Information on Flies
Blow Flies
The term Blow Fly is a general description of a number of species of large buzzing flies, which include the Bluebottle, the Greenbottle and the Flesh Fly.
Characteristics
Blow flies are so called because they were believed to “blow” their eggs, or larvae onto exposed meats. They all like sunlight and are attracted to meat or carrion, and all may be found around dustbins in hot summer weather.
Diet
Their feeding habits (they vomit onto food to soften it up) and filthy feet, infect food, especially meat products, as they feed or seek egg-laying sites. Their Latin names indicate their habits; Calliphora vomitoria, Sarcophaga carnaria and Cyanomyia cadaverina are but three members of the group with a great capacity for transmitting the bacterial agents of food poisoning.
Why control Blow Flies?
Flies are widely recognised as carriers of disease-causing organisms, and their high mobility makes them particularly effective vectors. They acquire these pathogens whilst crawling or feeding on infected materials such as waste, and may then subsequently infect human food when they alight on it. This transfer may occur simply as the fly walks on the food, but will also take place as a result of the fly's defecation and regurgitation.
The simple presence of numbers of flying insects may be an irritating nuisance to staff, customers. Clearly, the threshold at which many guests, customers, or the public become upset by insects is relatively low, and unhappy customers lead to complaints.
In any food production or sales environment, the local Environmental Health Department has a responsibility to enforce food safety and environmental health legislation. Typically EHOs will work with and advise businesses where potential insect issues are present. However as a last resort, and where advice has not been heeded, then legal action may be taken against offenders, potentially leading to more negative exposure for the business. This negative publicity can have a significant impact on the public's and customers' perception of the brand. This, in turn, is likely to affect the business itself.
Fruit Flies
A family of very small (about 3mm) flies, some with prominent red eyes, characterised by a slow hovering flight in which the abdomen hangs down. All are associated with rotting fruit and vegetables or fermenting liquids. One species breeds in sour milk, for example, in the residue of forgotten milk bottles.
Bluebottles
The Bluebottle is a large buzzing fly with shiny, metallic blue body, 6-12mm long. One Bluebottle can lay up to 600 eggs, which in warm weather will hatch in under 48 hours and produce maggots which can become fully developed in a week. These maggots burrow into meat or carrion as they feed on it, and then pupate, often in loose soil, for about ten days before emerging as adult flies from the brown pupal case.
Bluebottles, like other flies, are often found on refuse tips, rotting animal matter, dirt and dustbins. They commute from filth to food and carry bacteria on their legs, feet and bodies.
Green Bottles
Green Bottles are large buzzing flies about 9mm long with a characteristic bottle-green sheen on the back. Mostly carrion feeders that enter houses to seek places to hibernate and, in passing, may well alight on exposed foodstuffs.
Remedy
Keep dustbins clean, with tight lids and away from doors or windows.
Keep meat and other food covered.
Use an insecticidal dustbin powder. Indoors, use an aerosol fly spray.
Consider fitting fly screens over kitchen and dining area windows.
Electrical fly killers can also be useful in mopping up those flies that do manage to get into your building.
Cluster Flies - Facts and Problems
So why are cluster flies a problem?
Cluster flies aren’t generally a problem all-year round, but they can be a nuisance when it gets to autumn and they start looking for somewhere to hibernate. Until then, they’re happy to spend the summer months outdoors living off a diet of earthworms, but when the temperature gets cooler, they start to look around for somewhere warm to sleep for the winter. You can probably imagine where they end up, or maybe you’re reading this now because your home has been targeted by them.
Although these flies are not a sign of an untidy home, nor are they disease spreaders, it’s understandable that home owners in don’t want to share their living space with large numbers of them! It doesn’t take much for them to enter a home, whether it’s through an open door or window, or by more covert means: around the edges of a window frame or skylight, or the eaves of your house if your home has suffered wear-and-tear from the elements.
If a cluster fly finds its way in on its own, there’s every chance more will follow. Each fly transmits a scent, or pheromone, which attracts others to follow. If a large number of cluster flies find their way into your home, the combined smell of the pheromones they give off can be very potent – you might have noticed a sweet and sickly odour but not realised what it was. The flies will hibernate over the winter in locations such as your loft, or may remain within and around window frames themselves.
It’s therefore possible you might not notice or be bothered by them immediately. Maybe you’ll find yourself swatting away one or two every now and then and wonder whether they’re coming from. But by the spring the rest of the cluster will once more emerge and getting them out of your home might prove difficult. Also, once cluster flies have visited a property on one occasion, they have an annoying habit of returning. The best solution is to fully exterminate them in order to significantly lower the chances of this happening.
How do you get rid of cluster flies?
As with most unwanted home invaders, once they’re in, cluster flies can be very difficult to get rid of. This is particularly the case if you’re planning on trying to dispose of them yourself. First of all, you have to know where they are hibernating, although once they are inside a property, they may choose a number of hibernation sites around the house. It’s easy enough to insect-spray a cluster fly that’s visible to you, but there could be many others tucked away in cracks, crevasses and hard-to-reach places.
Loft space is a popular location for cluster flies to hibernate in, and they can be difficult to remove if the inside of your roof is cramped or not easily accessible by people. Pumping large quantities of insecticide through your roof hatch is a bit of a lottery as it may still not get rid of all of them, and as we’re always pointing out for the public’s own good, be very wary of the quantities and any combinations of insecticides you might be using as this could be more detrimental to your own health than that of the cluster flies.
We are specialists in the removal of many varieties of pests that invade people’s homes. Where cluster flies are concerned, we know their habits, their life cycles, and the locations which they favour for their hibernation. We have the right tools and we know the appropriate solutions that will target the problem.
Before you go down the DIY route feel welcome to give us a call to see how we can help?
