Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Black Soldier Fly project

That's certainly an attractive photo.

You have an eye for beauty Theo.

Hey rm, those larvae look to be fairly large, have you tried using any for bait? I used some over at my neighbor's pond last week and the BG hit them hard. I used a #6 hook, a bb sized split shot and a small bobber. Once I found a school the action was very fast. On one cast I had a moment where I thought the bobber had lost it's flotation because when it hit the water it sank immediately. It only took a second to realize that a fish was responsible.

That was the first time I used BSFL as bait rigged correctly and they're irresistible to fish. You don't thread them on the hook like a worm because you want to let them wiggle freely. Use a small hook and barely nick the back end of the larvae leaving the hook exposed. The fish don't care about the hook apparently. I used a red hook but I doubt it makes much difference. In the UK and AU maggots are a favorite bait and they're very common in bait stores, like worms are here I think. You can put multiple larvae on the hook if you like. In my one experience so far there was no such thing as a nibble, just a disappearing bobber.

If you want the larvae to be more buoyant you can soak them in water for a while I hear.

Theo, thanks. Feel free to use any time.
GW, some of the larve are about 7/8". I have used them for bait and they are better than great. I went one day an fished close to the bank for 2-3" bream and caught 2-3 per piece. Last night I went down to the pond and hooked 'em with a small hook - fly rod. Three casts = 3 fish - total time <2 minutes. I ate 'em (HBG) and they were good. Like you said - no nibbling, they attack 'em!
After their feast last night, I harvested about 350 BSF larve and just feed to the fish. Honestly, I don't feed and attend to as much one should, but they are alive & well and appreciative of whatever attention and food that they get. Still haven't found any good, productive use for the "tea". I have the BioPod unit right up close to the house - "no smell, no flies, no problem" (hey, didn't Kenny Chesney sing a song about that).

They're eddible too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuB3kr3ckYE&feature=related

US Patent 6938574 - Rearing fly larvae and animals in space for waste recycling and food supplying

And I don't recommend watching Ric's video if you plan on eating anytime soon.

Thanks for the previous posts GW.
We know that BSF larvae have a hefty appetite. Phoenix Worms Shop on the other hand instruct their customers to not feed the larvae and just use them as needed and hence they are shipped and stored in what appeared to be sawdust. Of course when I got mine I did the exact opposite and to town the soldiers went the second I put food in there. They have thrived from that point on and I have released all of them into the wild up here in Northern Wisconsin.

My question is... for adequate growth and pupation, what is the minimum amount of food required for the larvae to develop? In nature they probably don't come across the banquet of foods and respective quantities that we feed them do they?

For experimental purposes I did try feeding them various types of manure (free feed) and they absolutely loved it. I tried cow manure, pig manure, dog droppings, and rabbit droppings. All were consumed. Some literature out there states that cow manure doesn't work very well. I found that to be true but only due to it's harder consistency. If mixed with a little water they will consume it happily. The same goes for dog droppings. The other thing is they preferred fresh manure to five day old manure. When fed fresh manure, the fowl smell of manure was neutralized fairly quickly however I found that five day old dog droppings released a foul sewer like odor when being consumed by the larvae. The smell fouled up my neighborhood so bad that I never determined whether it was a fluke or not and quite frankly for the neighbors sanity I won't be trying it again anytime soon. Perhaps if I mixed in a little water that would have solved the problem.

Anyway, enough talk about feces. I just thought I'd update you on what I found and wanted to see what your thoughts were on minimum amounts of feed. At the current rate I am finding that for every pound of larvae yielded you need 5 to 8lbs of feed. I would like to see if we could get that down to 2 lbs or perhaps even 1 lb of feed without hurting the larvae. That would prove BSF to be economically feasible for many types of applications wouldn't you think.

Thanks again.

Jav

You're very welcomed Jav.

The Phoenix worm shop probably suggests that you don't feed the larvae to keep the process simple. It may also slow down the rate at which they go through the larval stages. Some people who feed small critters don't want the larvae to be large and with food they grow quickly as you know.

Your observation about the cow manure makes sense. I've been observing that my larvae process food much better when it's fairly wet.

I believe that most studies using BSF to process manure state that they do much better on fresh waste. Maybe bacteria consumes most of the nutrients in older manure.

I'm learning that BSF larvae can prevent bad smells from developing, but they can't eliminate existing odors. I learned this the hard way with a batch of dead fish that had been floating in a friend's pond for several days. On the other hand, I've been adding recently dead fish to my unit with no odor problems.

