size as the mouth of the glass. Cut the pointy end so | it's a few millimeters wide. Insert pointy end first, and tape | the wide end of the cone to the brim of the glass, forming a | seal. Flies will enter the glass via the opening in the point of | the cone, and will be unable to leave. This will collect huge | numbers of them with zero maintenance. | unixfg wrote: | Buying a plant seems easier, and I'm definitely not crafty | enough to build a fruit-peel beer cone glass and have it look | good enough to display. | aradox66 wrote: | This is awesome and you feel powerful vengeance until you | accidentally slip the paper cone a bit on disposal and a | hundred fruit flies escape at once. | zacharycohn wrote: | I've tried this several times and it's never been successful. I | don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I'm glad you got it to | work! ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-07-21 23:00 UTC)