I started researching Black Soldier Fly larvae as an alternative to the traditional rot basket feeders which use dead critters as the larva food. It looks like there is great potential to use BSF larvae as forage for pond fish. The reason I posted this thread here instead of in the Forage and Bait section is that Soldier Flies can do more for people than just feed their fish. Put in a different way, the SF can do more WHILE feeding our fish.

Disclaimer: The web pages and quotes below are from a company that hopes to profit from marketing a Soldier Fly related product.

EDIT: The links below aren't working anymore but you can use this link instead: http://www.esrint.com/pages/bioconversion.html

Black Soldier Fly (I assume everyone knows the underlined words are links)

"In view of the wide variability of putrescent waste presented to it, this benign creature possesses one of the most robust digestive systems within nature. It has the ability to thrive in the presence of salts, alcohols, ammonia and a variety of food toxins. In addition to food waste, it can also process swine, human and poultry waste. Upon reaching maturity, this creature is rigidly regimented by evolution to migrate out of the unit and into a collection bucket without any human or mechanical intervention. This self-harvesting grub represents a bundle of nutrients that rivals in commercial value the finest fish meal. In our effort to dispose of food waste, why waste this valuable resource? Why not boldly insist upon the reintegration into the feed chain of most of the nutrients and energy it contains?"

Texas Experiment

"The moment waste is deposited into the unit, the larvae begin to secrete powerful digestive enzymes into the waste long before it begins to rot and smell. Since thermophilic and anaerobic bacteria play no part in this process, these tiny creatures are able to conserve and recycle most of the nutrients and energy within the waste."

"Studies were conducted at the Coastal Plain Experiment Station in Tifton, Georgia, to examine the suitability of SF prepupae as a feed source for channel catfish and tilapia. The tests concluded that soldier fly larvae should be considered a promising source of animal protein in fish production. Taste tests were also conducted, and the results of these tests indicated that fish fed SF larvae are acceptable to the consumer."

Bio-Conversion Units

"This 2-foot unit has an average feeding surface area of 0.34 m2(3.6 sq ft). At a disposal efficiency of 15 kgs/m2/day, it can handle over 5 kgs (11 lbs) of food waste per day. It can hold or contain over 144 liters (38 gal) of larval residue, and with a reduction in weight and volume of 95%, it must be emptied after receiving a total of 2.89 m3 (3.9 cubic yards) of food waste. This unit serving a family of four people would have to be cleaned out approximately once every 8 years. With this larval bioconversion process, the costly transport of food waste to landfill is completely eliminated."

I see Soldier Flies in my future, with or without ponds.

Hmp. I thought for sure this would be a lively topic.

You can take household waste (food of every type and even poo if you like), and convert it into highly nutritious live fish food at a 4 to 1 ratio, AND...

...it is basically free

...sells for $5 - $10 per "cup" as "Phoenix worms"

...is self-harvesting

...and is a ready supply of great bait.

Seriously, it looks like after you buy or construct the bin all you do is throw your garbage into the top and beautiful, huge, juicy and delicious grubs stream out into your pond or a collection bucket. There's little odor, no disease carrying pests, extremely little maintenance.

Well, anyway...

I was pretty sure I had seen BSF (Black Soldier Flies) around so I set out some bait. The brown stuff is cat food. :rolleyes:

edit: My dog got into the bucket after I took the pics so I had to add more straps.





Here's one laying some eggs on cardboard.





It's supposed to take a little more than 100 hours to hatch time in warm weather, so I'll take a close look on Wednesday.

Perhaps the theory of a free, readily available source of high protein fish food had more appeal than the actual practice required to produce it.

I think this is a great idea and will follow with interest-from just upwind.

DY,

Just to be the Devil's advocate for a moment, how do you keep undesirables(eg blowflies) from contaminating your scraps?

bobad, in my reading I found several references to Black Soldier Fly larvae controlling the population of other flies as well as harmful bacteria and fungi.

"The black soldier fly (BSF) is a southern native, non-pest fly that unlike the house fly, is not attracted to human habitation or foods (Furman et al. 1959). BSF reduce manure accumulations 42-56% and give 94-100% house fly control through larval competition and by repelling ovipositing house flies (Bradley and Sheppard 1984). Elimination of lesser mealworm has been noted, but not well documented. The digested residue is a friable compost-like material with about 24% less nitrogen (net loss of 60%). BSF is being investigated as a possible feedstuff for swine, poultry, and several species of fish (Sheppard and Newton 2000)."

SOURCE

Yolk Sac, the lack of odor from these systems is mentioned frequently in the articles I've read. I believe this is due to the maggots controling bacteria, the rapid consumption of scraps, and from dehydration of the waste.

"Black soldier fly (BSF) larvae have large and powerful mouth parts enabling them to shred and devour waste as soon as it is made available to them. Complex organic compounds that are digested by these larvae long before they have had a chance to decompose thermophilically or anaerobically, thereby conserving energy within the waste and immediately eliminating smell. BSF larvae have very efficient digestive systems, and the residue they leave behind represents but a fraction of the original weight and volume of the waste. Food waste (in the United States) typically reduces by as much as 90% in weight and volume, along with a 15% to 30% yield of live larvae of a 44% dry matter content."

SOURCE

Also from the source above:

"The larval dry matter consists of approximately 42% protein and 34% fat. The larvae can be fed right back to the animals or birds that generated the waste, and they are particularly attractive to many types of aquaculture that demand or prefer living food, such as bullfrogs, bass and crappie."

"Nothing could be simpler or easier to manage. In tropical climates, virtually no entomological expertise is required beyond the initial seeding of the disposal unit. Wild populations of BSF females continually furnish eggs to sustain the process. Since the adult black soldier flies do not possess mouth parts and do not feed upon the waste, they are not associated in any way with the transmission of disease. Only egg-laying females visit the disposal unit, and if provided with suitable oviposition sites above the waste, they do not even come into contact with the waste."


A lot of current literature on the use of BSF for waste management and as a food source refer to a study done in Tifton, Ga. by Craig Sheppard.

STUDY

Thanks for the responses gents.

More info:

"While actively feeding, the larvae secrete a chemical, more precisely an infochemical, that permits them to communicate with other species of flies. This infochemical or synomone allows them to tell other flies to stay away, that it makes little sense to lay their eggs within an area full of actively feeding BSF larvae. This interspecies communication is indeed very effective. In the vicinity of the disposal unit, we note the near absence of houseflies and all other flies that are a pest to humans. If only we could isolate this natural fly repellant produced by the BSF larvae! After about two weeks of feeding, the BSF larvae reach maturity. They turn from white to black, their mouth parts transform into a digger, they empty their guts of waste, they secrete an antibiotic to protect themselves from bacteria, and they set out in search of an ideal pupation site. "

"As long as the ramp has an angle of less than 45 degrees, the BSF larvae have no problem exiting the waste. Such a steep angle makes it difficult for the larvae to drag or carry along any adhering residue, and it also serves as a barrier for the larvae of most other species of fly. Housefly larvae, for example, are not even able to climb a ramp of a 30-degree angle. If housefly larvae cannot get out of the disposal area, they cannot pupate, and if they cannot pupate, they cannot become adults and reproduce. The BSF waste disposal unit mounted with steep ramps serves as a very effective sink or trap for the larvae of just about every species of flies that ignores the chemical warning to stay away from the unit. Once trapped within the unit, the uninvited larvae and pupae eventually become one more food item for the hungry BSF larvae."

"The BSF larvae will easily crawl over 100 meters (320 ft. +) in search of an ideal pupation site."

SOURCE

A few thoughts:

For anyone with dogs, a BSF "composting" unit may provide a simple way to dispose of their poop. If you already pick up the dogs waste then there would be no extra effort involved and you get the benefit of converting this waste into fish food.

In addition to normal household scraps BSF also eat carrion, but I don't believe they begin immediately with freshly dead animals. I'm curious if freshly dead fish might be an exception. The bottom line would be whether or not the larvae would consume the fish before a strong odor developed. If they would, then the BSF unit would be a great way to dispose of culled fish. This way you could recycle the forage that went into producing the culls. Raccoons are wonderful, but given the choice I'd rather put that protein back into the pond. When I get a healthy batch of larvae established I'll see what they do with a fresh fish.

Since the larvae will crawl long distances (300 ft) when seeking a place to pupate, a BSF unit could possibly be placed far from a pond, but still automatically (passively) deposit the larvae directly into the water. I'm thinking that pvc pipe could be attached to the unit where the larvae exit and then run to the pond. I would try installing a valve in the pipe to divert larvae into a bucket for use as bait when needed.

I haven't been able to find any info about how long the larvae will survive in water. What I did find was one test where they survived for two hours submerged in rubbing alcohol. I assume that they will do fine for long periods in water, but I will test it myself after my batch matures.

IIRC, enzymes present in fish flesh are more immediately active than some other animals. So fresh fish becomes "not fresh fish" very quickly. This would facilitate the soldier fly's ability to utilize the flesh almost immediately.

Great thread. Keep it coming.

Thanks Bruce. One problem might be the bones and scales. I've read that bones need to be ground up for the grubs to be able to eat them, but I wonder if the fishes soft bones might be different.

This is the pic of the fly that was in my office trailer when I started looking into maggots as fish food.


I sent this and pics above to the good folks at whatsthatbug.com and they confirmed that it is a Black Soldier Fly (hermetia illucens). They said "The white tarsi or legs, which are especially noticeable on the window photo, are a distinguishing feature." If you go to that link you'll find my pics and question is the first one for 5/14, about 5 entries under the big green caterpillar. It's funny how common these are around my house and I never really noticed them.

Something I've learned is that you need to keep ants out of a BSF colony. I'm checking into suggestions for how to do this. After reading about the ants I realized that I had moved my scrap bucket to the ground. I checked and sure enough I had ants. There was also another BSF busy laying eggs on a piece of cardboard and a coffee filter. I saved the cardboard and filter and replaced the food scraps. Lately I've read that it's better to start a BSF colony with vegetable matter to discourage other types of flies from laying eggs. Of course this isn't an issue after the BSF are established and you can give them just about any organic matter.

So far I'm disappointed with the progress of my first attempt to raise Soldier Fly larvae. Everything I've read makes it sound very easy. It's been 6 days since I put out the scraps, I've seen BSF apparently laying eggs every day since, and still no larvae. It's supposed to take a little over 100 hours for eggs to hatch.

I observed what I think are eggs several days ago. Maybe this is where I'm getting confused. Would the eggs increase in size after being laid? When I observed what I thought was laying behavior I couldn't see any, but later I noticed oblong objects which I thought were maggots at first glance, but they don't move.

I put this cabbage in two days ago and more of the eggs(?) appeared. I did see BSF on the cabbage. This spot of possible eggs is almost 1/2 inch wide.


I've seen a lot of these "eggs" in the bucket and also on my garbage can. Other insects including house flies have visited the garbage, but the predominant insects have been the BSF. I should mention that it's been fairly cool the last few nights so maybe this is increasing the time to hatch.

After almost a month of trying to get some BSF larvae established I was pretty disappointed. I had seen them laying eggs in my scrap bucket. I had seen what looked like eggs developing, but no larvae. When I checked the bucket last week there were some fruit flies, mostly dead, and some dehydrated vegetables. I just forgot about it until today.

I had left the lid off and when it rained the other day water got in the bucket. I realized that today when I walked by and saw a few flies buzzing around. Sure enough, they were Black Soldier Flies. I looked inside and saw a nice sloppy pile of rotten vegetables, and larvae. Big, juicy BSF larvae.

I guess it might just have been too dry for them to develop. Some of the larvae had drowned so I poured the liquid out. I snapped the lid on and observed several BSF flying around the bucket. Eventually I saw them entering the 1/2 inch triangular holes cut into the sides of the bucket.

IIRC, BSF are attracted to the scent of their own larvae. Soon I should have a teeming pile of the little soldiers. Anybody need some bait?

Anyone for some corn on the cob?
(click to enlarge)


On the left side you can see an adult entering the sealed bucket.



Not quite as big as I've seen in other photos, but it's a start.

how did you forget? i have been waiting for an update. thanx.

are soldier flies in the midwest?

thanx

cliffbrook, I've been so busy that I also missed your post!

