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:
