# Has anybody ever heard of flies being attracted to Wood?



## Sleeper (Mar 24, 2009)

A friend of ours has been having a horrible time with flies inside their house and they have tried everything to get rid of them. Then someone told them that they had heard of certain flies being attracted to wood and it occurred to them that the flies showed up about the same time they brought in a used cabinet from a garage sale. 
So they pulled the cabinet outside and after a week all the flies were gone inside the house. The weird thing is that if you slap the cabinet while it is outside flies will fly off the wood as if they were coming out of the grain. 
Now I have not witnessed this myself and neither I nor they know what kind of wood it is, but I’ve never heard of this before and I’m thinking that maybe someone had used some sort of food grease or vegetable oil to polish it.
Any thoughts on this?


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*flies that like wood may be Termites....*

Heck, I donno? but that's all I could think of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termite


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## Sleeper (Mar 24, 2009)

woodnthings said:


> Heck, I donno? but that's all I could think of.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termite


I thought of that too because every year we have swarms of flying termites clogging up my Air Conditioners and I guess someone who is not used to bugs may think they are flies.

When I brought that up they said that it was definitely flies. I remember having a similar problem 30 years ago in my laundry room. We closed all the doors and windows inside the house and went on a week long camping trip. I figured that since flies only live a week they would be all dead when I got home.

I was surprised to find hundreds of flies when I got home and opened the laundry room door. That's when I figured they were multiplying in the room so I started pulling out the washer and dryer. I found my 5 years old's poop filed underwear behind the washer. He said he had an accident and was embarrassed so he tossed them behind the washing machine.


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## Scinzon (Apr 29, 2015)

Something in wood must be attracting the flies.

Maybe the wood came in contact with something dead or feces. Flies naturally go there to lay their eggs.

Some termite species may look like some fly species, but the termites will leave evidence of their presence since they eat wood.
Also termites do not fly all the time. Flying termites occur only when it is reproduction season as far as I know so you should only see the wingless worker and soldier castes.


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## Sleeper (Mar 24, 2009)

I'm pretty sure its not termites, but I wounder what could be used to thoroughly clean the cabinet without ruining it to remove what ever is attracting flies. It would have to be some sort of organic matter and I was thinking bleach, but that might damage the cabinet.


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## Alchymist (Jan 2, 2011)

Don't know about flies, but I can tell you borer bees love pine!


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## new2woodwrk (Mar 16, 2015)

Wood wasps? http://www.bumblebee.org/invertebrates/Hymenoptera1.htm


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## Sleeper (Mar 24, 2009)

new2woodwrk said:


> Wood wasps? http://www.bumblebee.org/invertebrates/Hymenoptera1.htm


Hmm That's interesting I'm going to send this link to them and see if they recognize them. Thanks for the link :thumbsup:


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## Sleeper (Mar 24, 2009)

Well they said the flies look more like the sawflies, but I’m not sure if the sawflies also like pine and it turns out that they think the cabinet might be pine. They also said they put up fly strips and the flies weren’t even interested.


Anyway this is what they think the flies look like. The photo below is supposed to be a sawfly and I do not know if wood wasps can look the same. http://www.tuin-thijs.com/wasps-sawflies-symphyta.htm


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## Scinzon (Apr 29, 2015)

After you identify the species you can web-search for "(name of bug) natural replant".

Or you can invite some ants to do a thorough cleaning of the cabinet.  They like flies!

Do you have any pictures of the bugs buggering your cabinet?


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## Sleeper (Mar 24, 2009)

Scinzon said:


> After you identify the species you can web-search for "(name of bug) natural replant".
> 
> Or you can invite some ants to do a thorough cleaning of the cabinet.  They like flies!
> 
> Do you have any pictures of the bugs buggering your cabinet?


I don't have any photos of the cabinet and I will have to ask the people with the cabinet for it. They are not so good about photos. They had a Wolf Hybrid that I was interested in and it was almost a month before they finally sent me a photo of it.

I have a little story about ants. There were 6x6 treated wood used in my yard as edging when I bought my house and they were full of terminates. So much so that the wood would crush simply by stepping on it. I decide to remove it all because I was afraid they would end up in the house. Well as soon as I started breaking it up, thousands of ants showed up and were attacking the terminate. They were hauling the bodies and all the eggs away as fast as I could break it up. 

Since then I've had a change of mind for ants and I no longer kill ants. :smile:


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## Scinzon (Apr 29, 2015)

Ants are amazing creatures. 
Well, Carpenter Ants not so much, but most of the others are!

With Termites, the important thing is to kill the Queen. You can kill workers and soldiers all day, but unless you kill the Queen they will not really stop coming. Termites also have Kings, but usually these stay always with the Queens.

What you need in order to identify the bugs is a bug.
If you do not like to DIY it, you need a picture of one dead bug under the microscope or a close-up picture as clear and as close to subject your camera will allow. Then people in bug forums will do it for you.

Know the bug and defeat the bug.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

Flys and other insects have been attracted to the sap in wood for a long time.


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## Sleeper (Mar 24, 2009)

I guess I need to drive over there and actually look at the cabinet if they still have it. They said they put it outside, but we have had few light rains since then and not sure if they covered it. 
I never thought about sap and I just assumed it had a finish since they bought from a garage sale or flea market. It might have been newly built from someones garage out of pine without finishing it. If that were the case, there may have been sap. 
Its early yet so I'll have to wait until I can even ask on a quite Saturday morning. :smile:


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## Scinzon (Apr 29, 2015)

Sleeper said:


> they bought from a garage sale or flea market


Then it can be sap, or the cabinet was contaminated by bugs before purchase, or it came in contact with something attracting the flies, or all of the above.

If it is still in good shape it might worth using a fly-killing spray after removing all drawers, shelves, etc, and see if it works.


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