 Fruit flies are really interesting pests because in the summertime when it's warm it can speed up its life cycle and complete the whole thing in less than a month. They slow down in the winter time and over winter and so anything found in autumn can just hide away in the winter and then reemerge in the spring. So unfortunately when we find a fly in the autumn we have to make sure our quarantine release extends right through until the spring when we know that that fly is now gone. Overwintering is similar to hibernation. It's when in the cooler months fruit flies slow down their metabolism and they really just hide away and protect themselves from the cold weather. They can still be active if you get a warm period. So if things do warm up in the winter time they still can come out and feed but largely they just hide away and protect themselves and wait for the warm days to come again. We know fruit fly can survive winter and they overwinter quite happily and if we do get warm periods during the winter months they can become active. And in particular all their life stages so the eggs, the larvae and the pupae can still remain active in fruits like lemons and limes and oranges and kumquats and all those fruits that fruit fly like can still harbour fruit fly in the winter months. So we have to make sure we manage that fruit and don't allow fruit fly to spread. So there's lots of things you can do to help prevent fruit fly in your backyard. In particular please pick your fruits. Fruit fly lay their eggs in fruit so if we pick our fruit early we make sure we break that life cycle. Similarly please pick up any fruit underneath your trees and don't allow it to rot underneath because that's just encouraging fruit fly to complete this life cycle. Once you've done that please check it, open it up and have a look and if there's anything wriggling inside, anything that looks like a maggot please call. Call our hotline at 1300 66010 and we can come out to make sure it's not fruit fly. Remember if you live in a red outbreak area it's important you don't move fruit from your property. That's how fruit fly can spread. So please ring cursor and we can make sure that that fruit is managed properly.