Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Black Soldier Fly project

GW, What is your plan for the winter? Are you going to try and keep it going or just start over in the spring?

Chris, all I've done for the past few months is occasionally add some scraps. I spend about 1 minute every other day. I stopped collecting the mature larvae, I've just been letting them drop to the ground.

Since there is so little effort I'll keep them going until I get some fish to feed. I enjoy watching garbage disappear.

Here's the sandwich at 2:30

4:30


6:30

I'd really like to know an approximation of how much overall weight of soldier fly production one might expect during one year. For someone like me that's the kicker if I were to try something like this.

....and maybe I missed this in a previous post, but what is the expected lower temperature range that this process will continue at?

In a two foot diameter unit like ESR is marketing you can process 11 pounds of scraps per day. 11 X 365 = 4015 pounds annually. The food scraps are converted into larvae at approximately a 5:1 ratio yielding something like 800 pounds of larvae. I believe these figures are based on a warm environment. The larvae actually process more food in cold weather but their development slows down and recruitment may be an issue. In your part of the country it might make sense to use the BSF during the warmest 6 months of the year.

RELATED DATA

BSF in winter

OK, I read all of that. Interesting that there were some minimum temps recorded in the 20's F. Our winters get a lot colder than that.

Why do you suppose more municipalities aren't processing their waste this way? I'd happily go by the "facility" to pick up a couple hundred pounds of fresh larvae.

The other great thing that I gleaned is the hardiness of the larvae would mean that you could throw them all in the water and the fish wouldn't have to eat them right away. They'd simply wiggle around until they got consumed.

They claim that with sufficient insulation a colony could thrive in the coldest parts of the planet. Since they generate their own heat it would just be a matter of conserving/regulating it.

The reason BSF aren't catching on is because they're icky. The scientists involved in studying BSF refer to it as "the yuck factor". Seriously.

Consider the sales job I've done for BSF on this website and the corresponding lack of response to it. If pond managers can't embrace the benefits of raising these bugs then nobody will. I've been looking for a down side to this process for several months and I just can't find one.

Sometimes it's just about planting a seed.

If even a couple of people try it, then they may show someone else, etc., etc.

It sounds to me like there's lots of opportunity to dovetail this into aquaculture. You know, turning restaurant waste back into salmon.

Yeah, I know. Still it seems like it should be a no-brainer in this environment. Have I mentioned that you can use garbage to produce the highest quality live food? With little effort and for free? And that these sell for $6 to $10 per 100 over the internet? Blah blah blah.

Anyway I'm glad that I discovered them and that's good enough for me.

EDIT: The figure I quoted below for the fat and protein content of BSF larvae is actually for dried larvae, not fresh. Fresh larvae are approximately 17% protein and 9% fat.

It occurred to me that people might not be interested because of the relatively low quantity of food represented by a small BSF bin. 2 lbs per day doesn't seem like much even for a small pond.

The BSF unit that produces 2 lbs per day is 2 feet in diameter. By increasing that to a 3 foot diameter you double the surface area and also the potential output. In a warm climate you could then harvest 4 lbs per day or almost 1500 lbs. per year. (Harvesting refers simply to emptying the collection bucket and replacing it)

The BSF larvae have a solid content of 44% which translates to about 650 lbs of dry feed for a 3 foot unit. The BSF larvae have a protein content of 42% which is similar to Aquamax Grower, however BSF larvae contain 35% fat compared to 12% for the Aquamax. I don't know about nutrition, but I would guess that the higher fat content of the BSF is an advantage, especially considering that the fat is fresh (living) compared to the processed fats of the Aquamax. [The fat and protein figures in this paragraph are for dried BSF larvae. I've posted the analysis for live larvae about 8 posts below this one.]

To produce 4 lbs of BSFL per day requires approximately 24 lbs of household garbage. If you don't have that much kitchen waste, you would need to supplement, but consider that the household food scraps are typically 50% or more water by weight. If you supplemented with dry grains (or spoiled livestock feed, etc) you wouldn't need a total of 24 lbs.