I don't know what the minimum amount of food necessary to produce BSFL would be. I think less food would probably result in slower development and smaller adult size. I would guess that the survival rate would be lessened as well.

I think in a typical open BSF composting system you would have trouble trying to raise larvae on smaller rations. My experience suggests that the colony will adapt to the amount of food added to the unit. I'm not sure, but I believe the female BSF are more attracted to a system that has excess food. My theory is that if you overload a BSF unit with food, that food will begin to smell since the colony can't process it quickly enough. The increased odor level will then work as a stronger attractant to BSF females resulting in the colony expanding. I'm thinking this may work in reverse so that if you withhold food you will get less eggs deposited, and therefore your total weight of larvae will be reduced to match the food quantity.

Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming.

GW, another question for you. But first, an update. My Biopod is crankin' out BSF larvae like a popcorn machine. The fish are really enjoying them. My question is about end-of-the-year clean up. I have so much stuff in the bottom that I don't know how I'll separate the BSF larvae from the muck. I thought about floating it on something out in the pond and as the BSF larvae crawled out and tried to get away from the heat - over the side they go. Or just empty out on a corner of the dock and as they try to get away they fall thru the cracks into the water. They left over muck should be beneficial for a garden?
Do you have any thoughts??
Thanks, Randy

Hey Randy, glad to hear about the "popcorn". I have two units and I've been feeding my fish 3-4 cups of larvae every day. I think it's made me very popular with the fish.

You probably have enough nutrients in your BioPod that you could stop adding scraps to it for several weeks and let the larvae reduce it's volume.

I'm working on some ideas for separating larvae from castings and I'll let you know how it goes. You could always keep the unit going until the females stop laying eggs for the year. The remaining larvae will develop and migrate out of the unit with no effort on your part.

I remember that last year I still had larvae in mid December. I was covering my bin on cold nights and I dumped the contents out before leaving town for 2 weeks. I can't recall if the adults were still active but I doubt it.

The residue it supposed to be a good soil amendment, but I don't have personal experience with it. If you know someone who raises redworms you might give it to them because it's a great worm medium.

I don't know if this has been mentioned earlier but have you thought of submitting an article on this topic to the PB magazine?

Thanks for the suggestion DJT. I might have something in the future that would interest pondmeisters.

I'm considering a system inspired by two problems common to most ponds, lack of forage and overcrowding. Obviously the black soldier fly larvae are the additional forage, but the larvae would also be the motivation to harvest excess fish.

BSF grow very quickly when fed fish and most of us need to thin out our fish populations. Some of us eat fish, but there are still probably more culls than can be eaten. Instead of throwing them on the bank for the raccoons they would go right into a BioPod to be converted directly into additional forage. This way you aren't wasting any fish that you've raised. The feed and forage that went into making the culled fish goes back into the pond as high quality protein.

I've experimented with adding fresh fish to a BioPod and they don't create an odor issue. The larvae eat the fish so fast they don't get a chance to develop a bad smell. Of course there's a limit to how much a colony can process, but even if you add a little too much the smell shouldn't be horrible. If it did start to smell you would just stop adding fish for a few days and it would take care of itself. I usually make a few cuts in the fish to give the larvae an easy entrance into it.

I'm pretty sure that many pond owners would be motivated by a system like this. Feeding the larvae table scraps is cool, but feeding them fish that you raised and then feeding the larvae back to the remaining fish is even better. I think I've mentioned my idea of running a pipe from a BioPod out over a pond so that the larvae drop in automatically. With a set up like that the whole process would be as easy as dropping the fish into the unit and closing the lid. At the end of the year you could add the residue to your garden.

If you've followed this thread there isn't really anything new about this idea, but I think that if pond owners saw this cycle in action it would create some interest. A pound of larvae per day isn't a huge increase in forage, but you have to thin the herd anyway so why not recoup that protein? I want to gather some nutritional info about fish so that I can compare it to BSFL. The dry matter in BSFL is almost 50%, so a pound of larvae probably represents more than a pound of fish. This is the kind of information I'll be looking into.

Thanks for the vote of confidence DJT.

Sounds great, GW. Can't wait for more info. I like the idea of putting the Biopod unit closer to the pond, and running pvc to the pond. I threw some fish guts into the unit the other day and they were consumed long before smell became an issue.

Geeez people! STOP releasing soldier flies into the wild if they're not in your area. I know it seems all innocent and all but that's just how we end up with all the invasive species.

I know I know ... black soldier flies are present just about everywhere. But obviously if you're having to release them where you are to try and build up a colony for yourself then they're not there and maybe it's for a great reason that we just don't understand.

