First it was bees, now it's pear wine and fruit flies, dammit.
 

Actually, I heartily approve of pear wine. It's the fruit flies which thrill me less, although I'll take fruit flies over bees any day.

[Bee update: It's honey-stealing season and last week Edna went out to the hives to gather the thingies that hold the honey, because it's time to extract the honey. Somehow or other she pissed off the bees in a royal way that the little fuckers actually attacked her, with a couple of them finding their way into the bee hat thingie! She only wears the jacket part of the bee suit because the entire jumper is horrendously hot to work in, so the bees stung her through her jeans, managing even to work their way down into her boots. Now do you see why I don't go anywhere near those little bastard's hives? It was bad enough that one was still in her jeans when she came in the house and went flying around with Larrie The Female Kitten chasing after it. Goddamn I hate those bees.]

Anyway, my question is: What's the best way to quickly eradicate fruit flies. I don't care about catching them and setting them free. I want them DEAD. They'll contaminate the wine if even one gets in there, and you know how I feel about my alcoholic beverages. I prefer them uncontaminated.

I've put apple cider vinegar in bowls but I don't know if there's supposed to be more to it than that. Google tells me yes and no. I hate Google, but not as much as I hate bees.

And ideas for mass annihilation of fruit flies?

Yack! :eek: ::shudder::

I got stuck on this part, so I can't answer your question. I probably couldn't answer it anyway, but I'm still stuck on this part.

Pear wine sounds good, though. Especially with ice cream. Mmmm. . .I wonder how pear wine ice cream would taste.

I'm sure there'll be a thread on it in the future...provided I get rid of the damn fruit flies before they ruin it.

Have you covered the vinegar bowls with plastic wrap? If you haven't, do so and poke several holes in it. Keeps them from getting back out.

I did that with one, and with the other I added dish soap (as conflicting Googled sites suggested.) We'll see which one works better. One also said to use beer but that's just a waste of a tasty beverage which they do not deserve.

I saw a good thread over at Chowhound on this. The suggestion getting the most raves was dropping a chunk of banana or apple core into a glass jar and covering it with a funnel. Works a charm, apparently.

Ooh; that sounds like a great idea, Board Taurus. I'll try to remember that. We thought we got through the entire season without being bothered by fruit flies, until about two weeks ago. They left as suddenly as they appeared, though, so it still wasn't too bad. Last year we had a horrible amount of 'em. I bought fruit fly traps at Safeway, but they didn't work very well at all.

Good luck, Detroit Hoser, and I'm sorry to hear that Edna got stung!

Thanks, I'll pass that on to her. She was all apologetic toward the bees with "Well, I accidentally killed some of them so they had a right to sting me." Yeah, she's kind of weird but I love the hell out of her.

BT, I'll give that a try next. One way or another they're going to die, dammit.

I like cider vinegar in the bottom of a long-necked bottle (like a wine bottle) works really well, once they figure out it's there. You don't want a lot of vinegar in there, just a quarter-inch or so.

You also have to make sure you clean out all your drains -- bleach followed by boiling water should do it -- and scrub out your garbage cans really well, because those are the places they lay eggs in the gunk that gets trapped there.

Hey Miss Purl. . . I like your avatar! :)

Apple cider vinegar, definitely, in a container that they won't easily be able to get out of as has been suggested. If you buy commercial fruit fly traps that's exactly what they are (I brought some home from my last restaurant job when I had a brief infestation, just little containers with small holes in the top filled with some fruity vinegar).

When the city had a problem with fruit flies, they sprayed the whole town with malathion from helicopters. You might give that a whirl.

I already tried Napalm, which solved the problem. Except that now I need a place to live.

The cider vinegar tricks are working well, except the smell makes me wanna barf. Oh well, just a small price to pay for good pear wine, I guess.

You should train the fruit flies to beat back the bees while you steal the honey.

Hah! And they said I didn't have what it takes for management.

"Middle Management." You need to be here to supervise.

I use cider vinegar, a splash each of a brown spirit like whiskey, balsamic vinegar, red wine, and a little honey in a ramekin with plastic wrap with holes punched in it. It works so well that depending on your numbers, you're washing their bastard bug corpses down the drain and replenishing your cocktail every couple days.

I second bleaching out the garbage disposal and saying a prayer for the watershed.

And there is nothing on this planet that I hate more than Drosophila melanogaster. I fear spiders, silverfish, and centipedes. I am annoyed by mosquitos. But fruit flies can burn a slow death roasting over hot coals for all eternity. Why they ever existed in the wild is beyond me. It's personal.