Excellent Randy, thanks for being my first customer!
Your post also supports what I was preparing to tell Tweeza about how she's not alone in her fascination with BSF. It can be tricky explaining to folks that you've bonded with fly larvae so I'm glad you called them your "babies". I'm guilty of talking to the adult flies that visit my unit, and I usually refer to them as the "girls" (the males are rarely seen).
As unlikely as it sounds, feeding a black soldier fly colony taps into the fun and satisfaction you usually experience feeding more “cuddly” types of animals. I believe most people will develop something like affection for the colony after a while. It’s true that some people feel initial discomfort with the larvae but this usually changes to appreciation after a short time.
The affection I’m describing isn’t so much about individual larvae, it’s about the colony as a whole. When you keep a BSFL colony a relationship is created where you provide them with food and they provide the service of processing your garbage
Randy I don't generate much vegetable/fruit waste so I don't get much liquid in my unit at all. I plan on testing ways to limit the amount of tea produced for those who don't want to use it. I'm thinking in terms of reserving dry discards like stale bread, cereal, grains, etc to add as needed to soak up the liquid. I also want to test various inert materials like fine sawdust and such to see if the larvae will consume it even though they can't digest it.
Tweeza, hi and welcome!
My crash - What I referred to as a crash was an invasion of house flies and blow flies. Of course I caused it all by adding 4 lbs of dead fish that had been floating in a pond for three days in the summer heat. The usual repellent that the BSF larvae produce was overwhelmed by the stinky fish. The BSFL consumed the fish in 36 hours but there was a bad odor that lingered for a few weeks and the pest flies were present during that period. I didn't like it.
You won't be able to maintain a BSF colony in a typical compost bin because the second a larva can't find acceptable food it will simply leave. Also the decomposing leaves and grasses create heat that repels the BSFL. A well designed bio-composting unit needs to contain the larvae, even if they get impatient. This is something the BioPod does much better than my homemade unit.
I doubt that the BSFL would ever tire of eating cantaloupe. Maybe they were driven off by ants or the heat. One thing BSFL are definitely not is picky about what they eat.
I think it's great that you're selling the larvae. Did you know that they're marketed on the internet as "Phoenix worms"? Last time I checked you could get 100 larvae delivered for $6. I currently have tens of thousands of them. I think they usually sell the immature larvae (light colored) because they're softer and somewhat more attractive to reptiles and fish. I've had good luck feeding the prepupae to fish and toads, most critters just prefer the light ones. It's a lot easier to collect the prepupal larvae because they're the ones that self harvest.
You might want to test the Styrofoam containers by holding the larvae in one for several days. Most likely the BSFL will be able to break it up by constantly trying to squeeze themselves into the tiny cracks. The Alka Seltzer sound is of course caused by their churning and I suggest adding some sawdust or similar bedding material. If you do that they will calm down. They can live for several weeks in a container but they might need some moisture occasionally if they're in air conditioning. They do best at 75% humidity and A/C can dry them out too much. Caution; they can and will climb straight up a vertical surface if it's wet. That's another advantage to sawdust.
Maybe your husband should call my girlfriend so she can talk about how I sometimes stare at a container of maggots for 15 minutes at a time. She is a science person (veterinarian) so she gets it, but she still teases a little, which I like. Now that I have my blog going I'm meeting several people who share our fascination with this neat bug.
Hey there mrgrackle, good to hear from you. I'm afraid you will never be able to maintain a consistent BSFL colony in a perforated container as I mentioned above. I doubt that the vermiculite was the culprit, I think the larvae just decided to look for food elsewhere.
I'm guilty of talking to the adult flies that visit my unit, and I usually refer to them as the "girls" 
(the males are rarely seen). 
I think they usually sell the immature larvae (light colored) because they're softer and somewhat more attractive to reptiles and fish. I've had good luck feeding the prepupae to fish and toads, most critters just prefer the light ones. It's a lot easier to collect the prepupal larvae because they're the ones that self harvest. 
