Science Sunday: Fruit Flies

This is my first time linking up with Science Sunday which is hosted by Ticia over at Adventures in Mommydom.  I anticipate linking up a lot more in the future.  

We had a small fruit fly problem.  I wasn't sure where all the fruit flies had come from because we had had some a week or so earlier and I thought I had done a good job capturing them.  But we were being swarmed by the sink and over on one part of the counter.  More on where they came from later.  Hubby looked online for ways to get rid of the nasty pests, seeing as my way seemed not to have worked.  Vinegar was recommended (don't ask me what website he was on).  So he put some vinegar in jar.  

We also had an empty but not cleaned apple butter jar, so I put that right next to the vinegar jar.  

Those didn't seem to be doing much.  The vinegar attracted a few fruit flies to the rim, not unlike any surface in the house.  The apple butter jar had more flies on the rim, but I was unable to capture them because they didn't go in.  Why go in, the apple butter sat right there in on the rim.  So we had another 2 jars in which I placed cantaloupe rinds.  I put one by the sink and one on the other counter. The next morning there were fruit flies galore in both jars.  I quickly covered them, the peanut butter jar with the lid and the glass jar with plastic wrap held on with a rubber band. 

Here is a video:

I decided to let them go because that was the mistake I made a couple of weeks ago.  I thought the flies were safely caught, couldn't get out.  I forgot about them in the corner.  A couple of years ago I had done an experiment with fruit flies.  I wanted to see if they would be attracted more to a bad bruised spot of apple than to a healthy spot, so I placed said apple pieces in 2 separate jars.  Both apple pieces attracted fruit flies, but the bad piece attracted many more.  I then decided to keep them for a while to view the lifecycle. (It seemed to me that they must have a really short cycle as they always seemed to start with just a couple then in no time I was over run with fruit flies.) So I didn't think anything of leaving them there.  Unfortunately, while the rubber band over the plastic wrap kept in the flies, it failed to keep in the maggots.  (I know, how could I have missed that?  Seems they stayed in the plastic wrap that was hanging down and entered their pupa stage so when the new flies emerged they had easy access.)  I didn't want to chance it again, so we just disposed of them.  I then caught some more, planning on still doing the experiment after all.  But, did you know fruit flies will die in a jar with a screw on lid. Oopsie.  So the plan is to now do it again and cover it with a cut up stocking as I did two years ago.  The reason I want to do it again is because the girls are old enough to appreciate it more.  Especially, as we talked about lifecycles when we did our ladybug lapbook.  

At least now I know the best way to capture fruit flies is to use fruit.  Seems obvious, doesn't it. Tomatoes also work well, as do banana skins (why waste the fruit when they will like the skin, hehe).