What do a bowl of nectarines, a glass of wine, and a worm farm have in common?  They all attract fruit flies.  Generally less annoying than house flies, they can be even more so if they get to that nice bowl of fruit before you realize it.  Fruit flies prefer yeast, but are attracted to any fermentation process and the alcohol produced from fermentation.  The ripening of fruit is actually progressive fermentation.  Fruit flies don’t like green fruit, but will show up when ripening advances.  A few flies are easy to control; just eliminate what is attracting them.  But, if they get a foothold, they are able to multiply in the most unsuspecting places.  So, best not to take them lightly. Solutions?You could call in a Malathion airstrike, but fortunately there isn’t much of that going on anymore.  At least we hope not (OK, we’re a bit naïve perhaps). A better solution comes from Bio-Logic, Inc. (see them at www.bugtraps.com), with the Natural Catch Plus fruit fly trap.  Made of food grade material, Natural Catch Plus traps are non-toxic, and each last up to 30 days.  You can actually put one in your bowl of fruit if you like.  We don’t recommend this for purely aesthetic reasons only.   Although they do have a certain geometrically stylized appeal. 

Once again, being the explorers that we are, we picked up a few from an internet vendor (Bio-Logic does not market directly).  The traps we ordered cost about $20 for 3, but we’ve since found them in a 12 pack for $45 at www.domyownpestcontrol.com .  We’ve located one near our worm farm, one near our fruit bowl, and another outside in the gazebo where we have our Friday night wine.  The worm farm had attracted the most fruit flies, which, of course, made for a worse problem in other areas. So, how is the test going? Haven’t seen a fruit fly in a while. The Bio-Logic site points up the application of the Natural Catch Plus in the food service business, as well as other applications larger than our little worm farm and fruit bowl.  We have looked at quite a few reviews of the product from those people, for whom the concern is much greater.  They seem to be very happy with the product, as the use of any kind of toxic product would be unacceptable.  Should be anyway if effective natural options are out there. Again, our test is on-going, so we’ll let you know should our results become less favorable.  So far, so good.  Scott Muramatsu and Bio-Logic look like a small business with a big idea. 

Filed under: products on June 29th, 2008