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.
