by Christopher Null  /  October 20, 2007

Can you catch more flies with honey than vinegar?

The definitive answer: NO.

Lately we’ve been dealing with a plague of fruit flies, and I’ve been turning to traditional methods to get rid of them. Along the way, I thought of the old adage that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar (meant to make you be nice to people, I guess). But is it true?

To test the old proverb, I put out two soda bottles, one with a small amount of honey and one with some red wine vinegar at the bottom. I left them next to each other for two weeks. The results are indisputable: Vinegar catches far more flies than honey. In fact, honey doesn’t catch any flies at all.

The photographic proof is below. The vinegar bottle has maybe 15 flies in it (every one of those little flecks is a dead fly). Honey, none. You could put it on your toast, it’s so clean. I have never even see a fly go into the honey bottle, much less get stuck and drown. But they love the vinegar. So next time someone tells you you’ll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, well, now you’re free to tell them to shove off.

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Christopher Null

Christopher Null is a veteran technology journalist and the owner of Null Media, a custom blogging company.

4 Comments

  1. Anonymous on July 28, 2009 at 10:12 am

    Thank you. I will use this information next time my home is attacked by flies.



  2. Anonymous on July 29, 2009 at 8:36 pm

    Yes, this will be extremely useful, especially when the invasion comes in the near future.



  3. Anonymous on July 30, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    Thank you. I will use this information tonight when I need to catch my dinner.



  4. anon on January 1, 2010 at 6:41 pm

    well duh, flys breed in decaying organic matter, they’re attracted to the smell of things like rotting flesh
    sweet things like honey will catch things that frequent flowers and the like