I need advice. All my wingless fruit flies have wings. Now what do I do?

[KittenFishMom]

I saw cultures of wingless fruit flies at the pet store. I thought my female bettas were about the right size to love the pupas and maybe even the adults. I plopped down my cash and bought a tub. The cashier said to keep them in the dark or they will start getting wings. That was yesterday. I kept them in the dark from the minute I got home.  Tonight I held the tub to the light and noticed all the adults had wings.  Now I know how to get winged fruit flies for free, just forget about a piece of fruit with a bruise for a day or 2. (How this work when there is snow on the ground, I don't know)

Now that I have a lovely population of wined fruit flies, is there any easy way to feed them to my fish? It seems like there must be a way of handling them, or the store wouldn't be able to sell them. I'm willing to try anyones "tried and true" method, even if it doesn't work 100% of the time. I don't want to toss them 1 day after paying for them.   

Thanks in advance for your help. 

[AnimalNerd98]

I have fed fruit flies to fish and baby tarantulas. There is a trick to it: 

1) Hold the container and tap it against a flat surface while holding the lid. This will knock them all down from the lid and sides of the container. 
2) If you don’t want to use up all the flies, immediately take off the lid and pour them into a separate container with a lid. If you just want to feed them all, skip this step.

3) Stick the container in the freezer for 5-10 minutes and this will make the fruit flies “go to sleep”. This won’t kill them, but makes them less mobile and easier to feed. Once they start warming up, they’ll start climbing all over the place again.

[Odd Duck]

On 10/16/2023 at 7:25 PM, KittenFishMom said:

I saw cultures of wingless fruit flies at the pet store. I thought my female bettas were about the right size to love the pupas and maybe even the adults. I plopped down my cash and bought a tub. The cashier said to keep them in the dark or they will start getting wings. That was yesterday. I kept them in the dark from the minute I got home.  Tonight I held the tub to the light and noticed all the adults had wings.  Now I know how to get winged fruit flies for free, just forget about a piece of fruit with a bruise for a day or 2. (How this work when there is snow on the ground, I don't know)

Now that I have a lovely population of wined fruit flies, is there any easy way to feed them to my fish? It seems like there must be a way of handling them, or the store wouldn't be able to sell them. I'm willing to try anyones "tried and true" method, even if it doesn't work 100% of the time. I don't want to toss them 1 day after paying for them.   

Thanks in advance for your help. 

Wingless fruit flies should not revert but “flightless” fruit flies often revert to flighted.  I suspect you got “flightless” flies instead of “wingless” flies.  Depending on where you got them, you should be able to return them and get your money back.  As far as clearing the flies from your house, that can be hugely problematic.  Have no fruit out in bowls of course, and no access to anything that could be food - so all foods of any kind are in containers.  Use fruit fly traps made from soda bottles and vinegar water.

Then try again with wingless flies from a different source completely.