Can beer in a beaker catch loose Drosophila?

[Dorothy Baum]

I remember somewhere a trick to catch loose Drosophila.
It might have been beer in a beaker which they drink
and then drown? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jim mcnamara]

We used to do this, but with yeast + water + banana.

http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef621.asp

If you have a major escape on your hands, putting up flypaper near the jar helps, just don't get your hair stuck in it like I did... Major escapes usually mean having to spray. Which is often a no-no in labs.

 

[turbo]

Cut the top off a plastic water/soda bottle, invert it in the body of the bottle, and tape up the edges. Now you have a passive fly-trap that you can bait with fruit juice, bits of fruit, etc.

 

[Danger]

I can tell you from personal experience that there's nothing the little sots love more than Scotch. While I was tending bar, we could get away with putting a Saran Wrap cover over the limes and lemons, and the things like banana liquer were alright with the speed-spouts in. The Scotch bottles had so many fruit-flies in them that I had to pour them through coffee filters into second bottles. Then I put rubber caps over the spouts, thinking that it'd be okay. Nope... the bastards were so determined that they crawled in through the vent holes. I finally had to give up and put the screw-caps back on.