Got a fruit fly problem? Have no fear – today I am sharing the best natural fruit fly trap using vinegar! It will save you, promise.
Last week when I canned peaches using my no-refined sugar recipe I noticed a fruit fly. Well overnight that one fruit fly turned into 20. And then 40. Seriously…what is up with how fast these little fetchers breed? Before I knew it I was doing the icky dance, batting fruit flies away every time I opened my pantry. I knew that the breeding needed to stop and these fruit flies needed to destroyed.
My parents always used vinegar and dish soap to kill them little buggers. Unfortunately at that moment they were traveling and I couldn’t get a hold of them for their recipe. Luckily on that same day I got an email from a reader named Stephanie who shared her recipe for a fruit fly trap using vinegar and dish soap.
How to make a Natural Fruit Fly Trap Using Vinegar
Take a jar and fill it 1/2 or 1/3 full of apple cider vinegar. Next, gently mix in a few squirts dish soap (maybe a teaspoon amount) so there are no bubbles. Then, leave it on your counter overnight near where you see them. In the morning there will be drowned fruit flies in the bottom of it! If the first night doesn’t catch them all make a fresh batch the next day to catch the stragglers.
How this works is the apple cider vinegar smells like rotten fruit to the fruit flies and attracts them. The liquid dish soap breaks the surface of the vinegar and sucks them in when they try to land, which drowns them.
Now I am a lover of most creatures besides spiders, grasshoppers and flies of all kinds. So it still saddens me a little that I am having to kill these little fruit flies, but if I don’t they will breed and infest quickly. This method is natural and non-toxic so if my kids come by and happen to grab the jar off the counter it shouldn’t hurt them.
So it’s bye bye, fruit flies! Hope this recipe helps you out.
I’ve been using this method for some time but I find that the liquid evaporates in a week or so. How come when you do it, it lasts 6 months ? Maybe I have the Mix Ratio wrong. I am using the traps tied up in my Fruit Trees. If you can Please Help.
Thank you so much.
Hi, it definitely doesn’t last 6 months, it usually only lasts about a week and then I make a fresh batch.
I’ve done this too with my Fruit Trees. The solution evaporates quicker because its outside effected by the sun, heat, the elements. I have to make fresh traps weekly.
Very little of the vinegar and soap are actually required, and you don’t need to refresh it daily.
I use a small herb jar (maybe four or five ounces in volume) and put half an inch deep of cider vinegar mixed with one or two drops of dish soap. Cover it with plastic wrap and poke a hole in it for the flies to get in.
Highly efficient for about three months, and still pretty effective for another three months after that. I refresh it about every six months, but I’ve had one that lasted almost a full year. The one I cleaned out today had well over a hundred fly corpses in it.