I'm pretty sure BSF are found on most of the continent. I've just heard back from someone at ESR, the company that will be marketing the Bio-Conversion unit that I linked to above. When I return his message I wil ask about the natural range of BSF.


I didn't forget about raising BSF, but I thought I would have to start a new scrap bucket so I stopped looking at this one. I'm guessing that the lack of moisture is what delayed the lavae from appearing.

cliffbrook, I spoke with the rep from ESR today. Unfortunately I had to end the call and didn't have a chance to ask about Iowa specifically. I did ask about insulation, because I know that BSF have been succesfully used in cold weather. They may be marketing an insulation blanket for the Bio-Converter. Actually BSF process more waste in cold temps, you just don't get as many larvae because they develop more slowly. The larvae can survive in cold temps, but they don't survive below freezing.

The Bio-Converter units may be available this summer and the likely price for a 2 foot residential unit will be $130. This size can handle about 10 lbs of household garbage/day. At that rate you could expect 2 - 3 pounds of larvae each day, IIRC. Conservatively speaking this device would pay for itself in highly nutritious fish food after a few months.

When I get more larvae established I'll see what they do with dog poop. I'm totally in love with the idea of converting a pound of poo into 1/4 lb of excellent fish food.

If this would work with horse waste too, I would never have to buy fish food.

Horse waste will definitely produce flies.

For some reason cow manure doesn't lend itself to breakdown by BSF larvae. I'm not sure about horse puckey. The studies I've read only involve swine, poultry, and human wastes.

The BSF family is growing. Most of the old scraps are pretty old and nasty looking, but the odor isn't bad at all. It's taking a while to break it down because I still don't have a large population of larvae.

Either the larvae really like bananas and dead Gams, or they just like fresher food. I put 3 Gams in this morning and 20 minutes later they were mostly gone. A banana peel added a few hours ago attracted a good crowd.



I think I might have to take a few of these guys fishing today...

Do you have holes at the bottom to let full grown larvae out?
Do you plan on mounting this over the pond?

Some sort of maggot platform mounted over the water is in my future pond plans. I've always thought of using fat and hide picked up from a butcher shop and letting the blowflies do their thing. The survival of the larvae into adulthood in my plan would be zero. However if you want to keep a population of only BSF going you may need to allow some to reach adulthood to provide future breeders. Maybe one bucket over the pond to provide fish food and another over ground to provide breeders would work.
Keep up the good work I am very interested in how this turns out.

DJT: I have a few tiny holes in the bottom just for drainage. Please keep in mind that this is a bare bones test, mostly just to see if I could establish a population of larvae.

It isn't necessary to mount the bucket over the pond. The BSF larva's instinct is to crawl great distances to find a good area to pupate. They will reportedly crawl more than 300 feet. I'll be testing different ways of extending pipe or some type of channel over the water so the larvae drop directly into the pond.

In my part of the country there is no need to encourage the development of adult BSF. The wild population is more than adequate to supply a steady source of eggs. Most likely it would be the same where you are in the summer. If you needed some larvae to get a population going I could send you some, or you can order a small quantity on the internet. They're marketed as "Phoenix worms".

After learning about Black Soldier Flies there is no chance that I would encourage Blow Flies or any other type of fly onto my property. House Flies and Blow Flies carry disease, and dead critters smell bad. BSF will happily eat carrion, but can thrive on just about any vegetable matter. They process waste so quickly and efficiently that there is practically no odor. The presence of BSF in a waste pile almost entirely prevents disease carrying flies from using it. Also the BSF maggots are many times the size of most others. They're big enough to be practical as bait, and would probably be pretty darn effective on fish that were conditioned to eating them.

The more I learn about these beneficial insects the more I appreciate them.

GW,

I think I had some BSF larvae a couple of years back. I had a big mushroom ring in my back yard, and the mushrooms became infested with maggots. They had a very peculiar behavior: When you scared them, they did an end-over-end tumble off the mushroom onto the ground. Do your exhibit that behavior?

We don't have that many BSF around here. I only see 4-5 a year, usually trapped in a window.

bobad, people commonly find BSF larvae in worm bins and compost piles. I haven't noticed my maggots tumbling, but they are definitely shy.

I bet you're mistaken about not having BSF around you. The nice thing is that you rarely notice them because they don't have a reason to land on you and they seldom enter houses. All they want to do is find your ripest garbage, lay some eggs, and then they're gone. A few months ago I would have said I'd never seen a BSF. Now I know that all I need to do is to put out some smelly trash and the BSF will find me. Next time you have some smelly garbage watch what's coming to it and I'll bet you see some BSF.

In the old days in the South they were called "privy flies" because they commonly lived in outhouses.

edit: bobad, I just realized that you said you get 4 or 5 BSF in your house per year. That number in your house should indicate a very healthy population in your area.

My colony of BSF larvae is now blooming and there hasn't been any reduction in the numbers of female adults coming to the bucket to lay. This makes me wonder what happens as the number of larvae increases but the food supply stays the same.

The odor has increased around the scrap bucket. This is probably because the number of larvae haven't been sufficient to process the amount of scraps. The odor isn't strong enough to be a problem in general, but it makes working with the bucket less pleasant. At this point I'm going to stop adding scraps until the older food is eaten.

I've also been dealing with a lot of liquid in the bucket and it's a problem for the larvae since they can drown in it. I've added a few small holes in the bottom of the bucket which works for the larvae but creates something nasty to collect and dispose of. The amount of liquid increased significantly after I added a large amount of melon.

I used some larvae as bait yesterday for the first time. I used single larvae on a long shank #6 hook and a bobber. The larvae were very active but as soon as I threaded one on a hook it would almost immediately stop moving. They seem to die quickly most of the time so I need to experiment with different methods for hooking them. They did catch fish pretty well, but naturally the little BG were the first to hit them. I caught a 4" gill just about every cast. Suggestions from better fisherman would be appreciated. Would the larvae add to the effectiveness of artificial baits?

I think the odor and excess liquid was caused by too much food scrap for the number of larva. I stopped adding food to the bucket and within a day both problems are fixed. The situation I had was just what you would expect when you leave food waste in a warm bucket for several days. With the proper balance, food scraps should be consumed in a few hours, not days.

I'm going to construct a larger bin with exit ramps and a collection bucket. I wouldn't bother if the ESR Bio-Converter was available, but they aren't at this time. I won't post my design because I want to support ESR, and my rig will just be a crude imitation of their unit. ESR seems like a forward-looking and responsible company and I want them to succeed with their product.

Today I discovered an important rule for BSF larvae growers; don't let those doggies overheat. It got into the 90's today and I left the bucket in full sun. I thought that because it was white in color that a bunch of maggots should be fine. Well, a bunch of them aren't. I opened the lid this afternoon and the larvae that weren't cooked were making their best effort to leave the building. The majority of large grubs are dead.

I don't usually lock the lid down on all sides, mainly so the flies can enter easily to lay more eggs. I have some small holes in the bucket, but sometimes they will lay on the outside. For some reason I snapped the lid down tight this morning which may have made the difference. Normally BSF larvae won't leave a food source until they're ready to pupate, but clearly this is an exception.

It's been almost a week since the majority of the large larvae got cooked. I thought about starting a new scrap bucket and transferring surviving larvae, but that seemed too labor intensive. Instead I decided to leave the dead larvae in the pile, the thought being that the living BSFL would eventually consume the dead ones.

Instead I'm guessing that the survivors did not eat the dead BSFL. I can't be sure of this but there are a few indicators. I watched every day for evidence that the dead larvae were being eaten, but the quantity seemed to remain constant. I also saw various other species of flies around the bucket. After 3 or 4 days the dead larvae started smelling and looked slightly dehydrated.

Yesterday I saw an even larger presence of house flies and noticed a fair number of small maggots that I assume came from these flies. This seems to go against what I had read about BSF repelling other fly species. Apparently there are certain conditions that overcome the ability of the BSF to monopolize the scraps.

Now I have an opportunity to see what happens when house flies invade the bin. According to popular theory the house fly maggots will not be able to escape the bin because the ramps are too steep for them to climb. I'm curious about whether or not the BSFL will eat any dead house fly maggots since it seems that they did not eat their own dead.

I moved the bin away from the house because of the increased odor and the presence of the house flies. I'm guessing that this cycle will come to an end soon, and that the scrap bin will be strictly BSF turf once again.

It looks like the other flies have cycled through and the bin is back to being almost exclusively BSFL. The odor is very mild and I don't see many other species around the scraps.

This video shows the vitality of BSF larvae. I know that if you are a fish, it will stimulate your appetite.



These will come in handy when I get a cane pole!

We truly live in the information age. I can come home from work, get on line, and in seconds see a video of how some guys bucket of maggots is doing 500 miles away. :rolleyes:

What a time to live.

Wow!

I'm learning that the BSF larvae have their food preferences. The potatoes that can be seen in the video were added two days ago. As you can see in the video, the larvae concentrate under the potatoes, but it appears that none of them have eaten any. I also added a jalapeno pepper two days ago and it is untouched. A peach that I put in late last night was gone this morning. I've put in a few whole bananas and several peels. The fruit is eaten right away, but not the peels.

I'm going to decrease the amount of new scraps so that I can see what happens to these uneaten items when less food is available. Pretty soon I'll be adding a fresh whole fish to see if the BSF will consume it before it gets stinky.

It's much more pleasant to work with the bin now that the other fly species are absent. At least it only took a few days for them to pass through.

GW,

That's a sight that only a fish could love.

Do you plan to keep raising BSF larvae continuously, or will you stop at some point and try to store them?

Can you refrigerate them and retard pupation?

I can just imagine feeding those larvae to my fish every day. I bet after a week or so, the BG would get a taste for them, and absolutely tear them up on a hook. Have you got that far yet?

Actually it's not just fish that love them bobad, reptiles and birds are big fans of BSF larvae. If you do a search for "phoenix worms" you'll find sites geared toward reptiles and other exotic pets. Here are links to a few sites that sell the larvae and give good descriptions of them and how to store them. (Check out the $!)

http://www.wormman.com/pd_phoenix.cfm

http://www.premiumcrickets.com/Phoenix-Worms_31.html

I will definitely keep raising the larvae, for Mr H's fish now, and for my own when my pond is ready.

As far as training fish to take them, nature has already done it. I've tested them as bait and got a hit on every larva. The problem I ran into was the relatively small size of the maggots, and they seemed to stop moving when hooked. I'll be doing more research into use as bait eventually. The little reading I did indicated that maggots are a traditional bait in some areas and for certain fish species.

Until the last couple of days I didn't have ramps set up to take advantage of the BSF instinct to leave the mass when ready to pupate. This creates the self-harvesting advantage with BSF. Up to this point I have manually harvested mid-stage larvae which are very active and light in color. At this stage the larvae are highly visible when tossed into the water as they float and move a lot. Fish are attracted immediately. Now that I'm harvesting the final stage (instar) larvae I'm curious about any differences. At this stage the larvae are almost black and don't seem to be nearly as active. My guess is that fish will still target them, but maybe not as aggressively. I've only collected 4 final stage larvae as of today, but soon there will be more.

I've been feeding the corralled Goggle-eyes (WM) BSFL every day and they can eat a dozen easily, even at their current small size. The ones that have been in the corral the longest are fairly casual about eating them, but the recently added WM come out of the water hitting them.

Here's a video of the caged WM feeding on BSF.

I've tweeked the exit ramps on my bin so that I'm now taking better advantage of the self harvesting behavior. Yesterday about 2 dozen final-stage larvae dropped into my collection buckets. I fed them to the three WM that are now in the fish corral and they took them quickly. The numbers of younger larvae are increasing so I expect a much higher yield soon.

The black color of the final stage doesn't seem to make them less attractive to fish. They also seemed just as active as the mid stage larvae.

The bin is virtually odorless when the lid is down. When I open the lid there is only a mild and pleasantly earthy aroma.

I'm regularly collecting final stage larvae now. They drop into a collection bucket so I don't have to dig them out of the scraps. They are dry and seem to be very clean. I have no hesitation to reach in and grab some, and in fact it's more pleasant than handling worms because there isn't any slime. The BSF try to crawl away but it isn't as dramatic as it is with worms.

