# Attracting Flies



## sporeworld (Jul 18, 2011)

So, I'm trying attract flies from one part of an enclosure to another, and I haven't noticed any dramatic differences between food sources. Wonder if anyone knows of any real science on the issue. Honey, vinegar, flowers, perfume, potato salad?

I read somewhere that when feeding, they give off a chemical that attracts other flies. Wondering if THAT can be exploited in some way...?

Also wondering what would happen if I put 4 or 5 different food sources in a big net cage, then introduced 10 or so flies. Would they migrate to, say, the cat food or the powedered milk? (No, I'm not using feces).

Anyone have experience here...?


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## NecroticSnail (Jul 18, 2011)

I've had good luck with darkening the room and turning on a light pressed up to the area I want the flies in. If I unzip the enclosure from the bottom and put the light at the top on the other side I get next to no escapees. No clue on the food route..


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## PhilinYuma (Jul 18, 2011)

We're talking houseflies, right? I have found that the gelatine mixture that I described a while back (Phil's Phamous Phly Phood) becomes black with flies almost immediately when i put it in a fly storage cage. House flies are "positively phototropic and negatively geotropic", so they'll fly upwards and towards the light. If you have an area at the top of your cage that is brighter than the rest of the enclosure and put some PPPP up there, I'm betting ($10) that they'll congregate up there. Let us know if you try it!


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## sporeworld (Jul 18, 2011)

PhilinYuma said:


> We're talking houseflies, right?


Yeah, well Blue Bottles, really.

I've been using the Fruit Fly mix, and YEAH - they pile on. But only while it's moist. If I put dried out mixture, it's a last resort.

So, I'm probably looking at the Fruit Fly medium as "pungent" - the vinegar drawing them in. So honey or banana would be "sweet". Am I missing something...?


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## psyconiko (Jul 18, 2011)

The food the flies ingest has to be liquid.They have to turn any solid food into liquid.So I guess they would have less work with sugared water, milk or honey(thats what scientist have been using when they experiment with flies and other insects like ants).

I just pull some drops of honey over the screen mesh,it takes 5 seconds and all flies get attracted.Drops of hony wherever you want them to go!

Also you are right they can send a chemical signal telling other flies about food,danger,mating....


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## PhilinYuma (Jul 18, 2011)

Sporeworld said:


> Yeah, well Blue Bottles, really.
> 
> I've been using the Fruit Fly mix, and YEAH - they pile on. But only while it's moist. If I put dried out mixture, it's a last resort.
> 
> So, I'm probably looking at the Fruit Fly medium as "pungent" - the vinegar drawing them in. So honey or banana would be "sweet". Am I missing something...?


Well, i guess that i shouldn't post during the night! Here we go:

In an environment with no food, flies will tend to congregate in the area that is brightest/warmest. There was a brilliant thread here a few years back by a guy in Scandinavia (Tony?) who was a vivarium keeper. He put one Orchid mantis in his enclosure and found that it quartered the area until it found the highest concentration of flies, which was a plant in the middle of the enclosure with a spotlight on it. *Flies are attracted to light.*

Two winged flies*, (*diptera) have the smart idea of layng their eggs in their food (yum). Unlike fruit flies (arguably), "filth flies", house and bluebottle flies, need protein for their young. They also need moisture. Earlier, I failed to make clear the difference between "Phruit Phly Phood" and "Philth Phly Phood" . You have been using the former, which as you say, dries out in a day and becomes useless. Philth Phly Phood is made from gelatine and water, just like jello, except that much less water is used so that it doesn't beome a liquid mess at room temp. Sugar will dissolve in the colloid before it solidifies and so you have a food high in water, protein and carbs, and if you believe in tritrophic nutrition in insect predators. you are increasing yr mantids' health and stamina.

I suggest that you try this (two packs of unflavored gelatine to 200ccs water and a tablespoon or two of sugar). Just make it up in a large Teflon frying pan, so that you get a thin layer instead of a mass of the stuff, according to the instructions on the packet, though with the reduced water volume, and you will end up with a layer of nice thick jelly that you can cut into squares (or circles, if you prefer) and place it where you want the flies to congregate.

Bluebottle flies love rotting meat. Most mantis keepers do not. I haven't tried this, but if you want to give them an extra treat (can't believe I'm writing that!) you might want to toss in some powdered, dehydrated liver that you can buy at a health food store. It will disperse and sink to the bottom of the gel, so just flip the layer over when it is set and it will be readily available to the BBs. I would not bother with this, though, if the basic mixture works.

That should do it. As I mentioned a while back, I got this idea from Chuck at SpiderPharm and I think that it is absolutely brilliant!

Keep us informed, as you always do!  

It also occurs to me that you could add food coloring to the gel so that it matches the color of yr sponges! :lol:


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## sporeworld (Jul 18, 2011)

Thanks! The gelatin is on my to do list. I already DO color my medium (ha), so it'll be perfect!


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## hibiscusmile (Jul 18, 2011)

I use to color mine, but lost the fun in it! And I noticed that a PICNIC is the best way to get flies :lol: ... I kill me! :tt2: 

oh, yea and vinegar too if a picnic is not handy!


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## sporeworld (Jul 25, 2011)

Two notes to the thread:

1. In my experiemnts, flies given the choice of light (lamp) or heat (ceramic bulb) chose heat across the board. So, to remove the pressures (stress0 cuased by too many flies, putting my ceramic heat lamp on one side of the enclosure had good results.

