[Fly Control] Treat The Source

There’s an old joke that starts with: “Waiter, waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!” But small flies actually in your soup or anywhere else, for that matter, are no laughing matter. Especially in a restaurant, bar or a food kitchen in a health-care facility, the presence of small flies is a significant public health problem that must be solved.

Before modern baits began their impressive record of success, pest management professionals sprayed insecticides into cracks, crevices and floor areas, says Jerry O’Hara, president of Anstar Products, Bensenville, Ill. “This suppressed flying insects as well as crawling pests. But baits today have pretty much eliminated the need for spraying those locations. So these areas go untreated and small flies have become a large problem in certain areas because the sanitation challenges will always exist.”

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CONTROL OF SMALL FLIES IN STRUCTURES
The key to solving infestations of small flies indoors is to locate all of the breeding sources and mitigate or eliminate them. Insecticide treatments are rarely needed for these flies except for space treatments to remove adults remaining after breeding sources have been removed. Infestations of these flies often persist because one or more breeding sources have been overlooked. Because these flies can develop in large numbers from a very small amount of decaying organic matter, the task of locating all indoor breeding sites is often daunting.

In restaurants, the source of Drosophila flies is often decaying fruits or vegetables or food debris from these materials that were inadvertently left or fallen somewhere and forgotten. If the restaurant or bar manager is unwilling to address the sanitation issues causing the problem, nothing a pest professional can do will satisfy that customer. All the treatment in the world will not resolve a fly problem.

A source for fruit flies in restaurants is trash containers placed in recessed or out-of-the-way places that are not emptied or cleaned regularly. It is common to find fruit flies breeding in or under Dumpsters that are too close to building entryways and then making their way into the structure. Dirty floor drains located under equipment and storage materials that are not inspected and cleaned are often the sources of fruit fly infestations in bars and restaurants.

Phorid fly larvae survive largely in moist, decaying organic matter. Question the client regarding leaking pipes, clogged drains, backed-up sewer lines and sinks and foul odors emanating from drains, etc. Phorid fly larvae live in the moist film that develops on the sides of a drain and in debris that may become trapped on the drain’s edge. The presence of many adult flies inside a drain, or in the immediate vicinity, is a good sign that the drain is a potential breeding site for this pest.

This information was excerpted from the upcoming tenth edition of the Mallis Handbook of Pest Control.

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A RANGE OF TREATMENT OPTIONS
A number of manufacturers have developed products for the drain cleaning market. Rockwell Labs’ InVade product line includes InVade Multi RTU – a three-in-one ready to use product for mopping, foaming and treating drains; InVade Bio Remediation for grease-trap remediation and drain maintenance; InVade Bio Bullet, a solid, microbe-laden block for use in degrading organic waste in lower flow systems; InVade Bio Bullet Mini, a smaller version of the InVade Bio Bullet; InVade Bio Cleaner, an all-in-one mopping product; InVade Bio Foam, a foaming microbial concentrate; and InVade Hot Spot, a 16-ounce aerosol formulation containing the same blend of soil-derived microbes, natural citrus oil and foaming agent as InVade Bio Foam. 

BioMop, from American Bio-Systems, is a general cleaner combined with a biological degrader. This combination provides a one-step procedure for general floor cleaning and removal of organic material from hard-to-access corners, cracks and crevices and under equipment. The company also offers DrainGel for degrading and removing organic materials in drain lines and non-drain sites.

FMC Professional Solutions offers CB® MicrobeMAX™ Volumetric Drain Foam and MicrobeMAX™ Continuous Cleaning System. MicrobeMAX Volumetric Drain Foam is a formulation of selected bacteria that consumes and eliminates all FOGs (fats, oils and grease) in drains, P-Traps, sewers and grease trap systems, effectively eliminating breeding and harborage sites for small flies. The MicrobeMAX Continuous Cleaning System provides 30 days of automatic control and cleaning by delivering 96 treatments per day into a drain. 

With the recent acquisition of Whitmire Micro-Gen Research Laboratories, BASF Pest Control Solutions offers Vector Bio-5 Multi-Purpose Drain Cleaner, which is available in a 32-ounce bottle with a measuring scale for precise dosing.