Another very important consideration about feeding the BSF colony is recycling biomass from your pond. I added a 4 ounce fish to my BSF bin and it was 95% processed in 24 hours without a noticeable odor. Within a couple of days there was no evidence of the fish at all. This was accomplished by only 15 or 20% of my colony because the limited surface area of the fish wouldn't allow the entire colony access. I believe I could have processed more fish in the same time period with the same low odor results. Another factor in my fish test is that my bin was far from capacity regarding the BSF population. I believe at that point I had about 15-20% of the possible BSFL numbers my small bin could accommodate. I estimate that a 2 foot diameter BSF bin like ESR's could process at least 3-5 lbs of fish per day. Also worth considering is that 4 lbs of fish will probably produce more larvae than 4 lbs of celery, etc. The opportunity exists to recycle culled and other dead fish back into your pond in the form of extremely nutritious live food.

In the near future I will try to run a few more BSF tests that relate to pond management. I will try another fish test using 3 or 4 fish instead of 1. I also want to test an idea I had about routing the exiting larvae through a long pipe instead of into a bucket. I've read that the larvae will crawl up to 300 feet in search of an adequate site to pupate. I want to see if the BSFL can be deposited directly into the pond from a remote bin, making the entire process automatic. If it's successful that would mean that the only action on the part of the pond owner would be to add food to the bin.

Can you try and see if BSF will eat FA or other types of pond weed? Bins that you deposit algae removed from the pond that convert that mass into fish food might win over some pondmiesters. I have found maggots living on grass clippings under lawn mower decks that were overdue for a cleaning.

Great idea DJT, I'll try it at some point.

Tonight I bought a 50 lb bag of the cheapest dog food I could find. I'm going to start feeding only that in controlled amounts so that I can see what a dry food diet does. I'll probably end up that the local feed store next to see if I can find something for even less $. The dog food was about $.30 a pound. I think I'll begin by feeding them 1 pound per day.

most of yal know im a horseman so all this bsf talk got started thinkin I BY BUGS TO KILL FLYS AROUD HERE. I dont think it would work aroud the m&m farm.

letsrodeo, these flies aren't pests to humans or horses. Their life cycle and behavior is very different from that of house flies. The adults (winged stage) don't even have working mouth parts. You could stand two feet from my BSF bin and not even realize there is a thriving colony in it.

The BSF give off a chemical that repels other species of flies so I rarely even see any blow flies, or house flies. The black soldier flies only come to the bin to lay eggs occasionally and they leave immediately after.

GW, I can get cheap 33% protein fish pellets for ~.24 a pound. I bet you can get it even cheaper if you could find lower protein feed.

Thanks bobad. I'm going to the feed store today to see what they stock. Since the BSF can eat spoiled feed I could probably get some great deals on broken bags and other unmarketable feed.

I have to admit to a slight yuck factor. It's there, but nothing I can't overcome. If one can gut a fish, he can certainly feed fly larvae.

If my pond wasn't 5 miles away, I would try it. My motives for growing BSF are a bit different. I would grow them as chum and reliable live bait. My table scraps are very unreliable. Sometimes 10 pounds a week, sometimes 1 pound. So I probably wouldn't be able to produce enough larvae to supplement feeding.

In the mean time, I'm growing meal worms. They are very easy, tidy, and care-free creatures to grow. The larva, pupa, beetles, and their food smell just like raisin bran. Haven't tried them as bait yet, but I will as soon as the 2nd generation eggs hatch. The larva are a bit long for a no. 8 hook, but the stubby pupae are a perfect size. I think I can raise ~2000 for the cost of a bag of Wal-Mart raisin bran, and store them for months.

GW I PUT OUT A FLY PREDITOR TO CONTROL FLY POP. WOULD THIS BE A PROBLAM.