Killer Bees where some guy's 'good idea' till they got released into the wild.

The Emperor of Japan was given some blue gill as a gift. He took them back to Japan and now they're an invasive species.

Tilapia are running amok in the rivers of Texas.

Hydrilla is clogging the lakes of Texas. Duckweed is causing problems all over the place.

Snails snails snails.

Asian Tiger Mosquitos, Fire Ants, Rolly Pollies (ok, who doesn't love the little pill bugs) ...

Oh and to add something constructive.

GW,

I remember awhile back you where asking about people integrating bsf and composting worms. Well if you remember I had a colony and it collapsed a few months ago. I just restarted another colony in another bin but now I was wondering what to do with all the left over bsf 'compost'. Well, since most of my compostable stuff now goes into my bsf bins I've been feeding my worms the left over bsf compost and they seem to love it.

the bsf 'compost' is pretty gross when the bsf are finished with it (at least in my opinion). But once I put it in the worm bin the worms turn it into beautiful worm compost. pretty sweet, I get to use my food four times now... i eat what I want, compostables go to the bsf, then the worms get their turn and finally my vegetables get awesome compost and the cycle repeats.

I understand the concern about invasive species mrgrackle, but insisting that people stop culturing BSF is excessive. I think you know that BSF are not classified as invasive, nor is there any evidence that they will harm the environment. On the other hand there is good evidence that they are powerful allies in helping us deal with our waste situation.


I don't see your claim as obvious at all. What you apparently don't understand is that most people who are releasing BSF on their property aren't doing it because there isn't a wild population, they're doing it because they don't want to wait for the wild BSF to find their unit. I live in an area rich in BSF and last year I released 10's of thousands of them on my property. When I started a new colony this spring it took me two weeks to get my unit started. Most people just don't have the patience. We all live around wild fish but markets still sell a lot of fillets.


This example seems like hyperbole designed to scare people. It certainly doesn't relate very well to the situation with black solider flies. Killer bees are a hybrid of two bees, both of which are not native to our continent. BSF are a native insect and they are not a hybrid. Besides that they don't sting or pose a threat to humans like killer bees do. Being a native insect there are natural predators to control the BSF population. In fact there are thousands of species that happily prey on BSF larvae and adults.


Again, these are all invasive non-native species. They are problems mainly because of the absence of natural controlling influences. This is not the case with BSF.

It's interesting that you downplay the fact that BSF are native to our continent and that they can be found in most states in the U.S. I've even found references to them living in and being used in forensic studies in Canada, but to give you the benefit of the doubt let's consider the transferring of BSF to an area where they may not currently be found. What might the harm be?

Since there are no natural barriers to BSF migration we can probably assume they haven't thrived in an area because the environmental conditions aren't favorable. In that case the BSF are not likely to survive well outside of the controlled environment of the BioPod. If you remove the BioPod from the equation then the same factors that limited BSF in first place will control or eliminate a transferred BSF population.

One of the main reasons I don't fear the effects of promoting BSF populations is that they are total scavengers. If they run out out refuse they can not target living animals or turn to fresh fruits or vegetables. In that case they would simply parish because as highly specialized scavengers they can only support a population based on available waste. More importantly as long as humans create mountains of garbage there will be no shortage of BSF food. BSF are not designed to eat unspoiled or unbroken items so they can't thrive on fresh products.

I agree that there exists the possibility that BSF will have a substantial effect on the environment and that effect is the reduction of landfill. It's really very simple, we create a lot of garbage that we don't know what to do with, and BSF larvae love to eat garbage. As long as we offer up our garbage to BSF they will eat it and thrive. If we stop they will return to normal levels because there is no other way to support a large population of them.

At this point I will repeat an observation I've made a few times before; even a healthy population of BSF goes almost unnoticed by nearby humans. I'm currently operating my old homemade unit and my new BioPod at full capacity and visitors to my property have no idea that the BSF are even there. They don't pester people. Period. Visions of swarms of BSF buzzing around a BioPod or coming into your home are simply false.

The bottom line mrgrackle is that BSF only have a larger niche because of the huge quantity of waste that we generate. By generating excessive amounts of waste we unwittingly support a huge population of bacteria that break it down. Bacteria can be beneficial, just like insects, but in the case of food waste it isn't the safest or quickest or most cost effective way to eliminate waste.

In my opinion nothing beats BSF for processing our garbage and I've even presented a challenge about that on my blog. You can find that post here: The black soldier fly challenge

Perhaps you would like to leave a comment challenging my position. The truth is that I welcome questions like the ones you've posed, especially if they are objectively framed.