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As far as Jerry Zapf is concerned, small flies are a big problem in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. “Fruit flies are ‘public enemy #1’ for restaurant and bar owners here,” says Zapf, a partner in Sure Thing Pest Control, Cincinnati, Ohio. “They’ve replaced German cockroaches as the most significant pest problem in these facilities. Where there are small flies, you must treat the source, not the symptom. Find their breeding grounds.”

Small Flies in Chicago. Ralph Russo, owner of Ounce of Prevention Pest Control and consultant and trainer for Sentry Pest Control, both of Chicago, reports significant small fly problems in the Chicago area, too. “Mainly with fruit fly infestations in the kitchens of health care facilities,” he says. “If an account performs detailed sanitation and proper cleaning procedures, that can help alleviate an infestation. The problem is, few customers like to clean drains, floor cracks, missing grout lines, or areas underneath dishwashers, etc., and those are places where organic material builds up.”

David Sexton, technical director and entomologist for Gregory Pest Solutions, Greenville, S.C., reports that he also has seen a growing small fly problem in his area throughout the last two years. “There are fruit flies and drain flies in almost all restaurants here,” says Sexton. “This made us create a separate program in our company to handle the problem.”

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Foam Application Tips
Pest management professionals using biodegradable products for small fly control offer some application suggestions for their fellow professionals around the country:

• Thoroughly apply the product to walls, baseboards, and floor areas under food service equipment. There are more problems here than in drains.
• Apply in floor drains, cracks in floor tiles, around legs of equipment.
• Apply it to the stainless steel bottom leg frames and the wall behind dishwashers. When garbage is thrown into a nearby bucket it splashes food debris underneath dishwashers where fruit flies feed, lay eggs, and where larvae feed off of it.
• Apply it to food carts at health care facilities because small flies can cling to the cart legs and bottom frames, spreading infestations into residents’ rooms.
• Use the product to avoid run-off because a foamed product tends to stick where it’s sprayed.
• Regularly inspect for breeding sites.
• Be patient and stay with the program. It has a quick effect but requires regular applications and/or mopping for a week to 10 days. You’ll need more than one application to do the job properly.

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Thousands of Fruit Flies. Zapf says his company recently came to the rescue of a large corporation headquartered in Cincinnati. “Their kitchen served about 2,500 employees a day, but a huge fruit fly infestation began. Another pest control company couldn’t get a handle on the control issue. We inspected and saw standing water, leaking pipes, scum under the stainless steel tables. There were thousands of fruit flies buzzing around. I’d never seen so many. So we came in, did some fogging, used Central Life Sciences’ Gentrol to break the fruit fly breeding cycle and then applied Anstar Products’ CleanRite Biozyme to help get rid of the organic matter that was building up. The total operation took several months, but we were successful,” said Zapf, calling it “an amazing transformation.” Michael Lardino, general manager of C&C Pest Control, Northlake, Ill., says that fruit flies have been a major problem in many of his company’s accounts. “Prior to the advent of baits some years ago, we were spraying baseboards and that helped keep fruit fly populations down. But baits became a large part of IPM and I’ve seen the growth of small flies since then.”

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Biozyme: Filling an Important Need
Anstar Products in Bensenville, Ill., saw a need for a multi-use formula to suppress small fly infestations and introduced Biozyme to the market about a year ago. “Its triple action formula allows for direct, foam, and mopping applications. It’s a green product — a non-chemical solution that contains a high active bacteria count. Its increased blend of bacteria culture is used to dissolve the organic matter that attracts these flies,” says Jerry O’Hara, Anstar’s president.

In addition to the increased levels of bacteria, O’Hara says the concentrated formula includes a proprietary blend that is designed to provide three benefits:

• Change the viscosity of the formula allowing it to penetrate and spread on surfaces.
• Create surface adhesion to stick on vertical surfaces, allowing the bacteria to hold, attach and grow.
• The foaming expansion of the liquid helps it to spread and coat more surface area.

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To eliminate these pests, he said it’s important to initiate an IPM program that includes products that remove the organic debris where larvae develop.

“If organic matter and a moist environment are allowed to build up, you’re supplying an attractive breeding ground for small flies, including fruit, drain, phorid, fungus and vinegar flies,” explains O’Hara. “Other species of flies and gnats can also thrive in these environments.”

The author is a Milwaukee-based writer who can be contacted at jfox@giemedia.com.