FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I'm a bit new to owning Venus fly traps. I got mine at the pet store for $14.99. You're probably thinking "What?? At a pet store?" I'm thinking the same thing. They were literally just selling them at the counter.

Ok so after a week of my traps not catching any food what I tried was lightly dotting tiny amounts of honey (just regular grocery store honey) along the fly trap's "teeth" and outer mouth. I'm doing this to see if it might further attract insects. I think it has, because so far 2 traps have caught some bugs in them. I don't really think this is dangerous for the plant, right? It's just honey.

Has anyone tried this before or is this just me?

Welcome to the forum!
If you are anything like me, you will not be able to get enough of this marvelous plant. It is so cool to watch the traps catch prey, especially on their own!
But it's really not necessary to force the issue; One or two bugs a month is a sufficient nitrogen boost for a plant; they certainly often catch more on their own, but I'm assuming that it hadn't eaten in awhile before you acquired it, being in a pet store (probably encased in plastic?) so the two bugs it has already eaten will take a lot of the plant's energy to digest, which could already be depleted from poor growing conditions at said pet store. My suggestion would be to not feed it anymore for awhile; the plant looks a lot cooler when the traps are open, and they tend to color up more and last longer before dying if they are not triggered/fed a lot.
As far as the honey and sugar goes, it hay damage the plant, certainly promote growth of fungus, mold, or harmful bacteria.
If you really want to force the issue, though, you could place something rotten/funky by the plant; it will at least get some flying scavengers in the vicinity.

I use a dog poo farm to attract flies and it works very wel.

ps3isawesome wrote:I use a dog poo farm to attract flies and it works very wel.

Adorable.

sbrooks wrote:Welcome to the forum!
If you are anything like me, you will not be able to get enough of this marvelous plant. It is so cool to watch the traps catch prey, especially on their own!
But it's really not necessary to force the issue; One or two bugs a month is a sufficient nitrogen boost for a plant; they certainly often catch more on their own, but I'm assuming that it hadn't eaten in awhile before you acquired it, being in a pet store (probably encased in plastic?) so the two bugs it has already eaten will take a lot of the plant's energy to digest, which could already be depleted from poor growing conditions at said pet store. My suggestion would be to not feed it anymore for awhile; the plant looks a lot cooler when the traps are open, and they tend to color up more and last longer before dying if they are not triggered/fed a lot.
As far as the honey and sugar goes, it hay damage the plant, certainly promote growth of fungus, mold, or harmful bacteria.
If you really want to force the issue, though, you could place something rotten/funky by the plant; it will at least get some flying scavengers in the vicinity.

Thank you for the info. And yes, it was encased in a clear plastic cup on top when I first got it at the pet store.

And the bugs it caught were pretty small. Other than feeding it I know that they need plenty of sunlight so I'm giving it 4 hours of light sunlight a day but not heavy sunlight. And as for watering, well the directions say you're supposed to remove the cup (which I did) and then turn the cup right side up, fill it with water and put the plant inside so it can take in the water.

So, I think it's doing pretty well. And I'll keep the bacteria thing in mind and I'll try to not force it to eat haha

Hmm that's interesting I have never thought of doing that let alone tried it. In my experience flytraps have never needed help capturing insects. I guess you'll know if the honey was a bad idea if all the treated traps turn black or not.

FlyTrapFanatic wrote: .... And as for watering, well the directions say you're supposed to remove the cup (which I did) and then turn the cup right side up, fill it with water and put the plant inside so it can take in the water.

So, I think it's doing pretty well. And I'll keep the bacteria thing in mind and I'll try to not force it to eat haha

Welcome to the forum FlyTrapFanatic.

I know this goes without saying, but someone always says it anyway. So, I'll be "that guy"...

Did the instructions insist you water using ONLY distilled, reverse osmosis or fresh rain water? Any impurities in the water will kill your new little buddy.

Also, 4 hours of sunlight seems a little shy. These guys LOVE as much sun as they can get as long as temps don't exceed 90* very often. In my experience that is.

sbrooks is spot on with the feeding recommendations. I wouldn't feed it again until it's nice and established. I waited, albeit about as patiently as a little kid on Christmas eve, two WHOLE WEEKS after I got mine to feed them. Even then, "force feeding" seemed to cause the traps to die prematurely. Natural prey, not so much. The most successful method I found was feeding "flightless fruit flies" which can be purchased for under 10$ for a little colony. Shake a few of these into a little dish filled with distilled water. Using a medicine dropper, siphon the flies and a little water into the dropper. Then, squirt the flies, water and all, into the trap you wish to feed. This worked every time, however, the little "FFF" colony died literally overnight one day, after only about nine days of the promised 3-5 weeks of fly production as my 5 VFT's weren't reducing the population quickly enough. All that said, I haven't feed any of my plants in over a month and they all have 6-8 traps, with all plants sending up at least two new traps at all times. The traps last a lot longer now as well.

Hope you find some of this useful. I only meant to comment on the water thing, but I tend to ramble.

Good luck!
Cheers,
-@

You might do better by attracting the ants/bugs in another way, in another container, or in another spot. Once you have done that, catch the bugs and then put the bugs in the traps.

For example, if your garden has slugs, you can search for slugs of the right size and put them in the trap. In my case, my garden has ants and elder maple bugs, so I get some of those. I also get the occasional spider but they are fast, so harder for me to get.

Earlier in the spring when there were a lot of mayflies, I also tried some of those as food.

Other than the fun of feeding them yourself, the plants will get their own food also, so you don't have to worry too much about that. Even if they get just 1 bug a month, they are already designed to be content with that capture rate.

Having said that, there is ample evidence that if you help them by putting bugs in their traps in a reasonable amount or schedule, they will grow better and bigger, in general.