I think you're still having a few misconceptions about BSF bobad. They are also easy, tidy, and care-free creatures to grow. The odor from BSF is very subtle and not at all unpleasant, and if the lid is on the bin you can't smell it at all. If you used whatever table scraps you produce and supplemented with the cheapest feed then the cost of raising 2000 BSF would be less than your bag of raisin bran. I've been feeding my larvae very sparsely (3-4 lbs/wk) and somewhat irregularly and I think I have about 10,000. (At full capacity a 2 foot diameter bin will support 100,000.)

You can store final stage BSF larvae in anything with a 1/2 inch lip, uncovered, for several weeks at room temperature. They can survive lower temps so it could probably be extended significantly with refrigeration. Furthermore BSF are so plentiful and cheap that I wouldn't even bother storing them if I didn't need them immediately. I've been letting my mature larvae go free for the last few months and I haven't noticed any more adult flies in the area. The adults just don't spend their 2-3 day life spans around humans. (House flies live up to 30 days.)

A 3 foot diameter or similar sized square bin could produce 1500 pounds of larvae/year. I don't know much about feeding fish, but given the high quality nutrition of BSFL it seems like that could be significant enough to consider. Theoretically it would not take any more effort than filling and maintaining an automatic game feeder.

I just compared nutritional analysis of BSF to mealworms. (I'll have to go up a few posts and edit some statements I made about BSF because I based them on dried larvae.) The mealworms look better for fat and protein, and the calcium and phosphorus is better for BSF, I just don't know how to interpret that data. My guess is that the high calcium content of BSF would be an important factor.

Analysis..................Mealworms............Phoenix Worms (BSF larvae)
Fat%.........................12.7........................9.4
Protein......................20.3........................17.3
CalciumPPM.................133.........................8155
PhosphorusPPM..............3345.......................5355
Calcium: PoursRatio........0.04.......................1.52

Concerning the yuck factor, I believe it's something that comes from experiences with rotting carcases and pestering house flies. I'm not a lover of most flies either, but after working with BSF for a very short time I was completely comfortable with them. Revulsion quickly changes to appreciation when you witness the life cycle of these fascinating insects. It helps that the final stage larvae are clean and dry (they disinfect themselves) when they drop into the collection bucket.

I don't know letsrodeo, but I doubt it. The life cycle and behavior of BSF is so different from house flies that it might not effect them.

GW,

Be aware the yuck factor is not about me! It's about friends and relatives that may be a lot more squeaminsh and prejudiced than I am. You know the ones I'm talking about. They want to fish, but they want you to bait their hook for them.

I'm going to give the mealworms a go for bait. I may feed a few if I have a large surplus.

Some day I may be interested in a self-maintaining system that you mentioned that could continuously dribble BSF larvae into the pond. I think it would be a great feeding supplement, plus a handy and dependable source of bait.

True bobad. I've gotten some interesting responses to my BSF colony from otherwise macho types. The most interested and uneffected people have been women.

I've decided to stop feeding kitchen scraps to the BSF so that I have a more controlled situation to measure the output of larvae. Beginning today I will feed them an average of 1 pound (454gm) of hog feed per day. I may feed daily or every other day depending on my schedule, but the average will remain constant. The feed is a custom mix from my local feed store and has 13% protein, 3% fat, and 3.5% fiber, and it is made of grain and plant protein products. A 50 pound bag costs $8.25 with tax, or 17 cents per pound.

I'm interested in determining the cost of raising BSF without feeding them kitchen scraps. I imagine that anyone raising BSF would add scraps to the colony, but those who want to produce large quantities of larvae will need to supplement.

Here is the bin at 12:30 pm today. No food had been added for the previous 48 hours.



This shows the bin just after adding the 1 pound of feed.



This is after 30 minutes. You can't tell from the still image but the activity level of the larvae is very high. The majority of the larvae have "sunk" below the surface while feeding, but you can see the density of them in the citrus rind in the upper left.



The banana peels that you can see were added 2 days ago. It's interesting that the BSF love bananas, but are very slow to eat the peels. BSF are a tropical insect, or at least they were originally. I think that bananas have some type of insect repellent in the peels which would make sense because they evolved in an environment with a heavy insect population.