I recently was offered an opportunity to test and write a review for an insect trap. Since I do have problems in my garden with insects, I agreed to try out a Black Flag flying insect trap.
When I said that I have problems with insects, I meant flies! They were quite attracted to my blackberries (and that’s the reason I did not allow my children to eat blackberries from a vine). So installing a fly trap in my yard seemed like a rational solution!
The Black Flag trap was easy to assemble and install in my yard. I tested it in three different locations.
I started by placing it in a shady corner in my front yard. I used the provided stake and stuck the trap in the soil. A few days later when I checked on the trap, I was surprised that not a single fly was caught!
I went back to reading the instructions to find that for best results the trap should be placed in areas with morning sun and afternoon shade.
I moved my trap to the back yard, closer to my blackberries. That location does have morning sun and afternoon shade. I hang the trap up so my children would not reach it. And this time the results were much better – a few flies were caught by the end of the day with more flies being caught each following day.
I also tried the trap in my trash cans area. With trash being taken away only once a week and high summer temperatures, the trash containers are popular destination for those nasty insects.
I moved the trap to the third location about two weeks after I started using it. And during all that time I did not replace the lure, which according to the instructions should work up to one month. Because I did not replace the lure, it was hard to tell how many new flies were caught. But they were definitely caught because several times I would see a live fly trying to get out of the trap.
When I received the trap for testing, I was also sent two kinds of lure – one for flies and one for wasps. I’ve never seen any wasps in my yard, but my mom told me that they were a bother at hers. I gave her the trap and wasps lure to try. She was very satisfied with it. One of the good things is that the wasp lure did not attract bees (my dad keeps several beehives and his bees are like children to him).
When I said that I have problems with insects, I meant flies! They were quite attracted to my blackberries (and that’s the reason I did not allow my children to eat blackberries from a vine). So installing a fly trap in my yard seemed like a rational solution!
The Black Flag trap was easy to assemble and install in my yard. I tested it in three different locations.
I started by placing it in a shady corner in my front yard. I used the provided stake and stuck the trap in the soil. A few days later when I checked on the trap, I was surprised that not a single fly was caught!
I went back to reading the instructions to find that for best results the trap should be placed in areas with morning sun and afternoon shade.
I moved my trap to the back yard, closer to my blackberries. That location does have morning sun and afternoon shade. I hang the trap up so my children would not reach it. And this time the results were much better – a few flies were caught by the end of the day with more flies being caught each following day.
I also tried the trap in my trash cans area. With trash being taken away only once a week and high summer temperatures, the trash containers are popular destination for those nasty insects.
I moved the trap to the third location about two weeks after I started using it. And during all that time I did not replace the lure, which according to the instructions should work up to one month. Because I did not replace the lure, it was hard to tell how many new flies were caught. But they were definitely caught because several times I would see a live fly trying to get out of the trap.
When I received the trap for testing, I was also sent two kinds of lure – one for flies and one for wasps. I’ve never seen any wasps in my yard, but my mom told me that they were a bother at hers. I gave her the trap and wasps lure to try. She was very satisfied with it. One of the good things is that the wasp lure did not attract bees (my dad keeps several beehives and his bees are like children to him).
I would like to sum up my findings about the Black Flag insect trap.
Pros
• It works
• Easy to install and maintain
• It does not attract “good insects”, such as bees
• Has a pretty design
• It’s reusable
Cons
• There is no magic lure for all “bad insects”. If one has problems with both flies and wasps, two different kinds of lures will be needed
• Lures need to be replaced periodically (monthly)
• I found the fly lure to have a strong unpleasant smell, but I only could smell it for a moment when placing it in the trap and adding water. I did not smell it in my yard afterwards.
My blackberries are gone now. And with the berries gone, there are fewer flies in that area as well. So I am not too preoccupied about catching them there. However, I do intend to keep a Black Flag fly trap in the trash cans area during the hot summer months.
Thank you for reading my review of Black Flag flying insect trap. If you have problems with flying insects in your garden, I hope my review will be useful to you in finding the best solution.
.JPG)