2. When luring my flies to thei "Fly Hut" (see: FlyHut), I used various attractants - powedered fly food, gelatin, sugar water, fruit fly medium. But by far, the best attractant was when I added rice vinegar to the powdered medium. Still experimenting...


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## ismart (Jul 25, 2011)

Here is a method that seems to attract many greenbottles. wet, and dry cat food mixed to gether. Leave it in the shade. Add some water when it starts to dry out. There is always tons of flies on it. Mind you, i have not purposely done this to attract flies, but i have noticed plenty eating it. Mr. Whiskers always has a sourpuss on when they eat his food!


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## sporeworld (Aug 4, 2011)

Here's a repurposed item that fit nicely into a niche. I let a tub of Blue Bottle eclose in a net cube with plenty of food, and used my FlyHut to gather them from the top. That cube has dwindled, and I didn't want to waste those last 20 or so flies. So...

I put the cube in a LARGER cube, and tossed my new(ish) ZooMed Bug-Napper. I got all but about 5 in the first 20 minutes.


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## d17oug18 (Aug 4, 2011)

Dont really understand what you have in those net cubes but i like the blue-ish color you got going on lol. Good luck on your experiments, they are alwaz entertaining to read and watch! If im not mistaken, milk powder in water, aloud to go "bad" or "soured" by way of adding vinegar. Will also attract A LOT of BB's. The smell of anything rotten makes them flock to it like birds migrating in the winter.


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## PeterF (Aug 4, 2011)

In my (now past) fly cages I had a repti heater pad placed on the top (small ones, say 6" by 8" or so). They would absolutely congregate on that. But never all of them unless it was quite chilly in the lab.

When I gave them milk (paper towel in a cup, pour in some milk so the paper towel gets completely soaked and the standing milk at the bottom is high enough to cause puddles) they would swarm that in less than 1 minute. It was for oviposition, but they were very happy to drink it. Older (not necessarily bad) milk had better results, as did room temp milk. But they were not picky.

I can not say if this would work on bluebottles though.

Also, while the milk did not stink, it might be too close to raw meat for your taste.


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## sporeworld (Aug 5, 2011)

OK, so it's hard to see from the photo, but I've already moved on...

I was trying to draw flies up to the top to remove them, so I put the whole Bug Napper over the top. Then - whooosh - they climbed right up!






So, then, I did a slightly better version of this over the entire net cube (obviously, needs to be strightened)...






It worked GREAT! I was "harvesting" about 6-7 Blue Bottles each time I "reloaded". Maybe 2 minutes apart. Not sure if you can see, but the jar on top fits snuggly into a "bung hole", and the light shines through the glass. The felt on the top is meant to block out the light from reaching the enclosure any other way - I need to cut that down and make it more presentable...

If I have time to do more updates, I'll post em...


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## PhilinYuma (Aug 5, 2011)

Yeah, and I can harvest that many in about 2seconds. This is my fault. I described a mechanical suction device long ago, with pix, that is almost impossible to copy, unless you are very handy and very determined (no one has ever described having copied it).

So, I am trying to recreate it using materials that can be easily duplicated. i just bought a bunch of RezTech HO 5 handle jugs from Rebecca. RezTech sells them and HO9s (same size lids) for a few bucks cheaper, but wait until you check out the shipping price1 Rebecca is definitely the way to go while her (limited) supplies last. I am in the process of finding a readily available insert jar, (mayo?) and then we shall be set. Mechanical aspirators for everyone! A chicken in every garage! (What's that? You're too young for that joke? And that's my problem? I don't think so!). More in our next!


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## sporeworld (Aug 5, 2011)

I'm excited to SEE it!


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## d17oug18 (Aug 5, 2011)

you can search ant vacuums and im sure they would do the same wouldnt it? it would be small enough to get the flies and not take up space i would think.


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## sporeworld (Aug 6, 2011)

The setup now is getting about 9-10 flies in about 20 seconds (the net cage is pretty full). I've trained my staff how to use it, and we fed my army (about 16 large cages) in about 30 minutes. Way faster than the fridge method, and more controllable than the toss-em-in-and-let-em-eclose method. They cleared out all thew flies in a little over and hour, and now they're all taking naps. Well, that's what it looks like...


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## hibiscusmile (Aug 6, 2011)

I am not sure if this is staff abuse! :lol: We will know if they turn you in!


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## sporeworld (Aug 11, 2011)

hibiscusmile said:


> I am not sure if this is staff abuse! :lol: We will know if they turn you in!


Haha. Naw, it's the Tom Sawyer trick. They still think it's fun!


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## dragon (Aug 11, 2011)

PhilinYuma said:


> Bluebottle flies love rotting meat. Most mantis keepers do not. I haven't tried this, but if you want to give them an extra treat (can't believe I'm writing that!) you might want to toss in some powdered, dehydrated liver that you can buy at a health food store. It will disperse and sink to the bottom of the gel, so just flip the layer over when it is set and it will be readily available to the BBs. I would not bother with this, though, if the basic mixture works.


Hmm. I wonder, as a substitute for the powdered liver, how well blood meal or fish meal might work out...... (Not an uncommon product used by some gardeners -- especially for rose growers.)


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