All I need now is a pond full of fish.



On a side note, the BSF always eat soft food like fruit or dairy products first, but one exception is coffee grounds. Every morning I put the used coffee, filter and all, into the bin and the larvae head straight for it.

Well I'm not surprised. Just look at their color.

Fascinating. The larvae even look "clean" in a dirty sort of way.

Far nicer than the average maggot.

GW, great project! How long before the larvae turn into a BSF?

I read from one source that the larvae excrete an antibiotic as part of the final larval stage. The idea is that they disinfect themselves to prepare for pupation. I want to know more about that but I've only found the one comment so far.

In the last photo the larvae were a little damp because rain had gotten into the collection bucket. Normally they would be dry and possibly more germ-free than the average pond boss.

Based on the marketing material from websites selling these as "Phoenix worms" they will stay in this form, at room temperature, for weeks. I think I'll keep a few in a jar and watch them change.

I checked 4 websites selling BSF larvae and 100 full size "worms" cost $6 - $10 which included shipping. In the picture I'm holding about 50.

Hey, this is a very interesting project. Could you post another picture of you box with the exit ramps in place? They want 129$ for the one in the web site you posted. I was thinking about making one of my own. What type of food do you recomend I start off with. One that would attract bsf and not the reg. house fly. Thanx John

John, do you have a crazy uncle in Georgia? I have a nephew named John G. in Jax.

I've chosen not to post any details of my BSF bin mainly because my design is just a low budget copy of the unit designed by ESR. I would rather encourage people to buy the unit from them. Also their unit will function better than my crude imitation. I know that from seeing the deficiencies of my homemade bin.

ESR is a forward thinking company that is trying to make the world better. I like to see companies like that succeed.

I've read that it's best to start a BSF colony with vegetable scraps for the exact reason you stated. In practice you will attract many more BSF with something more smelly. They are attracted to funky garbage, but after they establish themselves the odor will all but disappear. If you do get other flies laying on the initial scraps just be patient and the BSF will take over soon enough.

Sorry about not sharing my design, I hope you understand my reasoning.

Fish Test 1.0

Today (Sunday) at 9:15 AM I added a 4 oz fish to the BSF bin. The fish was caught this morning. The high temperature for today is forecast at 91 degrees.



PS: I want to add to what I said about not sharing my bin construction. The $130 that ESR will be charging is a fair price in today's economy. I've paid more than that for large plastic items (see Rubbermaid) that didn't have the design effort of the Bio-Converter. Then consider what you can do with this product. If you maintain it near capacity you can convert 10 lbs of waste into 2.5 lbs. of live fish food in one day. If you assign a value of $1 per lb to the larvae it would only take 4 months for this unit to pay for itself. An ounce or two of these larvae are currently selling for $6 - $10 delivered. If you've read the nutritional information about BSF you will probably agree that there is not much available that match their quality. In other words, they are worth more than $1/lb.

I assume that Dr. Olivier and ESR Inc. strive to make a profit like most people, but they have chosen routes that take the world in a better direction. I think they should be rewarded for doing so.

*gets down from soap box*

but i cant buy an ESR for 130$....

so helping out some noncreative hobbyists for free doesnt sound out of line

cliffbrook, try building one and if you run into trouble you can always ask general questions. In the mean time just get a bucket and cut a few small openings on the sides like my first photos. You can start growing the colony while you work out the details of the bin.

I'll help, but I just want to keep it general.

The fish test results indicate that you can "recycle" a limited number of culled fish back into your pond in the form of BSFL. It's been 24 hours since I added the 4 oz fish to the BSF bin, and the fish is 90% gone with larvae still working on it. The odor from the fish has varied from not noticeable to barely noticeable. At no point could I smell the fish from 6 feet away with the lid on. My judgment of the odor is supported by the fact that in frequent trips to the bin I only observed 2 house flies, and they were on the outside of the bin. It wouldn't be uncommon to see 2 flies almost anywhere over that time period.

I should mention that I slit the belly of the fish before adding it. You can't see it in the first photo because it was not open. As the BSF found it and entered the fish it became obvious. In the future I'll try it without a helper slit.

It's probable that my colony could have consumed 2 or more similar fish with the same efficiency because the largest number of larvae involved in eating the fish at any one time was only a small fraction of the total population. One variable might be what other food has been added to the bin. I fed the colony the usual amount the day before the test, but nothing except the fish for the test.

My bin is about 1/2 the surface area of the ESR bin, so the quantities their unit could handle should be about double. Also, I'm only feeding the BSF minimal amounts of scraps (8oz/day average) so it's possible I could have a larger, more robust colony if I fed them more. There has been consistent replenishment of eggs by wild adult BSF, but their presence is much less than in the past. One theory is that by adding more scraps I would initially create more odor and therefore attract more BSF females. My guess is that given a fairly consistent food supply, the BSF numbers will adjust naturally.

On a side note, I observed what looked like a parasitic worm on the fish after most of the flesh had been eaten. It was alive and it's visible in the 7:00 photo. This seems to indicate another benefit of recycling culls; you can monitor at least some parasites this way. To test for parasites you could transfer some larvae from the bin to a closed container with a fish. The larvae won't harm a living animal so any parasites should become visible as the fish is eaten.

11:30 am


1:50 pm


3:30 pm


5:00 pm


6:00 pm


7:00 pm


8:00 pm


Day 2 - 7:30 am


Was it really necessary to post those pictures? Call 1-800-BSFLOVE and place your vote!

GW, great information. Thanks for all the work.
Great pictures. Got to go - meeting some friends at Captain D's.

I checked the fish at 11:30 today (26 hours +/-) and it's obvious that odor will not be a problem at this ratio of fish to larvae. There were still a small number of larvae on the fish, but I would estimate that it was 95% consumed.

I put my used coffee grounds in the bin and they were on it like yuppies at a Starbucks. (No offense to the upwardly mobile intended).

When I checked the BSF this morning I noticed some final stage larvae had exited through the vent holes and landed on a plastic lid that was under the bin. I keep the bin on sawhorses to help prevent ants from getting in. The interesting thing is that the larvae were going in circles, apparently unable to climb the small lip of the inverted storage container lid. That lip can't be much more than 3/8 inch.

I moved the lid and let the larvae go free because I have more than I can use now.

The colony has grown steadily all summer and I'm amazed at how fast they are processing food scraps. The other day I put in 2 pieces of old quiche with the intention of photographing the larvae eating it. (Being a real man, I don't eat quiche) I went back after about 30 minutes and the only remaining trace was a 1 inch piece of crust.

Today at 12:45 I served them an open-faced rancid peanut butter and banana peel sandwich on moldy bread.

1:30

I don't know where they get their table manners from, must be their moms. At least they eat the crust.

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.

I started another test today to see how long I could keep a final stage BSF larva at room temperature without it pupating. Normally I wouldn't name a test subject, but since I plan on releasing this larva back into the wild after it's service I have done just that. I have named him Bruce for no particular reason. He is unable to climb over the edge of the lid. BSF can only climb vertically on some surfaces and only when they are damp.

A cool juvenile who never matures, named Bruce.

OK.

I don't see it that way Theo. I see a brave volunteer, young but mature, willing to risk all to forward the cause of human/BSF relations. Bruce is a hero.

My wife is wondering how long it will take me to mature, too.

DON'T DO IT!

She would die of shock.

Soldier Fly Art video:
http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/hp/index.html?nvid=173618

Thanks George!

The BSF really go for the hog feed. I just realized that a BSF bin could be equiped with an automatic feed dispencer making the process as low maintenance as keeping game feeders operating. It would just need an automatic feeder that drops feed with gravity.

This feeder might work but it's smaller and more expensive than I would prefer:

http://www.mightypets.com/product.asp?3=2056

GW, try using a deer feeder mounted on a bucket. Deer feeders are cheap and you can set them to run multiple times per day.

Thanks Chris. Is there a particular one you could recommend? I would want to mount it over the BSF and it would need to drop cornmeal straight down through a pipe into the bin. A 50 lb capacity would be good to start with.

MOST DEER FEEDERS ARE SPIN TYPES YOU WOULD NEED TO MOUNT A FUNEL OVER THE SPINER TO DIRECT THE FEED DOWN INTO YOUR BSF BIN WALMART HAS A GOOD SELECTION OF LOW COST FEEDERS.
GOOD LUCK

GW, I just read this thread and I have to admit I've passed it by many times just because I don't think BSF live in my area. I gotta tell you though that this is a great experiment and if you can make it work, which you have almost already proven, I may have to look into raising some of these. Great job! This is experimentation for a good cause at its best.

Thanks bz, I appreciate the encouragement.

Concerning the throw of the deer feeders; couldn't I just remove/disable the spin plate?

Edit: My ignorance is due to a childhood deprived of hunting. Thank goodness there were creeks and ponds around! I looked at a feeder at Walmart and it looks like it's specifically designed for corn or other large pieces. I like the cornmeal size feed I'm using now and would like to find something that will work with it.

Today is the third day of feeding the BSF 1 lb of hog feed/day. This is more food than I've been adding and the activity level in the bin is consistently high. Today at noon I checked the bin and several larvae were trying to exit. The last time that happened it was an issue with temperature, but that was on a much hotter day. I believe that the increased activity of the BSF is creating more heat so I'll have to address that. At the time I saw the larvae trying to leave the sun was hitting the bin directly. It's only in the mid 80's and I think that indicates that direct sunshine should be avoided when placing a BSF container.

What's your water temperature currently?

Do you mean our well water? We don't have a pond yet. Cindy's pond is being logged now and mine is next.

Ooops. Yeah I remember now.

GW, how about an aquarium feeder? It should handle feed the consistency of cornmeal, but I don't know what size bins they have. I suppose you could feed the larvae a long time on a gallon of feed.

http://www.aquariumguys.com/fishfeeder.html

bobad, I'm feeding them 1 lb/day which is about 2.5 cups. That's just a quantity I chose based on the population of BSF that I currently have. I don't mind feeding them by hand for this experiment, but for the goal of automatically producing larger quantities I will need to dispense several times more feed.

A 3 ft diameter set up would process around 24 lbs of table scraps/day, but the feed is more concentrated so I would be happy with 12 lbs/day.

That represents about 1.5 gallons of feed per day.

Since this feed is more concentrated (dried), I'm hoping that it will produce larvae at a 4:1 or 3:1 ratio.

12 lbs/day @ 4:1 would be 3 lbs of larvae/day or about 1000 lbs/year.

12 lbs of feed/day @ $.17 = $2.00/day or $730/year.

1000 lbs/$730 = $.73/lb.

To compare that to fish pellets you would need to factor in the 44% dry content of the BSF which equals 440 lbs/year at a cost of $1.66/lb when raised exclusively on feed ($8.24/50 lb). That seems a bit high to me, but the cost can be reduced to virtually nothing provided you have a source of suitable waste to feed the BSF. Obviously there is a lot of guess work in these figures. I tried to be conservative in all of my estimations.

A great place to begin looking for free BSF feed is from your ponds. As DJT suggested, the larvae might eat FA and pond weeds, in fact I'd be amazed if they didn't. Add to that any culled fish and fish guts and the cost will start to drop. If you raise livestock you can probably get even cheaper feed. The BSF could also process feed that is spoiled/moldy/buggy etc.

Thanks for helping bobad. I guess it's pretty easy to get me off on a tangent when discussing BSF.

Shortly after writing the last post I remembered reading an article that addressed using duckweed as fish and livestock feed. It turns out that duckweed is very high in protein with a good balance of amino acids. If your pond produces duckweed then you have a free source of BSF food.

GW, you might want to see if local butcher shops will give away (or sell cheaply) fat and pork hide. I would stay away from waste meat with bones. The BSF should get a good conversion ratio out of pure fat (stored energy).

I agree DJT, and there happens to be a very large butcher shop a few miles from me. I guess I'll have to test butcher's scraps after I test duckweed.

