DIY Fly Paper

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When you’ve got livestock, invariably there are going to be a few flies around.  Keeping their areas clean, mucking out pens, and composting their waste will go a long ways toward reducing the fly population and will give you fantastic garden compost in the process. 

But sometimes things just get out of control.  Like when you move, and the bunnies no longer have their own bunny barn because it’s still too hot to put them in the outside shed where they belong.  The evaporative cooler they previously used had to remain at the old house and swamp coolers in this town and at this time are not to be had.  So they get to stay in the very cool garage for now, and the flies join in.  We’ve all been occupied with unpacking, organizing, the start of school, and everything else that goes on when you move, and the pans under the bunnies don’t get cleaned as often as is needed. 

So that’s our reason for having too many flies in the garage right now.  In the future we might have any number of reasons for excess winged pests.  Of course, preventing them from showing up and multiplying in the first place is best.  But if that fails, we’ve got to know how to deal with the problem.  Flies carry disease, and besides, they’re just plain annoying. 

So today I’m trying out three DIY fly paper suggestions.  I wasn’t going to write about this until next year, but I realized that I have an abundance of flies in the garage right now, and after cold weather hits next week or so, I may not have a whole lot of flies to try this on until the middle of next summer.  And I’m really curious as to which of these solutions will work the best.

First up is the sugar syrup DIY fly strip found in hundreds of sources all over the ‘net.  The recipe is basically the same everywhere, a 1:1:1 solution of sugar; a sticky syrup like honey, corn syrup, or maple syrup; and water.  Some recipes call for a little less water; that will just reduce the length of time it needs to boil.  I used corn syrup that I got really cheap at the Grocery Outlet store where I used to live.  Honey and maple syrup are too expensive to be used on flies.

Sugar Syrup DIY Fly Paper

¼ cup sugar

¼ cup corn syrup or honey

¼ cup water

Brown paper sack

Twine for hanging

Combine ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves.  In the meantime, cut paper strips from a grocery sack, poke holes, and thread twine through for hanging.  Spread the strips on a cookie sheet. 

Remove pan from heat, and pour the syrup over the strips, using a paintbrush to spread the syrup if necessary.  Let the syrup soak into the strips for several hours or overnight.  Remove the strips from the cookie sheet pan.  Most sources say to put them on cake cooling racks over the cookie sheets to dry.  Mine were dry enough to just hang immediately.

These strips are (supposed to be super) sticky but totally safe, unless you get your hair stuck.  This small batch will make 6-8 strips. 

Another suggestion I’ve seen several times is to simply hang strips of duct tape.  I’m not convinced this will actually work, but I figure it’s a great time to experiment.

The final suggestion came from someone with a gardening Youtube channel and involved spreading Vaseline on yellow Post-it notes.  The yellow color is important as insects are attracted to it.

To make this experiment as scientific as possible, the duct tape strips were about the same length and width as the DIY fly paper strips.  Both kinds of strips were hung in the same area, intermixed.  The yellow stickies were supposed to be attached to windows, so that’s where they went.  And I used about the same total surface area for them. 

Now aren’t you curious as to the results?

I hung the sugar syrup and duct tape strips at the same time.  The stickies were supposed to go up immediately thereafter so that all three kinds of strips would have to same time exposure to the flies.  Unfortunately, I could not for the life of me find the Vaseline.  I knew I had unpacked it.  I looked everywhere, including the closet where Lydia said she found it.  Right on top of the Kleenex boxes.  Naturally.  Just where it should be, along with the other jars.  I think she’s pulling my leg.

So I finally got the “fresh scent” Vaseline on the yellow-green stickies.  I can attest to the fact that the flies really like the yellow-green color.  I killed six of them just as they were crawling between the stickies and the garage windows. 

However, after 24 hours there are exactly zero flies stuck to the Vaseline.  Maybe the fresh scent repelled them.  And there weren’t any flies stuck to the duct tape strips.  Nor were there any on the sugar syrup strips. 

So what gives?  Perhaps we don’t have enough flies, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t the case.

There are so very many websites touting the efficacy of the DIY sugar strips that I have a hard time believing they don’t work to some extent.  I think it might be an issue of humidity. We just don’t have much here.  And there’s no way I’m going to keep spraying sugar strips to keep them moist enough to stick flies.  But I would also have to say that I wouldn’t want to make a whole lot of these without trying them out first if I lived in an area with more humidity. 

The whole experience has just reinforced, again, the need to try these ideas out ourselves, before things fall apart.  What works for Jane in the desert may not work for Mary in the rain forest.  Bread dough is greatly affected by humidity.  So is the storage of canned goods and foods packaged in plastic.  And if any of you real people reading this blog have tried these fly strips and found them to work, let the rest of us know—and especially tell us what kind of climate you live in and how effective they were.  Thanks!