The hog feed test is suspended because the bin has become unbalanced. Since I began the hog feed there has been a dramatic increase in egg laying and larvae production up to the point just before they would mutate to the final pre-pupa stage and self-harvest. Instead of making the final change in the bin they've been migrating out of the vent holes. The early migration happened both before and after I started adding water with the dried feed. Before the water I think they left to find moisture. By adding water I may have created a "hot" condition. Sometimes the added moisture seemed to make concentrated calories available to the larvae and their high activity level generated a lot of BTUs. When it would get around 100 degrees they would exit the bin. Other times the moisture level would be enough to begin fermentation of the feed. I don't think the fermented feed would harm the larvae itself, but it may have also raised the temp in the bin too much. These are just theories, but I'm certain that 1 lb of dried hog feed/day will not consistently produce self-harvesting larvae in this small container.
I'm going to let the BSF come back into balance over the next few days and I may start over using 1/2 lb of feed/day. I'm pretty sure it will work if the quantity of feed is reduced.
Two of the loggers who are clearing our pond sites have been fishing with BSF maggots most of their lives. They call them meal maggots and they said they often find them in livestock feed. They just hook them through the butt end and let them hang on the hook. They each left with a pint of maggots.