It's been a week that I've been feeding 1 lb of hog feed/day. This is substantially more food in terms of dry weight than I have ever fed them and the BSF seem to have grown very quickly on this diet. Under optimal conditions it only takes BSF 2 weeks to pass through the larval stage. The bin was normally fairly wet when I was feeding table scraps but since this feed is dry grain it has gotten pretty dry in the bin. In the last few days I've seen 3 or 4 BSF mortalities which I have not ever seen before. I previously guessed that the BSF population might be 10,000, but it could just as easily be 20,000 now. I suppose seeing a few morts in a group that size isn't unusual, but it still makes you wonder. The activity level since changing feed has been very high and the larvae are generating a lot of heat. Maybe that's the reason for the deaths.

I've never had to add water to the bin because the scraps were high in moisture, but I've decided to start adding a pint of water each day with the hog feed.

The feed:

Since switching to this feed the BSF container just smells like corn and it seems very "clean". I shot a video to illustrate the density and activity level of my little buddies.


CAUTION: THIS MOVIE CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES OF A LARVAL NATURE. PERSONS WITH AVERSIONS TO NATURAL PROCESSES ARE ADVISED TO LEAVE THE THEATER IMMEDIATELY.

That's WAY larval.

I showed my wife the video and she wasn't impressed. Especially when I told her I wanted one of those tubs full of worms.

Just keep them in the closet and don't tell her.

You guys are not being very helpful.

First, you start inadvertently leaving bowls of tic tacs candy laying around the house. You know, like in a cubard, or under a sink. Make sure to use all the tic tac colors at first; then eventually whittle down to just the white ones. Span this out over a few weeks so no one thinks twice when they see a container of white tic tacs.

And then next thing you know, there's a tub of larvae under the bed, and no one thinks twice about it.

"Sunil, honey, your Tic Tacs are moving!"

I noticed more dead larvae today, something like 100 total. They were from all stages of development. This still isn't a large % of what could be more than 20,000 individuals, but I need to monitor it. A few days ago I guessed that it might be due to the higher activity level and subsequent heat created by the concentrated new food. That's still a possibility, but I have another idea. I think I may be creating a problem by feeding only a dried grain product. I doubt that many animals could thrive on dried grain without having some water to process it with.

Today I added about 3 pints of water to the BSF bin and it was soaked up immediately. My theory is that by softening the feed it will be more easily digested and hopefully reduce the mortalities. I was hoping to keep the steps involved to a minimum, but at least water is easily acquired and basically free. It does present a problem for setting up a totally automated system though. For now I'll start keeping a bucket of water by the BSF and I'll add a measured amount of it each day. The larvae keep everything mixed up so I just pour the water in randomly.

I want to add that I would never maintain BSF without using them to process kitchen scraps, etc. The point of this test with the hog feed is to quantify how many larvae are generated by a fixed amount of a consistent feed. After the tests are over it's back to natures finest garbage disposal system!

I've come to the conclusion that the BSF population adjusts to the available food. By increasing the amount of food you increase the amount of time it takes the larvae to eat it. This allows the food to give off more scent which in turn attracts more adult BSF to lay eggs. If the quantity of food is small, it's eaten before the egg laying adults get a whiff of it. (For the sake of clarity I will mention that the BSF bin currently smells like a fresh corn muffin.)

Since I recently increased the amount of food I'm now seeing females laying eggs in the bin almost constantly. Sometimes I see 2 or 3 laying at a time. My guess is that within a few weeks I'm going to see a population explosion. The BSF aren't shy about landing in the bin while I'm there. When they were coming in I wondered what was attracting them so I stuck my head into the bin for a careful smell. The odor is still very faint, but that's when I smelled corm muffin. I had my head in a plastic box with 20,000 maggots and I realized I was getting hungry.

Clearly I've gone native.

...fair warning to anyone invited over for a country breakfast

I do love grits.

Corn Muffin flavored Tic-Tacs?

After adding 3-4 pints of water/day to the BSF it started getting too wet so I stopped temporarily. The amount of water needed will vary depending on ambient humidity, temp, colony size, etc.

Being a little wet didn't hurt the larvae, but the bin did start to smell a little alcoholic. It's not like rubbing alcohol in your eyes alcoholic, more like someone poured beer on your cornmuffin alcoholic. I can almost imagine what the BSF colony might be like if the feed has fermented enough to produce ethynol.

Woo.

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.

There would definitely be a certain, maximum quantity of feed which could be correctly processed into larvae in a given size container of BSF. You may well have found that limit.

I agree. I think that you could liken this situation to a pond, in that carrying capacity has been met, and that excess wastes that can't be assimilated by the BSF are being liberated partially as heat. This could "feed back" on the system and eventually cause a crash.

You're both right I think. My system would have crashed for sure if the BSFL hadn't been able to exit the bin.

I stopped feeding the BSFL on the 27th. For the second time since I started raising them there is a bad odor in the bin. It's not "knock a buzzard off a 5h:+ wagon" stinky, but it sure ain't no fresh corn muffin either. The first time there was an odor it was from larvae mortality caused by leaving the bucket in direct sun and the resulting mortalities. This time it's also from BSF mortalities, but I think the cause was overcrowding.

The good news is that returning the colony back to a healthy balance shouldn't involve more than waiting a few days. That's all I had to do last time.

I'll know that the colony is balanced when final stage larvae begin self harvesting again. I haven't seen that since shortly after I started the hog feed test. In retrospect the lack of final stage, self harvesting larvae should have alerted me to the impending collapse.

When the BSF colony is back to a healthy condition I will start the hog feed test again, but with a reduced quantity of feed, probably 1/4 lb/day.

VIVA LA MAGGOTS!

Vive le maggot libre!

It's been 10 days since I quit feeding the larvae. Today is the first day that I've had some larvae develop to the final stage and exit the container. There are about 100 larvae in the collection buckets, and the odor has been normal (pleasant) for several days now.

I will begin the hog feed test again, this time using only 1/4 lb per day.

I changed my mind about beginning the feeding again at this time. There are still many larvae left from the prior 1lb/day feeding test. I've decided to let them cycle through before adding any feed at all.

I'm having a little problem with larvae escaping the container when moisture condenses on the inside walls. Under these conditions the larvae can crawl straight up and out the vent holes so very few end up in the collection buckets. Lately it's been fairly wet so I wasn't aware of how many mature larvae have been developing. I emptied the buckets yesterday and was a little surprised when I checked them today. It was the biggest one day harvest I've had to date. This is surely the result of the 1lb/day feeding I was doing.



I'll start feeding them again when the harvest slows down.

For some reason when I saw the color of the larvae this time I though they were dead. Until I saw the video!

The final stage larvae are always that color Bruce. They also trade in their mouths for climbing hooks so they don't eat at this stage.

I started feeding 1lb/day of hog feed ($.17/lb) on Sept 10th and continued through Sept 27th. It has been another 17 days since I stopped feeding.

I didn't collect any larvae until 5 days ago and I have kept everything for the last 5 days.

5 day harvest:


There are many final stage larvae trying to exit from the container at this time, and I think the tub in the video will be to the top by the end of the day.

I understand that people should be very careful about giving out their addresses to people they only know from forums, I am. However, if anyone has an address they feel safe about sharing I will ship a small quantity of BSFL to you at no cost assuming it's not too expensive. I know that they sell small amounts (100) for $6 which includes shipping. If I can ship for $2 or $3 I'll happily do it as part of my experiment.

I started feeding again on October 27th. I'm using the same hog feed but this time only .25 pounds/day. The weather has cooled off so I really don't know what to expect. I'm not even sure if there will be any females laying eggs this time of year.

I don't know where I'm heading with the BSF for now, so I'll just keep adding feed and see what happens.

I noticed a female laying eggs in the container today. The nights have been down into the 50's lately and as low as 45 degrees 2 nights ago.

It appears that the BSFL population isn't enough to process the 1/4 lb of feed/day, but that's to be expected after a month of adding no additional feed. The population always seems to adjust quickly to the food supply. The new feeding program is more than the present colony can handle so some of it decomposes before it gets eaten. The slight odor given off by the excess food, signals nearby females that there is a food supply for her eggs. Within a few days there will be new recruits to help process the extra food.

GW,what's the latest on the BSF project?

Thanks for asking rmedgar.

I've been so busy lately I decided to set the colony free. My container wasn't sufficient to protect the larvae from freezing temperatures.

I've been in New Hampshire for 2 weeks now volunteering for a political campaign so I couldn't have monitored the BSF. When I get back home I'll try to find the time to start up again.

I'd like to start up a project like that. I'll read back thru the thread and see if
I can figure it out. If you have any suggestions, I'd love tho hear them.
Thanks, Randy
PS - good luck in the campaign. Like everyone, I have my preferrence, but
I can live with anybody except one, and I hope you're not supporting her.
I won't mention any names, because Eric will nail me again.

This thread should cover everything you need to know, but don't hesitate to ask me for details.

My candidate is easy to identify. He's the only one who respects the Constitution and individual rights.

Edit: duplicate post

For anyone interested in raising BSFL there is now a commercial unit that will make it very simple. This is from ESR, the same company that initially inspired me to try raising BSFL.

http://thebiopod.com/index.html

GW, are you gonna fire up the 'ole Maggo-Matic again when the weather warms up?

Sure am. I'm thinking that this last cold front was the last freezing temps we'll have for a while. I could have kept the colony going through the winter, but I didn't have the extra time to set it up properly.

GW,

I have read your POST with ABSOLUTE delight. It's amazing to see you ultra positive experience with black soldier fly. I also like your video on the pig meal... that looks like an amazing colony you had going.

I'm very happy that you found my post tbp. I'm curious if you found it through an internet search engine.

I have really enjoyed learning about BSF and much of what I know came from reading your father's work. I've read every lecture/article of his that I could find. I'm very impressed with how he has positioned himself in the business world in a way that benefits everyone. I wish you all the best of luck with getting the biopod to the market. At some point I'll be a customer.

I also want to say that my heart goes out to you for dealing with the "yuck" factor. It must be supremely frustrating to have an elegant solution to such an important issue and then to have to deal with that. I haven't been following much lately, but I'm curious if you have made progress in Brazil and Viet Nam. I would imagine that people in other cultures might be more open to alternatives like those represented by BSF.

GW,

You are absolutely right about people in other countries. i think we will have a real success in vietnam. Especially since they are one of the largest cat fish producers in the world. However, in the west the Juk factor is there.

I saw the video on the dallas school teacher and the maggot art. I have contacted her and hope her video can be used as the anti-juk conversion tool, haha. Anyway... if you would like we would love to share your videos on our website also... is there a way you can youtube them? or give as an html iscript?

-RLO
PS: found this blog through google analytics and thank you for bringing traffic to our site. It's not much...but since we are so different you actually rank very high (lol). So perhaps we can link you EXCELLENT blog in our website.

Also would do you think of coining this method of waste reduction as Prota™Composting or Prota™Culture. Like Vermicomposting, prota™composting essentially focusses on producing proteins out of compost... the greek prota means basic and life and is the root for the word protein?

RLO, I have never uploaded to YouTube, but I'm sure I can figure it out. I've wanted to be involved with raising awareness of BSF since I discovered them, so yes, I would be honored to help in any way. If there are other ways I can help please don't hesitate to ask.

I'll have to consider the two options for naming the process. Prota™Culture rolls off the tongue better and my be more accurate, but Prota™Composting will be more familiar to many people. My guess is that using the word "composting" will have a better commercial impact.

Thanks for the Maggo-Matic remark, Theo. Leaving now for Marksville and will be laughing all the way. Fine humor indeed!

I have an image of Dudley quietly driving down the road and then suddenly chuckling for no apparent reason. Maggo-Matic indeed.

GW, do the BSFs just show up?
If not, biopod, do they come with your kit?
Randy

Will they convert grass clippings, leaves, etc?

rmedgar, I had no problem attracting wild BSF. I live in the country and I'm not sure if they are as plentiful in the suburbs or in cities. I still haven't gotten a good sense of how common they are in the north.

When I first started researching BSF I was sure I had never seen one. I put out scraps and had BSF laying eggs within hours.

DD1, that's a good question. If thebiopod doesn't know off hand I'll test it when I get my colony going again.

Randy,

Depending on climate BSF just show up in 1-2 weeks. Don't overfeed them. Also we will sell started colonies with our BioPod™, but will not get into the business of selling grubs over the internet...

