How to Make a Fruit Fly Trap

Do you ever get annoying fruit flies in your house? I thought I would share this easy way to trap those pesky buggers. My friend Bonni taught me how to make this back when she worked with drosophila in a biology research lab.

Materials:

• sheet of paper
• scissors
• tape
• glass (or some sort of cylindrical container)
• pieces of bread
• red wine (I bet grape juice would work too)

Construction:

1. make a paper funnel by cutting a slit in the paper and shaping it into a cone. Tape the cone together and cut the tip off to make a SMALL hole.
2. put small pieces of bread into the bottom of the glass and pour some red wine in there. Just a little to let the bread soak it up, but don't drown the bread.
3. set the paper funnel into the mouth of the glass. It may help to tape the paper to the rim of the glass to make a seal.

The idea is that the flies will be attracted to the wine and bread, they'll find their way to it through the hole in the funnel, but then they won't know to get out back through that hole. They will try to get out at the top of the glass, so the seal is important. Hope this helps someone, I know it has helped me numerous times!