[Guest]

I went to make new cultures from some freshly hatched ones and went to open one and they started FLYING AWAY!!!! :shock:

I quickly shut it again. Took it outside and opened it up to let the little suckers go. Not all of them can fly but a good majority of them could. What the hell happened to my cultures? It's the only one that did that, the rest so far are fine (so far :roll: ). I didn't use it to set up my new cultures and marked the container "flyers" so I know to open it outside again before I feed from it so I don't infest my house. Which is probably too late because I've now got fruit flies breeding in my superworm bin too :shock: . That just got dumped and sterilized because of the mite problem. This insect thing is killing me. My husband is about had it with my bugs.

 

[andersonii85]

Chantel,

There are many explanations for this. First, random mutations can sometimes revert the genes that control wing and muscle development in flies, but this usually occurs in unstable strains. Every few months or so I buy some new cultures just to get some new "blood" into my flie breeding stock to prevent such occurences.

Another explanantion is that outside flies may have found a way into the cultures. This is more likely. Sometimes small holes are overlooked or you leave the lid off just long enough for one to slip in.

I would feed off the rest of the culture and then get rid of it. You don't want the problem to spread to other unaffected cultures. Chances are they have already laid eggs in the one you have and they will soon outnumber the non-flyers in that culture- rendering the culture useless. I have heard of people trying to put them in the freezer so that they may slow the flies down a bit- this way the frogs can get them, but at the same time they won't really be moving = frogs won't touch them.

Justin