Also, there is a resource section that has a great user guide on how to establish a colony yourself. But if you ask GW, it's more fun growing them yourself

-Robert

rmedgar,

I started a colony on the balcony of an 8th story apt in the middle of downtown dallas. It was a little tricky, but I plan on getting a song bird feeder out of recycled plastic so i can attract song birds to the city... (no pigeons). I'm hoping this will create a great benefit for our neighborhood and I'm hoping this will encourage my girlfriend to feed the pod...

GW, I saw this thread posted on another forum and wanted to ask you something. I was very interested in your project/experiment because I wanted to have a year round supply of feeder insects for my frogs. I'd use adults as well as larvae. I'm looking to automate the frog feeding process.

My question is are the SF "clean"? In other words if I re-created your experiment and used wild adults to start the culture, could those flies introduce and pass on any harmful bacteria / parasites to my frogs or even myself?

I read the entire article you referred to and I've read all the posts (all 6 pages) of this thread. I'm just not sure about how clean the culture would be. You mentioned that the larvae release an antibiotic and "clean" themselves. You also mention that they outcompete other flies. I was worries specifically about botulism or any other nasty.

Hi Green Ghost. The best way I can explain my feeling about BSF is by comparing them to butterflies and caterpillars. Please keep in mind that this analogy has little to do with science (which you've already read) and is more about my gut feeling.

I imagine there would be a greater risk if you collected larvae from a decaying carcass, but in a situation where you're monitoring the scraps I doubt there would be a significant risk of infection. The adult BSF are only a few days old at any point, and if their eggs are deposited in a unit with "cleam" food scraps I don't see much chance of spreading toxins or diseases.

We're lucky to have someone on the the forum now who knows a lot more about BSF then I do. Maybe thebiopod will see this and comment. You may want to consider joining the forum at thebiopod.com and pose your question there. I've been intending to register there but haven't found the time yet...

Welcome to Pond Boss, you can get a lot of great help with all questions related to fish biology as well as pond info here.

Holy moly GW, you're BSF thread is being referenced on other boards? It seems as though you have become our resident "Lord of the Flies."

GW,

I'm going to think about Green Ghost question carefully before I answer... In the mean time I found the neatest patent using fly larvae to dispose of waste in Space and THEN feeding a protein paste back to the humans in the ship... CHECK THAT OUT.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=o0IUAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4

I hope the link post without a problem...

biopod

WOW; and I always thought I would like to be an astronaut.

If thats what thier eating on the GSA deathstar Jeff can cancil my flight.

David,

High Cellulitic material that is low in nutrients like grass are more difficult to break down naturally. That's why a cow needs 4 stomachs and jews all day. For the same reason black soldier fly will have a hard time breaking down grass clippings.

From my experience, I would not intentionally inundate a colony with grass clippings and/or wood chips. Nature provides us with other creatures that are better equipped for the job... termites and certain ants that secrete highly digestive enzymes.

However, I would love to come up with a way cultivate other insects as easy as it is to raise black soldier flies.

RLO

That's cool, but I think the intention is to feed the maggots to domesticated animals and then to use the animals as a food source for humans. Either way it's great to see maggots utilized like this, and it definitely beats soylent green.

EDIT: I had only read the abstract but I just read your post at NANFA and it seems you where correct about feeding the maggots to humans.

DOUBLE EDIT: I guess I'm also guilty of having the yuck factor, at least to some degree.

Does anyone know how various algae and Duckweed fit into this equation?

Thanks for the welcome GW.

The worry is that the adults may have visited carrion or feces and then come to the culturing bin. I'm not sure if they can transmit bacteria or parasites by touch? For example thier body parts that came in contact with it.

I understand what you mean about how you feel about the fly but butterflies and caterpillars don't have the same feeding habits. I'm not being pessimistic because I would really like to be able to get a clean culture of wild (aka: free) flies especially ones with thier characteristics.

I'll stick to this forum because I'll be posting the answer back on the other forum. It's inconvenient for me going between three forums. I guess other people besides myself are waiting for the answer too...

Thanks, any information you could provide would be helpful.

If the wild flies turn out to be carrying any kind of pathogen then could getting "clean" lab produced flies shipped be an option (I mean just to seed a culture)?

there's also an issue with the flying area a SF needs to mate. If we wanted to keep the flies in a clean environment and have them mate there... would that be possible. I think they need alot of room to fly around in to be able to mate compared to the relatively small space a housefly needs.

Edit: I forgot to mention.... there is also an issue where if other flies came to the culture bin could they pass on any pathogens to the culture even if they were outcompeted later on by the SF? For example houseflies laying eggs on, near or in the SF culture bin?

Our frogs are quite expensive (and sometimes rare). Aside from that no one wants thier entire vivarium or paludarium wiped out from a harmful bacteria or parasite.

Green ghost,

If you frogs are very rare I don't dare to guarantee anything. BSF are an integral port of nature's decomposition process together with so many different species of bacteria and fungi.

One could argue that healthy black soldier fly colony will give you the lowest risk of a pathogenic outbreak.

As you might have read in this post, BSF allow for uber fast break down of organic matter while inhibiting other putrescent factors to dominate the waste pile. If not the decomposing matter would become anaerobic and stinky in a matter of hours. Also they redistribute moisture and keep the decomposting matter from turning thermophillic (115 - 160 degrees F)

So predominantly the BSF provide for all the right ingredients for mesophilic bacteria (50 - 115 F) to dominate.

This does not guarantee that pathonogenic bacteria or protozoa can not be introduced to the system and "survive".

However, BSF have a unique process in which they migrate and clean themselves prior to pupation. They empty their guts completly... getting rid of their entire digestive track and mouth part. It's at this stage that it is believed that they secrete an anti-bacterila agent of some sort prior to pupation.

So, it's fairly accurate to say that the soldier fly pre-pupae are as clean as possible.

Therefore a contraption like our biopod not only keeps conditions optimal for the active black soldier fly in the colony it is also a device for seperating the pre-pupae from the decomposing matter.

If I were you, I would try to set up a colony in a well shaded portion of your yard away from the frogs. I would then harvest only the pre-pupae and preferable keep them in stasis for a few days prior to feeding them to your frogs. keeping them in a small tray filled with wood shavings in a shed would be fine.

If need be, you can always try to disinfect the pre-pupae as this will not kill them.

Also I would be very selective on what I put into the colony. I would put in only food waste from human consumption. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE would i introduce any organic waste that had been in contact with your frogs. Many "frog" pathogens live near your frogs and on their waste and the last thing you want is your colony to become a breading ground for their pathogens.

Without the foresight to what pathogen may or may not be present? I would start small. I hope that these guide lines can give you some sort of "best practise" advice.

Robert

I could identify with that... I guess the only thing left to do is try it and then test the pupae to see how clean they are coming out of the culture bin. Then, see how they could be cleaned further if that proved necessary.

I can't speak for everyone but most keep frogs indoors in closed systems (either vivariums/terrariums or paludariums) - because you had mentioned setting up a colony "in my yard away from my frogs" but I get your point.

Thanks for the informative reply, I will pass your answer on and provide the link to your site. I will also set up a culture as soon as the weather permits.

You mentioned harvesting only the pre-pupae and then keeping them in stasis prior to feeding. What would keeping them in stasis accomplish? Are you trying to say it would make them "cleaner" somehow? One more thing, specifically how could pre-pupae be disinfected?

I've been in such a rush lately I missed these last few posts.

Green Ghost, I initially thought you were concerned with what is fondly referred to as the "yuck factor". You might consider dipping the larvae in mild bleach solution. Of course you would need to research your frog's sensitivity to bleach, but it is used extensively as a sanitizer in food preparation facilities. I've read that bleach will dissipate quickly and leaves no residue.

Here's a link about bleach as a disinfectant:

http://nrc.uchsc.edu/CFOC/PDFVersion/Appendix%20I.pdf

Assuming you don't have any BSFL I would be happy to test this idea in a few weeks, after I get a new colony established. I have little doubt that the larvae will survive a brief submersion. If you wanted to be especially cautious you could use only prepupal larvae since they are inherently "cleaner".

Quite a while ago I took a ride on a Norfolk & Southern steam train. I rode in a restored club car. I asked one of the fellows, who helped restore the car, how waste was handled. Was it still just dropped on the tracks when the train was moving? He said the car had a new system, large holding tanks. They were designed so the the liquid part quickly evaporated & the remaining solids were digested by flies. At the time the explanation seem a bit strange. Now I understand how & why the system worked.

Fascinating thread and Great Work (GW get it!)! I'm wondering if a screened enclosure might be suitable for keeping the entire lifecycle of the BSF? Letting some of the larvae mature into flies, breed and lay eggs right back into the system they came from?

I have posted a link to this thread at CrayfishMates.com . We're discussing various larvae for aquaculture and aquaponic systems feed supplementation.

Haven't got around to looking at the rest of the site yet but looks like it might be right up my alley being as I have designed fishing lures/molds...will get around to checking ya'll out more!

Hi CharlieLittle and welcome. I have a feeling you'll like Pond Boss.

I believe someone (Robert?) has raised BSF in a greenhouse situation. Also there have been tests run where commercial catfish farms included BSFL in their diets with good results. I'm pretty sure I mentioned it somewhere in this thread. Here in the south BSFL are a traditional fishing bait and from my experience fish are highly motivated to eat them.

Thanks for the welcome GW and greenhouse with aquaponics is my plan. Might even consider starting my bait shop back up and gathering all the food waste from our city restaurants. I've seen the larvae of BSF in our city trash truck and in my own worm beds but never knew what they were. Thank you!

That would be an interesting project to follow. Talk about recycling.

Oh and welcome to Pond Boss. I see you've already met our resident Lord of the Flies. (I really, really think that title should be in GW's signature line).

GW, I've been trying to get started (on a small scale) for about 2 weeks and haven't been able to attract any BSF. I have noticed some ants and also, I threw a couple of orange peels into the bucket. Could either of these be keeping the BSF away?
Thanks for your help. I am going to do this!

CharlieLittle, I've thought about restaurants as a source of food scraps but it would probably be hard to get them to sort it properly. Normally you could expect to find plastic, cardboard, broken glass, bones, etc. in restaurant garbage. You may find that vegetarian and health food restaurants will be more likely to sort and save vegetable waste for you. If they sell large amounts of fresh carrot juice they'll generate a good quantity of great BSF food in the form of pulp.

jhap, that title would be appropriate based on my views about society, but it's a little to grandiose for me I think. Any other ideas?

rmedgar, I've also been trying unsuccessfully to start a colony for a few weeks and I think it's due to the time of year. I've got a garbage can that's full and I'm going to set it aside for a while and watch for BSF activity. In the warmer months I could always see some around a can that had gotten a little smelly. When I see them around the garbage can I'll put my starter scraps next to it. I think using something that's fairly stinky will help attract BSF sooner, if you have the space for that. The weather in my area is predicted to go down to almost freezing in a few days. Maybe the BSF "know" that and are waiting for warmer times.

"Lord of the Flies, J.G."

Thanks GW. We are suppose to be around 32 tonight and then hopefully no more cold weather. Are the ants a problems, and also, are the orange peels too acidic? I called the biopod people and am on the waiting list for a small system.
Randy

Randy, I think one of the reasons the BioPods are on stands is to discourage ants. Last year I had my container on saw horses and I sprayed the legs with insecticide whenever I saw ants.

I work for the city in which I live. Waste Water, sanitation, water systems, etc...it's a small city of about 1,000 but a large rural area we run sanitation service to. I personally drove the trash truck for a couple of years till I moved up to Waste Water Operator and see a lot of possibilities for the BSFL. Could possibly get a couple of the food establishments to cooperate, maybe even set up on site bins but we'll have to see how it goes.

Too bad BSF is not a good candidate for sewage sludge as they prefer green wastes but there is plenty of green wastes to be had with a little ingenuity

Maybe a "trade bait for garbage" type of campaign! I wonder just how many people, if they knew there was a place to take recycle food scraps in exchange for bait...

Or just let the word out of a community food scrap bin to save on household garbage being set out for sanitation...

Lots of possibilities!

