HelpfulGardener.com

Yes, they are driving me nuts.
I am losing all cucurbits.


This Tanja cucumber is stung on top and at the bottom. I am saving this one for seed now.


My pumpkins are also all killed.


My sweet little dumpling squash, the first year that I successfully manage to keep the female flowers (due to raised bed method and calcium adding), I am lodsing all due to this little fly.

BUT HOPEFULLY NOT FOR LONG!


Now I cover them in little nets to keep the fly away.I cover from early and pollinate by hand. I have also spattered poisoned bait on the leaves. No more Mr. Nice guy. Now I play dirty. I have even managed to get a hormone to bait these buggers.

One of those "Black Light" bug zappers gets lots of those flies.

Doggone, somehow my reply posted twice. Can't delete the post. Have to write something else I guess.
My Bug Light is a 4 foot long one with two fluorescent bulbs in it. It is what the local farmers hang to grab the flies around dairy barns. Works with garden flying pests too.

jcrous is in S.Africa. When he talks about fruit flies stinging fruit, it's a different kind of insect than the one we call fruit fly. Imafan in Hawaii has also written about these fruit flies, stinging growing fruits and destroying them. Our fruit flies don't bother growing crops, just eat decaying fruit.

That said the bug zapper might work on this kind of fruit fly also.

Yes, you are right. When these flies stung the fruit, they lay a few eggs which developes into tiny worms. The eat the fruit from the inside. Sometimes the fruit is to old to be pierced and then there will only be a mark.

SUCCESS!

A few days later and the first ones are swelling. The fruit flies cannot reach them any more. The Pumpkin also started to grow.