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How to Make a Flycatcher
How to Make a Flycatcher. Flies can be as bothersome in the garden as they are inside your home, particularly during hot, humid summer days or when fruit and vegetable harvests approach. Whether outdoors or in, a homemade flycatcher effectively and inexpensively traps and kills the pests. The task requires little more than a plastic soda bottle and...
Flies can be as bothersome in the garden as they are inside your home, particularly during hot, humid summer days or when fruit and vegetable harvests approach. Whether outdoors or in, a homemade flycatcher effectively and inexpensively traps and kills the pests. The task requires little more than a plastic soda bottle and a simple sugary liquid to lure flies in.
Things You'll Need
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
Saucepan
Spoon
2-liter plastic bottle
Utility knife
Hole punch
24-inch length of twine
Place 2 cups sugar and 2 cups water in a saucepan, and stir to combine. Bring the sugar mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally, and boil for 3 minutes to create a simple sugar syrup. Remove the mixture from the heat and allow it to cool.
Cut off the top part of a clean, 2-liter plastic bottle using a utility knife. Cut just below where the bottle slopes inward toward the opening. Discard the bottle cap, and set the top portion of the bottle aside.
Add two cups of the cooled sugar syrup into the bottom part of the bottle. Alternatively, use leftover non-diet soda or juice. Flies are attracted to the sugary sweetness, so avoid diet drinks.
Turn the cut-off, top portion of the bottle upside down, and insert it top first into the inside of the bottle bottom.
Align the top edges of the two pieces, and punch a hole 1/2-inch below the top edge with a hole punch. Punch through both the inverted funnel top and the bottom part of the bottle. Repeat this on the other side of the bottle.
Tie one end of a 24-inch length of twine through one set of the punched holes. Tie the other end through the other set of punched holes. Use the twine to hang the flycatcher from a tree branch, plant hook or shepherd's hook in the garden. Flies enter the funnel-like top to get to the syrup, but they are unable to get back out.
Remove the twine and the bottle's funnel-top portion when the trap becomes full, and empty it of flies and syrup. Refill it with more sugary liquid, and rehang the flycatcher to keep the pests controlled.