CL, I'm not aware of any studies using sewage sludge, but are you sure BSFL couldn't break it down? I don't think it's accurate to say that BSFL prefer green wastes. They've already been used to successfully process poultry, swine, and human waste. In the south they've been called "privy flies" because they used to inhabit outhouses. ESR has designed systems that process animal waste at commercial levels and they're working with BSFL-based toilets for humans in Brazil and Viet Nam I believe. Maybe Robert (thebiopod.com) will have some advice for you about this.

Having units set up at restaurants would be fantastic, but unfortunately I think it might be tough to sell the health dept on encouraging any type of fly around them. Maybe someday...

Here's a pdf document on the comparison of earthworms and BSFL on sewage sludge...

Sewage Sludge Document pdf

They define green waste as anything fresh and the manures are mentioned in the article. Sewage sludge has undergone bacterial treatment in either aerobic or anaerobic methods. There seems to be something about it BSF do not like. In over ten years of employment and our city Waste Water facility, I have never noticed BSFL in any of the sludge drying beds or in the plant processes though they are numerous in my on site worm beds where fresh organics are added and in our city sanitation truck during the summer months, undoubtedly from weekly dumping of residential and business dumpsters.

Now I am knowing of the BSFL and bin technology used to keep them and have thought to try some of the processed sludge as it becomes available from our new facility's sludge press. It will be a few months before this new facility produces enough sludge in quantities to activate the press but I will give it a try anyway regardless of the article studies.

Composting worms are well known to process sewage sludge and BSFL waste excrements to a further usable product of worm castings so it seems a multi tier continuous flow design of bin with BSFL on top to handle fresh organics with their wastes able to screen onto the lower worm bin, both green wastes and sewage sludge could be processed at the same location and result in worm castings. The liquid from the top BSFL bin would likely be perfect to maintain the moisture in the lower worm bin.

My brain is reeling from the possibilities

Edited to add...As indicated in the ESR Power Point slideshow, the acceptance of BSFL technology by "spoiled" countries and restaurants like you mention due to health department regs is likely to be a major stumbling block for any wide spread use of this technology. It's too bad some buerocratic red tape would prevent such great things to happen. The very use of BSFL to process fresh human waste solids would negate the need for conventional waste treatment facilities like where I work but then you're looking at too many people losing their jobs and a long accepted system of waste treatment simply going away and you know that ain't gonna happen in the US! It was hard enough to get EPA approval just for a pilot project of using composting worms for biosolid conversion and that had to be approved by a resident engineer! We are truly a spoiled nation but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else so am as spoiled I'm afraid...

Wow, that's interesting CL. I wonder if it's an oversimplification to say that sewer sludge doesn't meet the nutritional requirements of BSFL.

I wanted to let everyone know that I'm going into business selling BioPods. I'm in the process of setting up a website now. The website will be used primarily to blog about my continuing experiences with BSF, but I will also make BioPods available for purchase. I doubt that I'll get rich from offering these units, but I know I feel good about supporting a great company and product. Of course I'll keep updating this thread with new information about BSF as I get it.

I would say that is probably a correct assumption. Much of the nutritional composition of treated sludge is already made into plant-ready nutrients by bacterial processes. Likely very little use to the BSFL.

Had thought you would likely become a rep for the biopods and wish you the best. Can't wait to see the website! Are you going to be involved in the manufacture of or simply as a distributor?

Thanks CL. I'll just be a distributor, but I'm also working on a few ideas that I'll offer to ESR if they work out.

A successful distributorship will largely depend directly on your ability to educate the public to gain wide acceptance. You have done well to educate in this thread so I see no reason you would not make a very good business educator as well. It is a needed product at a good time of going green and recycling. Go GW!

ETA...I would like to be your first customer. You have my contact info so please let me know when you're up and running as I may not be viewing the thread.

Well thank you CL, I appreciate the feedback.

I'm currently in the design and building stage of a 21ft diameter hoop dome greenhouse that will cover a fish tank and aquaponic grow beds. Your Bio Pod will be a great addition as an automatic grub feeder sitting right next to the fish tank. The interior of the dome greenhouse ought to be perfect for the year long maintenance of the BSF and their larvae. I'm glad to have found this forum and learned about the BSF through your efforts so I feel you deserve my business. Otherwise I would have been raising BlueBottle Fly Larvae on fish guts in five gallon buckets! I did that before and am fairly certain the good Lord above kept me from getting some sort of fly disease

The last PB convention had a presentation on aquaponics. Doc Cornwell in NY has several greenhouses like you described but bigger. You should contact him .

Is he here? Would be glad to pick his brain!

It will be interesting to see if the addition of BSFL excrement to gravel aquaponic growbeds will provide essential nutrients lacking in fish waste effluent...

Doc Cornwell can be reached at CORNWEMD@Cobleskill.edu or call the PB office and see if they have the info from his presentation.

Here is a prior thread - http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...true#Post101797

Thank you

Here's a link to my work in progress of the half hoop dome greenhouse if anybody might be interested...

Charlie's Half Hoop Dome Greenhouse

That link doesn't work for me, CharlieLittle.

Good to have you on the forum. I really look forward to your future input.

Bruce

Oh sorry! One might have to register as a forum member at CrayfishMates.com to see the thread.

I could possibly duplicate the thread here somewhere if there is an appropriate place for such and if there is enough interest.

While I'm at it, where would you like a tutorial on making fishing lure molds?

I think the link is ok Bruce, but you have to be a member of the forum to view it. I'll probably register later. A forum about crayfish has to have good people as members...

And everything you ever wanted to know about raising crayfish

Yes please. Although you should start it in a new thread. But I for one would really, really like to read the tutorial.

Who knew that flies could be so interesting. Keep us updated on your new website and business venture GW.

I'm still working on a title for ya.

Barron of the Black Soldier Fly?

High Priest of Hermetia illucens?

The Ayatollah of the fly named Black Soldya? (ok that's a bit of a stretch).

I'll keep working on it.

Are you sure you're not Brettski's alter ego? I mean, I've never seen both of you at the same place at the same time.

I will be glad to show ya'll all i know about making lures and molds. Just tell me what section of the forum...

Charlie, try the section at the bottom called "Pond Boss". That would be a good place for it.

I'm there. Sorry to distract your thread GW. I can't wait for you to start selling the Bio Pod and get myself one! I've told several people around town about it today. No problem in getting my 5 lbs of fresh food scraps per day! There might even be interest in a city central collection site where people bring their newspapers and such for recycling. all you have to do is let those kinds of folks know and they will gladly bring in the grub...to make me more grubs

No worries CL, it's just a thread.

Btw, the 2 foot diameter unit will process 5 kilos of scraps per day, not pounds. I have a 4 foot mega-maggo-matic on order.

5 kilos...Sorry I'm not up on the metric system but if I remember right that is 5 x 2.2lbs = 11lbs?

Here's another link to some BSFL info... BSFL in Aquaculture

It was reported by a fella over at Crayfish Mates .com that crayfish are very acceptive of the BSFL as feed but particles of the larvae were torn loose by the crays feeding habits and floated on top of the tank causing water quality issues. BSFL are particularly important as a crayfish feed due to the calcium they provide as crayfish need it in their moulting. I suggested some fishes that would co-exist with the crayfish to do away with the torn BSFL particles. Seems an acceptable solution.

I think you would need very small fish so that they didn't compete for whole larvae. Gambusia come to mind, but they would reproduce quickly. Perhaps excess Gams could be converted into crayfish food.

I would love to grow two or more isolated groups of fish at some point to test for growth rates using BSFL compared to other feeds. So many grubs, so little time.

Since it will be awhile till I can get my aquaponics system up and running with the greenhouse and all, we are going to try something different with the Bio Pod and the BSFL. There are many facilities like ours that have pre treatment grit classifiers. Ours is a brand new facility and we're still in the learning curve but one of the first things we've learned is that this stuff stinks! Right outside our office door and something has to change!



http://www.crayfishmates.com/crayfish_forum/uploads/1208049322/gallery_33_11_96120.jpg

This is the Hydro Grit classifier at our waste water facility which easily produces a constant 10lbs per day of fresh waste organics in addition to system grit that is in all sewer systems. The plan is to install the Bio Pod directly underneath the exit chute of the classifier and let the BSFL process the stuff rather than it stinking up the area, drawing flies and having to empty the dumpster pictured below...adding to landfill waste.



http://www.crayfishmates.com/crayfish_forum/uploads/1208049322/gallery_33_11_56085.jpg

Dumpster with 24 hours of grit accumulation. Smells like a grainery but worse. Contains undigested vegetable matter, particles of human waste and grit. Also get a lot of earthworms in there somehow through the sewer collection system, some dead and some alive...

I'm a mere unworthy student of Grand Master Brettskisan.

Sounds like a job for the BSFL to me! I think you may be a candidate for the 4 foot diameter BioPod. Don't forget that the unit would need to be out of direct sunlight though. You've probably read that BSFL control pest fly species by dominating the waste pile and by secreting infochemicals that repel them.

Would you be able to avoid adding paper and plastic waste to the BioPod? I suppose the paper would break down alright, but I would avoid plastic.

Btw, referring to part of the waste as "grits" created a problem with my morning meal.

Grit in sewer systems is anything not organic, sand, rocks, etc... There is a little plastic but not much in this station and it's shredded. The unit will be shaded except for the morning and that too could be fixed for constant shade.

I'm wondering about the Bio Pod lid. Is there a lid with just a round hole? I would need to fit a sock on the classifier outlet to a round pipe, probably PVC to direct the stuff into the Bio Pod automatically. It runs when the system needs it to run. Right now we have a lot of infiltration from ground water running into old collection system and storm rain infiltration. As summer progresses the flow will drop a lot and we will have less grit. Fall it will pick back up as rains come.

Some people are very curious as to the plan here. Can't wait to get going. Will start with the small one and go bigger if we need it...

I believe the top of the BioPod is vented for air circulation and entry of adult female BSF and I wouldn't modify that. Maybe you could cut a hole and fit a threaded PVC fitting into the lid that could be capped off if you decide to retire the unit to residential use.

Will you have less than 11 pounds of material per day?

That sounds like an easy modification and yes it could be capped off. I doubt we will ever have over 10 pounds of this stuff per day. Right now is at the highest flow we will ever see. Probably go down to 3-5 pounds per day in summer.

Thank you GW for such an informative thread. All my questions answered so far.(well, my questions never cease but so far you're ahead of them).

I can't wait to make a BSF module beside my aquaponic greenhouse. I'd like to put it in the shade outdoors with an evacuation pipe leading into the greenhouse above the pond.

However, I don't really have enough fish so may foul the water. But you've answered my questions on getting decent chook protein feed together from home and also how I am going to afford all the protein required to raise a bunch of eels.

I'm going to collect waste from some local cafes and feed chooks and eels and kokopu with the grubs.

Should do the trick.

I reckon I can help a lot of people with this technology, and the climate is ripe for introducing green techs. Again, thank you.

You're quite welcome Kokopu, I look forward to hearing about your experiences. Are Black Soldier Flies native to NZ or have they been imported?

They're imports but they are here. Common according to the sources I googled. I've seen them about including a heap of larvae hitting the food in my compost and I didn't know what they were at the time.

Have you read, it was a couple years ago, a 90 page submission for cleaning the wastes of some Brazilian city using BSF?

I think they thought he was mad. Visionary he was, albeit, obsessively passionate. 90 pages!

I'm mad too, I read it all.

Was that report done by Dr. Paul Olivier? I've read every source of BSF information I could find by him, and some of it is related to Brazil. I'm pretty sure he's the owner of ESR International which is the parent company of ProtaCulture, the BioPod company.

I've linked to ESR's website before but here it is again: http://www.esrint.com/

I love the fact that they manufacture large and sophisticated machinery for sorting waste, and they also make a plastic tub that utilizes maggots. This page demonstrates how ESR is trying to effect a big problem common to all countries.

Yesterday I saw my first BSF adult of the year. It's time to get some scraps out for round 2!

I feel your excitement GW... Got my eyes open for em

Good news on the BSF sighting. Haven't seen any yet, but have the scrapes out. All I've gotten so far are ants, but I'm a little North of you.

