Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Black Soldier Fly project

I believe the top of the BioPod is vented for air circulation and entry of adult female BSF and I wouldn't modify that. Maybe you could cut a hole and fit a threaded PVC fitting into the lid that could be capped off if you decide to retire the unit to residential use.

Will you have less than 11 pounds of material per day?

That sounds like an easy modification and yes it could be capped off. I doubt we will ever have over 10 pounds of this stuff per day. Right now is at the highest flow we will ever see. Probably go down to 3-5 pounds per day in summer.

Thank you GW for such an informative thread. All my questions answered so far.(well, my questions never cease but so far you're ahead of them).

I can't wait to make a BSF module beside my aquaponic greenhouse. I'd like to put it in the shade outdoors with an evacuation pipe leading into the greenhouse above the pond.

However, I don't really have enough fish so may foul the water. But you've answered my questions on getting decent chook protein feed together from home and also how I am going to afford all the protein required to raise a bunch of eels.

I'm going to collect waste from some local cafes and feed chooks and eels and kokopu with the grubs.

Should do the trick.

I reckon I can help a lot of people with this technology, and the climate is ripe for introducing green techs. Again, thank you.

You're quite welcome Kokopu, I look forward to hearing about your experiences. Are Black Soldier Flies native to NZ or have they been imported?

They're imports but they are here. Common according to the sources I googled. I've seen them about including a heap of larvae hitting the food in my compost and I didn't know what they were at the time.

Have you read, it was a couple years ago, a 90 page submission for cleaning the wastes of some Brazilian city using BSF?

I think they thought he was mad. Visionary he was, albeit, obsessively passionate. 90 pages!

I'm mad too, I read it all.

Was that report done by Dr. Paul Olivier? I've read every source of BSF information I could find by him, and some of it is related to Brazil. I'm pretty sure he's the owner of ESR International which is the parent company of ProtaCulture, the BioPod company.

I've linked to ESR's website before but here it is again: http://www.esrint.com/

I love the fact that they manufacture large and sophisticated machinery for sorting waste, and they also make a plastic tub that utilizes maggots. This page demonstrates how ESR is trying to effect a big problem common to all countries.

Yesterday I saw my first BSF adult of the year. It's time to get some scraps out for round 2!

I feel your excitement GW... Got my eyes open for em

Good news on the BSF sighting. Haven't seen any yet, but have the scrapes out. All I've gotten so far are ants, but I'm a little North of you.

I had just finished telling my neighbor's grandson about BSF when this first-of-the-season fly landed on his grandaddy's ATV (that would be Mr. H).

As of last night I've officially got my homemade BSF container set up with food scraps in it. This morning I saw a BSF laying eggs inside, and then I saw another this afternoon. In a few weeks I should be able to target some RES with the larvae.

Yesterday I saw some other type of similar insect around the scraps. I'm wondering if it was some other type of Soldier Fly...

That would have been a Sailor Fly, possibly an Airman Fly.

BSFL in school art... Here

Those kids are future maggot ranchers perhaps. I think that's the same school George1 linked to earlier in this thread.

Here's an article about maggots as bait. It mentions three types, none of which are Black Soldier Flies. It appears to be a British site. I think maggots are widely used as bait there.

Sorry for the double link then. Guess I don't remember seeing it. Got my homemade bin made and some scraps in it. Plenty of house flies but no BSF seen yet.

Maybe he posted it in another thread. Thanks either way.

I haven't been getting many houseflies. Maybe that's because I have my container in the woods a few hundred feet from the house. Also you're more likely to get house flies if you use meat scraps. I think meat scraps may attract BSF faster than vegetable scraps only. This year I started with vegetables, bread, some pizza with sausage and one slice of ham. Dang, I'm getting hungry!

There's already a lot of flies around because of the sewer sludge. I might need to get a start of larvae to get the thing going. Cleaned out the fridge and got some old celery, sprouts, onion and a couple of old apples. Moistened some stale bread and some dog food added to the mix. Where's the best place to get some larvae?

Charlie, maybe GW will send his 2 best customers a few :).
I haven't attracted anything but ants and a caterpillar.
I'm going to add a little sandwich meat.

I'd be happy to send you guys some larvae.

The best place to attract BSF initially would probably be in a wooded area, or at least a place with some bushes. Those are the areas where the BSF mate.

I'm thinking that houseflies would be less likely to enter a BioPod through the small openings than a housefly, but I can't say where I got that notion. CL, do you have a lid on your unit? I'm really looking forward to seeing if the BSF totally eliminate house flies from your unit.

I checked my container for the third time in two days and saw another BSF laying eggs.


The white legs (tarsi) are a good way to confirm that you are looking at a Black Soldier Fly.

I wonder if it helps that I released about 100,000 larvae in this same spot last year...

Sort of a half lid...something I thought they might lay eggs on the under side. The whole thing is under a tin roof shed with open ends so I didn't figure on needing a complete lid to keep rain out. Just an old trash can I chopped on

Oh and thanks very much for the larvae offer! Any would be appreciated. I would imagine you have a lot around from letting that many go. Mine is not far from the woods, only about 40 - 50 yards. Today as I sat hoping to spot a BSF a big deer jumped out of the woods and ran along the edge of our sewer plant fence with caged dogs in the kennels right next to me going nuts.

It will take some weeks to get enough larvae to make it worthwhile to send you. I have no doubt that some local BSF will find your container eventually. One way some larvae might help is by their odor. I believe adult BSF are attracted to the the (mild and even pleasant) odor of BSF larvae. I think it serves to signal a good place to lay eggs because the food source will normally be dominated by BSF already.

Your open top should be alright if it's out of the rain, just be prepared for some larvae to evacuate at times. They are able to climb a vertical surface if there is condensation on it. Even with the lid on my unit it wasn't unusual to see some migration out of the vents. I thought of a way to greatly reduce this, but I didn't install it because there's no harm in letting some larvae go. I'm curious about how much the BioPods will limit migration of immature larvae.

I'm not putting any of the stuff from the sewer grit classifier into my unit until I get some BSFL started in it. The dumpster which used to catch all that stuff is teeming with Blue and Green Bottle Fly maggots so I removed it and placed a collection bucket with a plastic shroud so at least we don't have a million flies just outside our office door. Those other maggots are really eating the stuff so I figure the BSFL ought to like it as well???

If they will eliminate all the other flies from this stuff then we will have accomplished a great thing! I wonder how many other sewer plants struggle with the same problem? We're kind of stuck with the stuff without having to go through tons of red tape to dispose of it "properly"...so it will be awesome if the BSFL will handle the problem.

To reiterate...I'm over-run with Blue and Green Bottle Fly Larvae!

ThousANDS...MAYBE MILLIONS! Can you tell I'm somewhat in a hurry to get some BSFL going

I visited my container today and saw two more BSF laying. If money were no object (an in a sense it isn't) you could order a bunch of larvae from Dr. Sheppard. Maybe he would give you a break on a bulk order. I'm thinking that perhaps the plant would foot the bill...

I couldn't wait and did order a batch from Dr. Sheppard!

Where my bin is situated under the pole barn I have an old refrigerator that's half full of semi dry material, partially worked by composting worms. I'm hoping this will be suitable for placing some of the larvae once they have migrated out of the bin to change into adult flies. Just how dry of a place do they like?