[HN Gopher] Managing Kitchen Fruit Flies with a Little Shop of H...
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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!
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