I had just finished telling my neighbor's grandson about BSF when this first-of-the-season fly landed on his grandaddy's ATV (that would be Mr. H).

As of last night I've officially got my homemade BSF container set up with food scraps in it. This morning I saw a BSF laying eggs inside, and then I saw another this afternoon. In a few weeks I should be able to target some RES with the larvae.

Yesterday I saw some other type of similar insect around the scraps. I'm wondering if it was some other type of Soldier Fly...

That would have been a Sailor Fly, possibly an Airman Fly.

BSFL in school art... Here

Those kids are future maggot ranchers perhaps. I think that's the same school George1 linked to earlier in this thread.

Here's an article about maggots as bait. It mentions three types, none of which are Black Soldier Flies. It appears to be a British site. I think maggots are widely used as bait there.

Sorry for the double link then. Guess I don't remember seeing it. Got my homemade bin made and some scraps in it. Plenty of house flies but no BSF seen yet.

Maybe he posted it in another thread. Thanks either way.

I haven't been getting many houseflies. Maybe that's because I have my container in the woods a few hundred feet from the house. Also you're more likely to get house flies if you use meat scraps. I think meat scraps may attract BSF faster than vegetable scraps only. This year I started with vegetables, bread, some pizza with sausage and one slice of ham. Dang, I'm getting hungry!

There's already a lot of flies around because of the sewer sludge. I might need to get a start of larvae to get the thing going. Cleaned out the fridge and got some old celery, sprouts, onion and a couple of old apples. Moistened some stale bread and some dog food added to the mix. Where's the best place to get some larvae?

Charlie, maybe GW will send his 2 best customers a few :).
I haven't attracted anything but ants and a caterpillar.
I'm going to add a little sandwich meat.

I'd be happy to send you guys some larvae.

The best place to attract BSF initially would probably be in a wooded area, or at least a place with some bushes. Those are the areas where the BSF mate.

I'm thinking that houseflies would be less likely to enter a BioPod through the small openings than a housefly, but I can't say where I got that notion. CL, do you have a lid on your unit? I'm really looking forward to seeing if the BSF totally eliminate house flies from your unit.

I checked my container for the third time in two days and saw another BSF laying eggs.


The white legs (tarsi) are a good way to confirm that you are looking at a Black Soldier Fly.

I wonder if it helps that I released about 100,000 larvae in this same spot last year...

Sort of a half lid...something I thought they might lay eggs on the under side. The whole thing is under a tin roof shed with open ends so I didn't figure on needing a complete lid to keep rain out. Just an old trash can I chopped on

Oh and thanks very much for the larvae offer! Any would be appreciated. I would imagine you have a lot around from letting that many go. Mine is not far from the woods, only about 40 - 50 yards. Today as I sat hoping to spot a BSF a big deer jumped out of the woods and ran along the edge of our sewer plant fence with caged dogs in the kennels right next to me going nuts.

It will take some weeks to get enough larvae to make it worthwhile to send you. I have no doubt that some local BSF will find your container eventually. One way some larvae might help is by their odor. I believe adult BSF are attracted to the the (mild and even pleasant) odor of BSF larvae. I think it serves to signal a good place to lay eggs because the food source will normally be dominated by BSF already.

Your open top should be alright if it's out of the rain, just be prepared for some larvae to evacuate at times. They are able to climb a vertical surface if there is condensation on it. Even with the lid on my unit it wasn't unusual to see some migration out of the vents. I thought of a way to greatly reduce this, but I didn't install it because there's no harm in letting some larvae go. I'm curious about how much the BioPods will limit migration of immature larvae.

I'm not putting any of the stuff from the sewer grit classifier into my unit until I get some BSFL started in it. The dumpster which used to catch all that stuff is teeming with Blue and Green Bottle Fly maggots so I removed it and placed a collection bucket with a plastic shroud so at least we don't have a million flies just outside our office door. Those other maggots are really eating the stuff so I figure the BSFL ought to like it as well???

If they will eliminate all the other flies from this stuff then we will have accomplished a great thing! I wonder how many other sewer plants struggle with the same problem? We're kind of stuck with the stuff without having to go through tons of red tape to dispose of it "properly"...so it will be awesome if the BSFL will handle the problem.

To reiterate...I'm over-run with Blue and Green Bottle Fly Larvae!

ThousANDS...MAYBE MILLIONS! Can you tell I'm somewhat in a hurry to get some BSFL going

I visited my container today and saw two more BSF laying. If money were no object (an in a sense it isn't) you could order a bunch of larvae from Dr. Sheppard. Maybe he would give you a break on a bulk order. I'm thinking that perhaps the plant would foot the bill...

I couldn't wait and did order a batch from Dr. Sheppard!

Where my bin is situated under the pole barn I have an old refrigerator that's half full of semi dry material, partially worked by composting worms. I'm hoping this will be suitable for placing some of the larvae once they have migrated out of the bin to change into adult flies. Just how dry of a place do they like?

I don't have experience with the final stage larvae. I've either fed them to fish or released them in the woods.

CL, if your scraps are drying out I suggest you add a little water.

Still no BSFs here. I threw out the old scraps (lots of ants) and added some new. Plus, I put the bucket of scraps in a pan of water (like a mote around the bucket)so hopefully the ants won't be a problem anymore. GW, when are you getting the kits?

Hey rmedgar, they're saying that the BioPods will be in late May, but you know how deadlines are...

I keep my container on sawhorses and I occasionally spray insecticide on the legs. The BioPods are on tripods which will be less work than the 8 legs of my 2 sawhorses.

I've seen more females laying eggs lately so I'll have some larvae to send you soon enough. I haven't seen ants yet but my scraps have all kinds of flying insects on them now. The dominant ones at the moment are fruit flies. Once the BSFL hatch the others will be gone in short order. The BSFL won't kill the other species, they'll just displace/repel them.

Think my scraps are moist enough. I'm getting a lot of flies and gnats in there, also molding of the bread and apples. Is that ok?

I asked Dr. Sheppard about the old refrigerator as a pupation bin. No answer yet.

Should have my starter "Phoenix Worms" next week...lol! Well, this week sometime since they ship out Priority Mail tomorrow. Can't wait!

My girls are laying on moldy bread. It's probably like Bleu cheese to them.

only on pondboss

I saw some type of large fly larvae in my BSF container a few days ago, but I'm not certain that they're BSFL. I've seen Black Soldier Flies laying eggs, but there has also been another insect visiting the scraps that may be a fly. The larvae I'm seeing look very similar to BSFL, but I have a gut feeling that they aren't. I have some photos of the unknown insect and I'll do some research into it.

Regardless of what this other insect is the BSF will eventually take over the scraps.

Maybe some kind of hover fly, GW.

This is what I'm seeing bobad:



They appear to be laying eggs and they've been outnumbering the BSF.

Here's a link to a copywritten image that looks similar. Ptecticus trivittatus

That's a mean looking fly for sure! You might even come up with a new and more interesting grub...

My new BSFL got their first taste of the sewer plant screenings today and seem to like it just fine. Determining their suitability for further use will be a different story.

I still have not seen any adult BSF coming to call but we are still having some fairly cold nights. Perhaps as it warms a bit and my purchased Phoenix Worms start smelling that smell they do...

Charlie, I believe this other fly is also a Soldier Fly. They were on the scrap pile first and I think the large larvae I have now came from them. I'm a little concerned that they also have the info chemical that repels other flies which might hinder the BSF. I've seen BSF laying so I'll just have to wait a little longer and see if they hatch and thrive.

Well maybe them being relatives will allow a big family get-together

Hey rmedgar, how's the BSF coming? My previous 2 attempts haven't gone very well but I'm trying a new approach and I thinks it's going to work out better. I made some BSF "bait holders" out of the ends of soda/pop/coke 12-pack cartons. This allowed me to move the bait to areas where I saw the flies. I also used only a few cups of food. I want to have a little more control over this stage of the process.

I put dog food, refried beans, cottage cheese and coffee grounds into the boxes and set them on my household garbage cans. The larvae like coffee grounds so I thought I'd try using some to attract the adults. I've kept one of our garbage cans around a few days beyond what I usually do and it's just beginning to smell a little. That worked to attract the BSF and the rest was easy. I watched as BSF landed on the bait and laid eggs throughout the day. The BSF visited the can one or two at a time. I think I'll do this for the next few days at which time I should see some larvae begin to hatch. I make a point to keep the bait/scraps moist and I think this aids the development of the eggs.

I'm sure I can refine this technique for attracting the initial flies so that we don't have to go through so much frustration at the beginning. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm putting the bait into closed containers at night, and after a few days of putting them out I'll move them to a closed container until the BSFL hatch.

GW, still no luck. I'm going to try the smaller containers like you did, and also add coffee grounds. I'll move them around some and see if that helps. They'll show up eventually.

That's cool GW! What about the "juice" made by the larvae? Have you tried any of that as adult bait?

I got to feed some fish today. Not BSFL but blow fly larvae that are self harvesting in high numbers. Put some of my baby Phoenix Worms along side to show the size comparison. A week ago, the BSFL were no bigger than the blow fly larvae...

Those city lake perch tore in to those little spikes like nobody's business

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.

I've got a plastic trashcan that someone else converted into a composter. They just drilled holes all the way around it... I found two identical ones on the side of the road. When I used them the first year I was suprised and a little alarmed when they got filled with BSF maggots. I read about them on the web and decided it wasn't anything critical but I wasnt trying to encourage them since I was trying to make traditional compost. I finally gave up on the bins because they just became a liquid mess during the summer. The BSF had a field day in there.

Now that I've got an aquaponics system and 15 hungry sunfish to feed I've set one of the trashcan composters back up. I filled them all the way up with dry leaves and then soak them down with the hose till they settled down to about 2/3rds full and absolutely drenched. Then I just started adding the compost that from the kitchen I usually send to my worm bin. I know I can compost meat in there but... that just brings up a whole host of other issues with transmitable diseases, especially since they're going 2 steps down into my food chain, pests, etc.
I cover the compost with just enough leaves to keep it from stinking. The maggots have already shown up and started churning though 30 rotting oranges that where laying on the ground from my sour orange tree. My worms won't touch these.

The lid is on the trashcan. It's in full sun most of the day and I live in central Texas. It's really steamy and hot inside the bin but the maggots seem to love it. From what I've seen the literature tells you to keep them in the shade... maybe my colony would thrive even more in the shade.

Since I belive in building my own stuff out of recycled materials I couldn't see spending hundreds of dollars on a biopod (though it looks like a great item for the right people! my DIY design doesn't match it...). My idea is to just scoup some of the compost out of my trashcan composter and fill up a 5 gal bucket and then just tilt it 45 degrees over my tank and how the BSF self feed themselves to my fish. I've got 2 small buckets set up to see if they do it for me.

Hi mrgrackle, welcome to the forum. Thanks for the comments about your experience and plans with the Black Soldier Fly. I especially want to comment on the issue of pathogens, but I need some time to organize my thoughts so I'll post that later.

If you aren't able to shade your BSF they will either find a way out when it gets too hot or they will die. I've had both of those results in my tests. For a simple, low maintenance BSF culture you need to shade them.

I doubt that using the leaves as you described will help in raising BSFL, and if they generate heat while breaking down they could actually be creating more of a problem. I raised 10's of thousands of BSF larvae last summer in south Georgia and there were only a few times that odor became an issue. Each time I experienced odor problems with the BSFL it was due to my ignorance about raising them. Odor can become a problem if your BSF colony gets out of balance, but with a little experience that's easy to avoid. A properly balanced BSF colony will have a very mild and even somewhat pleasant smell. If your colony does become unbalanced it doesn't take long for it to return to normal function.

For the record, the retail price of a 2 foot BioPod will be $159. I applaud your efforts to use recycled materials but there are good reasons to consider purchasing a manufactured unit instead. ProtaCulture and ESR International is a company that works to make waste processing more practical and supporting them will result in aiding the spread of more Earth friendly technologies. If ProtaCulture doesnt' succeed as a company it will be much harder to promote the use of BSF. I vote with my money, and whether or not I become or remain a BioPod dealer I would still support the company. As a dealer I'll make some money too, but even if I didn't I would still work with BSF and promote ProtaCulture.

