Like other household pests, Fruit flies can constitute a nuisance within your home. These pests are active year-round.

However, their effect is felt during summer and fall. They are non-harmful insects on their own. Yet, their presence can be a sign of unsanitary household conditions.

This guide aims to discuss the effects of bug zappers on fruit flies and provide deep insights on how these flies can be removed from your home.

Now, let’s dive in!

Appearance

To understand how these flies look, you must be acquainted with their body size, their color, among other things.

Typically, Drosophila melanogaster is a species of a small fly. Adults are 3 to 4 mm long. Many of them have red eyes, even though others have dark eyes. With tan thorax, the abdomen is black on top and gray underneath. Most fruit flies can have a brown or tan color.

Where Do Fruit Flies Come From?

Fruit flies breed and develop quickly, which explains why they are often found everywhere around your home.

Often, these flies come in via cracks in walls or pre-laid eggs inside of any piece of fruit. Their eggs are very tiny, and these flies lay them inside vegetables or fruits.

What Attracts Fruit Flies?

Fruit flies are attracted to fermented fruits, moisture, vegetables, and food wastes.

However, debris such as garbage disposals, drains, empty bottles, mops, and cans, cleaning rags also attract them.

Generally, they are drawn to moist environments and food wastes. Since this pest only lands on surfaces, it is unlikely that you can ingest them with your food.

Reproduction and life cycles

Many theories state that fruit flies live for a day (24hrs). However, in the actual sense, these pests can live for up to 25-30 days as long as the environment is welcoming and there is food.

Drosophila melanogaster, the most common fruit fly, is known for quickly reproducing. Therefore, you’ll most likely find them in any environment with damp/stagnant water and green vegetation.

Like many other fly species, fruit flies often undergo a four-stage life cycle: They begin as eggs. Then, they morph from larval and pupal stages before developing into adults.

The early life stages of these flies can often last for approximately a few days and they can complete their development within a week when the temperature conditions are ideal.

Where Do Fruit Flies Lay Eggs?

Fruit flies lay their eggs on decaying or fermented plant and cay hatch up to 500 eggs at once.

What Are The Possible Signs That You Have A Fruit Fly Infestation

The best way to know if you have a fruit fly infestation is to watch out for them around your home. If adult flies are present within your property, you will see adult flies flying around inside your kitchen and other areas in your home where there is food.

Adult flies are often seen flying near fermenting vegetables and fruit, as well as trash cans. Watch out for the fruit fly pupa in dry places near the decaying matter, and it resembles cockroach or rodent dropping.

How Effective Are Bug Zapper on Fruit flies?

Yes, bug zappers work well on fruit flies.

However, they might not be the most effective way of eliminating them, even though they are relatively easy to use. Much like many insects, these flies are drawn to light.

They complete a circuit whenever they fly into a zapper. This gets them electrocuted. Today, most zappers are designed with baskets for collecting them as dead bugs drop inside these baskets and disposing of them becomes easy.

A report based on studies from the University of Miami shows that bug Zappers work, but they may end up attracting a different insect from the one you wish to eliminate. Several fruit fly predators, parasitoids, aquatic insects, and a wide variety of insects across the taxonomic classes can get trapped inside this device.

Eventually, this results in holes in the food chain, which significantly disrupts various niches in a specific ecosystem. For instance, it has been proven that there are several instances that a bug zapper has attracted and eliminated beetles, which serve as food for songbirds.

This effect reduces the population of songbirds, thereby disrupting the ecosystem.

However, it must be stressed that a bug zapper will effectively eliminate fruit flies and remove them from your home. As dead bugs drop, it becomes easy to dispose of them – making the device easy to use.

Besides this, the devices are environmentally safe. Although it is wise to keep them away from the reach of little children.

Mosquito trap

Are fruit flies attracted to Ultraviolet light?

Yes, fruit flies are drawn to Ultraviolet light.

However, according to a particular study carried out by researchers at the University of Miami, fruit flies are drawn to different lights throughout the day. Usually, these flies are attracted to green light in the morning and late afternoon. In contrast, they are attracted to red light during midday.

Surprisingly, it was also discovered from this research study that fruit flies are not attracted to blue light, which was once a popular fact about fruit flies. Therefore, it is possible to get rid of these flies within your home by employing bug zappers. However, there is a also higher chance to succeed if you trap flies effectively with fermented fruit, vinegar, or wine trap.

How do you prevent fruit flies?

Oftentimes, several bars and restaurants send out complaints as a result of fruit flies activities. Preventing fruit flies can be relatively easy. You can carry out a treatment without the need to resort to a pest controller.

It is possible only to carry out a knockdown treatment that would provide a solution to the immediate problem, besides fruit fly traps.

However, this is not a long-term solution. Even though fruit flies are particularly attracted to Ultraviolet light like other flies, for this reason, electric bug zappers can be effective in terms of dealing with these flies.

While using a fruit fly zapper can produce desirable results, the only long-term solution for these flies is to get rid of the breeding sites through constant cleaning.

Now, how do you prevent fruit flies?

The first step is to identify these nuisance pests. A typical fruit fly has bright red eyes. So when you catch one, look under a magnifying glass to tell.

Get rid of breeding grounds.

Removing their breeding grounds includes getting rid of fermenting fruit, wine, or juice. To locate their breeding site, watch out for moisture, decaying or fermenting fruit or debris, and warmth.

Some typical breeding grounds to look for are:

• Under food preparation areas or the gaps in between worktops.
• The bottom of refuse bins.
• Any area where empty bottles of juice or fizzy cans are stored before they are recycled.
• Standing water under fridges or ice machines.
• Under or in between damaged floor tiles.

Without the need for fruit fly traps, getting rid of breeding grounds will ensure that fruit flies immediately leave your environment.

Leave mops upside down.

Besides locating their common breeding grounds, ensure that you do not leave damp mop heads facing down in a bucket placed in a warm store cupboard.

Ensure that the mops are turned upside down and make sure that enough air is present to dry them properly.