Well, some flies got into the house this weekend and I decided
it was the perfect opportunity to feed to D. Binata and D. Capensis.
The Drosera had new leaves with lots of sticky gluey hairs. So
I walked around the house, whacked the little flies with a
newspaper, and stuck them onto the Drosera leaves. Hey, it's
pretty good flypaper. One of the flies wasn't dead, however, and
was stuck by its legs. I came in a while later, and the fly was
gone, but two of its legs were still on the Drosera leaf. I found him
later on, nailed him, and stuck him back on the plant. I'm interested in
seeing how well the Drosera do with a steady supply of insect food.
By the way, if you do feed the Drosera stunned flies, attach them to
the sticky hairs back first, so the fly wings stick to the leaves. That
way, the flies can't get away if they're playing dead. Yeah, I know,
this sounds pretty gross, but we're all into these weird plants. So
there! Hmmm...reminds me of when I was a kid and I had a magnifying
glass...and there were all those ants. Well, at least I'm contributing
to the growth of plants and the oxygenization of the atmosphere.
I managed to feed my Nepenthes Rafflesiana pitcher plant some
cucumber beetles. Nothing happened for a couple weeks. Now, I'm getting
all kinds of new leaf growth but no pitchers yet. The old pitchers turned
brown, though. Too much good food, I guess. And the pitchers were pretty
old. By the way, how do you feed a terrestrial utricularia?
---Steve