I never said that people shouldn't culture black soldier flies. I think they're great if they're already found in your part of the world.

If there isn't a black soldier fly population where you live it's probably that way for a reason. Maybe they can't survive the winters, maybe they're out competed, who knows what the reason is. But, say they are out competed by some other type of fly. Now you set up a nice soldier fly colony and you've got thousands and thousands of soldier fly maggots. Many of these will escape into the wild. You're creating a place for them to survive the winter. I believe Soldier Flies breed twice a year. Weather isn't always the same and you could get a decent sized wild colony going within a very short time (that is one of the reason we love them right?)

I dunno... they could out compete nich species in that area. It's not just soldier flies.. it's that people are doing this with thousands upon thousands of creatures all the time. It's bad news.

mrgrackle, there are several published research papers about BSF and not one of them suggests that BSF represent a risk to the environment. I don't take anyone's statements or lack of statements as proof, but I have a hard time believing that all of these scientists are ignoring or denying a noteworthy risk.

I've personally looked for the problem you warn about and have found no evidence to support those fears concerning BSF. If you can find any indication of a possible problem that BSF might cause in any part of the world please share that information with me.

Thank you.

Black Soldier Fly: Compiled Research On Best Cultivation Practices

Manure Solids Conversion to Insect Biomass
(Black Soldier Fly Project)

UTILIZING LOWER LIFE FORMS FOR THE BIOCONVERSION OF PUTRESCENT WASTE
…and how this could dramatically reduce carbon emissions

Integrated pest management of flies in Texas dairies

Bio-Conversion of Putrescent Waste

Beneficials in the Garden

A Proposal for the Elimination of Landfill in Vietnam

USING THE BLACK SOLDIER FLY, Hermetia illucens, AS A VALUE-ADDED TOOL FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF SWINE MANURE

Hermetia illucens (Linnaeus),
Stratiomyidae, DIPTERA

LEKKING BEHAVIOR OF THE BLACK SOLDIER FLY

Research Summary: Black Soldier Fly Prepupae - A Compelling Alternative to Fish Meal and Fish Oil

Large-scale Feed Production from Animal Manures
with a Non-Pest Native Fly

Good to hear.

How sloppy or dry the BSF castings are depends on the type of waste you put in.

Hey Randy, how is your BSF population? I'm seeing more females laying eggs now than what I saw all summer.

I case you're curious, one cup equals around 600 large larvae.

GDub, mine is going great. I haven't feed as regularly as I should, but every time
I feed more than usual I have about 50% more the next day. I've been saving the "tea"
and might try it on some the grass now that the weather is cooler at nights etc.
I've got some great "muck" at the bottom that I'll find a home for. I put a little in my
worm bucket and they seemed to like it - I also found some full ground BSFL in there the other day. Some tiny ones got in and fully developed w/o near the food that they get in the Biopod. Interesting.......

Sounds good rm.

I often skip several days of feeding with my BSF units. Since they can't easily escape they just have to wait for the next batch of food.

From what I read BSF can adapt to a wide range of conditions. If you're worm bin is outside you might also get BSF laying eggs on it. Even a tiny gap will allow the newly hatched larvae to enter the bin. People who raise worms often find BSF in with them.

I wonder how late in the year our Georgia BSF will lay eggs.

Hi GW, I'm thinking that it might be time to close down the BSF for the year. It's cold in the mornings, and there are not many new BSFL. I have a lot of "stuff" in the bottom of the BioPod that contains 1000s of BSFL in various stages. If I dump it on a big black plastic sheet on the dock, I think the heat will force most of them to crawl away and fall into the water. The fish will love it, and I should be left with some good soil for next year. Does this make since? I will do nothing until I hear from the MAN (you)!

Hi Randy.

I think your idea with the black plastic would work fine. You also have the option of keeping the colony going through the winter, but you wouldn't get any larvae to harvest. The larvae you have now will stall their development until spring and they will keep eating if you feed them regularly and insult the unit. This option let's you continue to process waste which will create even more compost. It also will make restarting your colony in the spring easier/quicker.

I have a post about cold weather BSF composting here: http://blacksoldierflyblog.com/bsf-composting-in-the-frigid-north/

Thanks for everything.

Start off by shouting at the unit "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberrys".

Okay, now that was funny! I'm not going to edit my post because I enjoyed that so much.

Good one DJT.

PS. Just for the record I meant to type "insulate". What would Freud think?