rmedgar, I recommend that you keep a close watch on your food scraps while you're initially trying to attract BSF. It doesn't take very long before the bait becomes unpleasant to work with, and if you use something like the cardboard box in my last post you can throw it out easily if you don't observe any Black Soldier Flies. If you do observe BSF laying eggs in or around the box you could probably just leave the box in your BioPod and continue to add food scraps as the larvae develop. It makes me think of starting a campfire from kindling, sort of.
Since I raised and released 10's of thousands of BSFL last year I have plenty of adults in the woods near our place now. (They are not a nuisance at all.) I've let a garbage can get a little "ripe" and they are coming to it, mostly in the afternoon. It's been sunny and warm over the past few days and when I checked the BSF bait I would usually find 1 - 3 of them laying eggs. They don't seem to be afraid of people and I can usually walk up to the container and watch them laying without disturbing them.
I've kept the bait on top of the garbage cans and it's not unusual to see the BSF laying eggs directly on the can or on the exposed garbage bag instead of in my bait boxes. This creates an additional opportunity for harvesting eggs. I will cut off the exposed edge of the garbage bag and put it in my BSF container until they hatch. Once I have the colony established I'll just remove the plastic.
If BSF are laying eggs you should be able to see them after a few days. Both of the photos below are BSF eggs that have been deposited on garbage can lids. The first one shows eggs on the inside of a lid and the second is on the outside. You can't see the eggs with the naked eye when they're first laid, but they increase in size after a few days.
It shouldn't be too long before I can ship you some larvae if you don't have any luck on your own.
