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anyone else seeing small white/beige larvae/worms in any raspberries still left on their bush (see pic)? Had a look at a local patch this afternoon and every berry I picked had one in it.  
 
Had the same in my cherry tree a couple years ago and believe I IDed them as the pain-in-the-butt Spotted Wing Drosophila, which is fairly new to the area over the last few years. Late July/early August was when I was noticing the worms in cherries but no longer have the tree. Curious to sort out just how prevalent they are in the area....  
 
Edited by Adam, 2019-08-03 16:50:09

They are horrible pests aren't they? The worst thing about them is the fruit often looks fine at first. A few summers ago we had them really bad in our raspberries. We didn't discover them until after picking, washing and freezing. Had to throw 32 cups of raspberries out and didn't pick anymore that season. Last year we saw no sign of them and had a bumper crop. I have seen no sign of them this year and we are 1/2 hour NE of Brandon.  
 
This is an edited portion of a write-up I found about them when we first encountered them. Ever since, as a precaution, before processing any pickings I take a small portion from each pail and follow the instructions below to check for them.  
 
"A test for maggots:  
Scrutinize your raspberries more closely. Later harvested cultivars are more at risk, as fly populations increase during the growing season.  
Soaking raspberries in salt water gets most of the maggots out. Check suspicious fruit by squishing some inside a plastic zip lock bag. Make a solution from one part table salt to 16 parts water. (e.g. ¼ cup salt to 4 cups water) Look for any larvae floating to surface of the water in about 15 minutes.  
Pick raspberries thoroughly as soon as fruit can be pulled from the white receptacle.  If you notice juice inside the fruit cap and then pull apart or squish it, maggots may be found. However, it may be reasonably safe to conclude if there’s no juice inside the fruit cap and no staining on the white receptacle - there’s no larvae - but this may not always be true either.  
Discard suspect berries via the fire pit and avoid leaving any on soil as a food source for future hatching. Total and complete cleanliness of fallen debris from the raspberry patch is absolutely essential. To recap, if you find little white worms in the raspberry itself, it may be Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD) larvae."

We have them as well, and we are almost an hour out of Brandon.  
 
I remember seeing worms on raspberries even when I was a kid. I assumed that it was just a part of picking and cleaning.

i threw out half a bag of cherries after someone posted a video of worms inside cherries!  
Yesterday when shopping we were eying up strawberries and then thought of worms and put them back on the shelve.

Johnbisonbear, it is interesting what the brain can do. Yet some people can override it somehow and joke and say "extra protien." Ick. Haha...Then I guess the vegans & vegetarians aren't fully such unless they avoid all berries & certain veggies.  
 
All berries can get worms, some slugs (like strawberries), and some maggots (like apples). Sometimes you find them, sometimes you don't. I hate to think about it, but we probably eat way more worms, etc, than we realize.  
 
Just thinking, now what will you do about jams, jellies & juice? Avoid them, throw them out? Feel okay about them because the little critters are cooked now anyway & you can't see them? It can go on & on... I think override usually has to come in at some point.

Here too - 45 minutes South of Brandon. Hoping to have less of them after cleaning under the plants well. I also picked up red plastic balls that I planned to apply tanglefoot to and hang around the area when fruit was starting to get close to being ready, but was away camping when I should have been putting them out there this year so I don't know how much that helps yet. My thought was to draw the flies to the decoys before there was any fruit ready. Might need to drill a hole in the balls and add some juice or something as a scent lure also though. Hoping it works next year. On second thought, probably better to mount the balls on sticks and place in the ground around the plants - wind would blow hanging sticky balls into their surroundings. I have also heard that diatomaceous earth spread on the ground below helps stop anything that overwinters in the soil or fallen leaves.

These are not the same larvae we saw as kids in the raspberries. I have talked to berry expert this summer about these and they are fairly new to the area, with in the last 5 or 6 years. Since they overwinter here we will probably see them more often. They have devastated the berry industry in the US and now BC. Most other fruit flies go for overripe fruit were the Spotted wing Drosophila likes the young fruit that is just starting to ripened to lay their eggs. The adult will feed on the overripe fruit to store fat to overwinter. Removing all the fruit from your bush or tree is really the only way to help reduce the likelihood of having them overwinter. However unlike most fruit flies they are not fruit specific and all berries are hosts garden or wild.

just don't think I could handle a wiggling worm in my mouth. Slug damage is easy to see in strawberries.  
I do enjoy jams, guess if there are worms I wouldn't even know it right?  
Still not as bad a seeing a worm dancing in salad pre-made from a grocery chain, haha