It's hard to resist the fresh bounty of the summer harvest season. Fresh, colorful fruits and vegetables taste great AND they look good just sitting in a bowl on the counter. The appeal is undeniable...and while we gather and eat, there are others seeking out your summer cuisine as well.
Fruit flies!
Irresistible Fare
Produce and other unrefrigerated food items are a fruit fly's dream, especially in the late summer as warm weather harvests ripen and ferment. What may look like an innocuous piece of fruit waiting to be eaten could actually be posing as room and board to fruit flies already in tune with the early stages of its ripening.
In general, fruit flies can be found just about anywhere food is stored, including homes, restaurants and grocery stores. These tiny insects usually lay their eggs on or near foods and other moist, organic materials which are beginning to ripen or rot. In less than a week, the larvae hatch and use the food in which they were hatched to nourish themselves and to begin a new reproductive cycle. At up to 500 eggs a pop, fruit flies can quickly become an enormous and irritating infestation.
In your home, the biggest draw for fruit flies are drains, garbage disposals, trash cans and food storage areas such as the fruit bowl. They may also come into your home on over-ripened produce. Although many people simply find fruit flies to be annoying, it's important to get rid of them as they can potentially contaminate your food with bacteria and other organisms.
Prevention is Key
The important thing to remember is that although fruit flies only need a small bit of food in which to develop, preventing them is the key:
- Throw away produce which is overly ripe or starting to rot.
- Thoroughly wash fruits and vegetables and cut out damaged portions of produce.
- Keep your floors, counters and cupboards clean of spills, crumbs and rotting produce. (Check the back of cupboards for stray potatoes or onions!)
- Wash dishes and keep drains clear. Don't keep dirty dishrags and towels lying around. Use the garbage disposal at least daily and check under the disposal seal for debris and food slime.
- Store trash in a covered bin and avoid throwing food into waste cans without a plastic bag. Inspect the trash container to be sure that food wastes didn't leak out of the garbage bag.
Elimination can be Tricky
Eliminating fruit flies can be much more of a challenge than preventing them: the only way to get rid of them is to remove or thoroughly clean every possible breeding site. Simply killing the flies that you can see doesn't eliminate the eggs and the cycle will repeat itself over and over unless you are very thorough. Identifying the source of the new flies can be difficult, especially in an environment where there are a number of potential breeding sites.
Traps can locate and eliminate some fruit flies, but eliminating their development sites is the best control option. Typical development sites include garbage cans, under appliances, in fruit bowls and anywhere else that may harbor even a small bit of organic material.
Wait 1-2 weeks to determine if your efforts were successful. If they weren't, the flies will reappear with the next hatching cycle and you will need to renew your efforts to identify where they are breeding and eliminate those sources.