I look forward to hearing about your progress.

Today I tried harvesting some BSF eggs that were laid on the garbage can lid and liner. I began by cutting out the areas of garbage can liner that had eggs on them, but then I noticed that they flaked off easily. Instead of being sticky they're more oily, and they slid off the liner easily when scraped with a knife blade. If you look closely at the image below you can see a shiny spot where I harvested a clutch (?) of eggs.




Here's my harvest:



After harvesting the eggs I put them into a 1 gallon plastic container with a lid. I rinsed it out first and left a little water and added some Gamefish Chow.



Like much of what I do I'm not really sure why I'm experimenting with a BSF hatchery. It would be simpler to just let them lay their eggs in the BioPod and let them develop there. Maybe it will be easier to share eggs with my friends than to ship larvae...

GW, I've read this post from beginning to end and have gotten so much information from it. I've been interested in BSF larvae ever since I came across the Biopod in another forum about a year ago.

I can't remember where I read it but they were saying one way of transporting the eggs would be on a piece of cardboard versus sending live larvae. Have you tried this yet? I'd be curious to see if they would survive in the mail.

Deane
Western Washington

Hi Deane. I haven't tried shipping eggs yet but I'm studying the collection and incubation time now.

I'm pretty sure I read that the eggs hatch in about 4 days, but I'm beginning to have some doubts. I've observed BSF laying eggs in and around my bait boxes for over a week now and I'm still looking for the larvae. They've been depositing all over the inside and outside of the boxes but I can't even see eggs developing. I must be missing some piece of the puzzle. Still, I have no doubt that I'll have a colony established pretty soon. I still have the eggs I collected from the garbage cans a few days ago and they don't seem to have changed at all.

Later in the day when the BSF return to the bait boxes I'm going to place some cardboard near to the bait. After several BSF lay their eggs on it I'll remove it and contain it for observation. I want to see for myself how long they take to develop.

I'll also be working on a blog about BSF today and I'll let you know when it's ready.

EDIT: I was wrong about the eggs I collected on the 10th, some of them have hatched. I posted before taking a careful look this morning. The newly hatched larvae are about the same size and shape as the fully expanded eggs and I only had to watch for movement.

Now that I think of it I really don't have any evidence that the eggs I've collected are BSF and not another species. Well that's kind of embarrassing. I'll know soon enough! I should learn something by isolating a medium that I've seen BSF laying eggs on.

GW,
Congrats on a great thread. I just got finished reading through it and it is a fantastic idea. I too passed over this thread for months without any interest, but I am glad I finally decided to check it out. I may be interested in doing something like this, but would like to find out more info and the practicallity of the BSF and a northern climate.

Thanks bbjr, you're not the only one with questions about northern climate. I'll try to look into this soon.

I'm getting more confident that the eggs I collected are BSF eggs. The little BSF larvae in the hatchery seem to be doing alright with the Gamefish Chow, but I wonder if Purina might consider marketing Maggot Chow.

Here's a photo of the hatchery this morning.

Honestly, GW, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Purina ALREADY makes "Maggot Chow".

GW, if you want to try sending eggs thru the mail, I'll volunteer.
I'd also like to get some larvae, and will be glad to pay - just give me a price. I'll email my address. Thanks, Randy

Randy, I'll definitely send you larvae and eggs in a few days. I'll cover the cost since you want to buy a BioPod.

Get the nursery ready!

Thanks. I'm ready

I've had a fairly good number of BSF coming to my bait boxes for the last 10 days and I've noticed some trends. House flies show up as soon as it's light out, but BSF don't arrive until close to noon. Two days ago it was hot and sunny and there was a constant BSF presence in my container. Throughout the afternoon I could find them laying eggs at any time, and usually there were 3 or 4 of them laying simultaneously. Yesterday was overcast almost all day, and there where the usual number of house flies but almost no BSF. I think I only saw one or two. This may be important because it's advised to keep your BSF container in the shade, but the adult BSF seem to prefer a sunny location to lay. The hardest part of raising BSFL is getting the colony started so I plan on putting more time into working on these types of details.

Once the BSFL are established other fly species will be repelled by an info-chemical which the BSFL produce. In the start up phase you may get house fly larvae in your container or BioPod, but it isn't really a problem. I've actually been collecting the (smaller) house fly larvae and feeding them to my Fathead minnows. I'm a little more cautious about sanitation at this point too, because with house flies coming into the container there is much more of a concern about pathogens.

GW - I put the leaves in the bottom of my trashcan before adding any compost because I wanted the compost a little bit off the ground when I started. I figured that the enzymes in the bsf juice would compost them pretty quickly once it got started.

My colony has only been going a couple weeks but they're already started to really churn out the juice. I've read that this is good fertilizer. Have you ever tried it? I going to set up some trays with basil seeds.. water some, fertilize some with bsf juice and one with fish emulsion and see the results. I wonder how much to dilute the bsf juice... a few tablespoons to a gallon? maybe use the same ratio I use on the fish emulsion?

Earlier in the year I had problems with vinegar (fruit) flies around one of my compost bins. I had been trying to compost a bunch of rotting oranges from the orange tree in my front yard. The vinegar flies where up in that compost bin like nobodies business. I was even trying to figure out practical ways to catch them for fish food (there where a lot of them). Now my bsf colony is also filled with a LOT of rotting oranges.. My worms won't touch these things because they're so acidic. Even as oranges go mine are super acidic... Seville (Marmalade) Oranges. They'll make your lips tingle if you try and eat one. Almost no other fly species around. Sure you see a few hanging around but for the most part it appears they know they're not welcome.

I'm going to move my colony into the shade next to my worm bin. Like I said, they thrived in the full power of central texas sun inside a dark gray plastic trashcan (I wasn't trying to look out for the bsf at that point.) I'm guessing in the shade they'll just do that much better.

Yesterday I scored two HUGE bags of produce from a local small grocery stores dumpster. Mmmmm maggot & worm food.

Well gotta go, hope that post wasn't to rambly.

Hey there mrgrackle. I know that BSF show up in compost piles all the time so it shouldn't be a problem combining the two techniques. I imagine that the larvae will be fine as long as they can find food in a place that isn't too hot. My guess, however, is that the heat from the composting action will drive some of the larvae away from your pile. That isn't a problem unless you want a larger BSF colony.

I'm not very familiar with the BSFL "juice" or "tea". My colony never produced much of it if I recall correctly. My guess is that dry food scraps result in less liquid as a byproduct. Much of last year I experimented with feeding my BSF a grain diet which probably reduced the production of the juice. I would love to hear about your test results with it.

Moved my bin into the shade next to my worm bin.

Also put the bin up on bricks so I could put a large saucer under it and collect the liquid.

I started 10 small pots, 4 basil seeds in each.

4 pots are given water (control)
2 pots where given full strength bsf liquid
2 pots 4 tblspn in 1 gal. water
2 pots with about a cup or so of bsf liquid in 1 gal. water

It'll take awhile for them to sprout. Maybe I'll run the same experiment tomorrow with some bush beans, they'll sprout a lot sooner then the basil.

So, how did they do with a grain diet? They've always gotten the traditional kitchen scrape compost meal from me.

That's neat mrgrackle, can you take any photos and include them?

I ran into problems when I was giving the BSF only hog feed. The feed was mostly corn I think and about the size of grits. The protein content was 12% IIRC. One problem was the lack of moisture and I ended up having to add water to the feed. Another issue was that I fed too large a quantity for the size of my container. I started to get fermentation which I believe increased the temperature causing many larvae to migrate out of my container. I'll probably try this test again but I think that a cup or two of the feed would suffice. Ultimately it seems wasteful to feed BSF anything that isn't considered waste, but I hope to learn something from the test, and maybe some people will find it easier to start out working with a "clean" food source instead of garbage.

I'll go take some pics today and they'll be the 'Day 1' picture. I'll take more when the basil starts to sprout.

I was researching bsf on the internet and I ran into a site that says they they're a pest in central america because they lay eggs inside young bananas. Also they'll do the same thing to bee hives as well. Maybe look out for your customers that are also bee keepers. But anyways, that wasn't the point. I was thinking about your bait boxes and I wondered if you had any bananas in there? Maybe honey too.. but that sounds like a sticky mess.

Thanks for the info about bees mrgrackle, I'll be sure to mention it to prospective BioPod customers.

I've noticed something interesting about the way BSFL react to bananas. They love the fruit but they ignore the peels. Since they're able to chew up small fish bones I originally assumed they would eat the peels. I've come to the conclusion that there must be some type of repellent property to banana peels. That would make sense if you're a banana in a part of the world with a huge insect population I guess.

It's been almost two weeks since I put out the BSF bait boxes and as of today I have a good start on a BSFL colony. For the past several days I've left the 4 bait boxes in my old BSF container and there have been a good number of adults laying eggs there. Today I removed the boxes and other cardboard and put them in a closed container. There are a lot of eggs on the boxes and I will collect them as they hatch and add them to the main colony. Here's a video showing the larvae under one of the four boxes taken this morning: VIDEO

There are still some house flies coming into the scraps, but as the BSFL colony grows the other flies will be almost entirely absent.

I experimented with putting corrugated cardboard around the food scraps to see if I could entice the BSF to lay their eggs on it. I did have some success, but it seems that they laid eggs just about everywhere. They do prefer narrow spaces between objects, and when that situation is present they seem to concentrate their eggs in one place. Otherwise they spread them all over a surface.

I moved my colony into the shade and I think it is doing even better. When I went out this morning I saw 3 females laying eggs at the same time. Everytime I go by it there's some there laying eggs.

I took some photos of the test pots planted with basil & bush bean seeds. They're just pots of dirt at this point so no point in posting them. I'll post pics once the seens sprout and we can see if there's a difference.

My colony produces a lot of liquid every day. I also have a big problem with biting flies in my backyard and they're constantly all over my dogs. I started spreading it out in the backyard around my porch where the flies are really bad. The last couple days there have been a lot less flies. I'm going to continue this and see if there continue to be less flies. It could be coincidence at this point though because some days the flies are worse then others.

I've bought a bunch of grass seed to plant in the backyard as well. I was going to fertilize part of it with bsf juice as well to see if there's a noticable difference. I go through a lot of fish emulsion so if this stuff could replace it that would save me some money.

A little over two weeks ago I put out these bait boxes:


This is the resulting colony as of this morning:


I've noticed that the house flies have decreased in the last few days, and there is still a steady presence of BSF laying eggs in the Magg-o-matic.

I tried feeding some larvae to my Redears, but the FH kept intercepting them.

What a squirming mass of forage.

GW, your box arrived today. The eggs looks fine, but I'm afraid we lost a few larvae. It was like a Japanese sauna in the plastic container when I opened it, and I thought they were all dead, but quite a few were ok, and are now in their new home. Thanks very much for the effort, and hopefully your babies will enjoy their new residence in west GA.
I'll add pictures soon.
Randy

Great Randy, I was a little worried about possible carnage. I was trying to be thrifty and stay under 13 ounces to qualify for first class mail. By far there are more individuals in the eggs than there are larvae. If you don't start to see adults coming to your container in a few weeks I'll send you another installment.

I'm going to consider better methods for shipping before trying it again.

I've read the liquid the larva produce is a great way to start a new colony.... mmmm pheromones.

The problem is that you don't have the liquid if you don't already have a colony. If you want to help share your colony it's probably easiest to just give someone eggs.

So my bsf liquid byproduct as fertilizer experiment is coming along. The basil seeds and the yellow crookneck squash seeds I've planted have come up but I don't really see any difference in the plants fertilized with the bsf juice and those that haven't been.

Pretty much all the sprouts look the same size, color, etc. irregaurdless of wether I watered them only with water, 1:15 water:bsf liquid, or pure bsf liquid. I'm pretty dissappointed because if the bsf can't prduce a viable fertilizer and they reduce the amount of compost to 10% then they really don't leave much left over for my garden. My colony is producing a lot of larva for my fish but I was hoping to get some plant nutrients as well.

It does seem like the bsf liquid should have some nutrients in it. I'm wondering if perhaps the bsf liquid should be left to sit around for awhile before using it as a fertilizer. If there's enough biological action still going on in the water maybe it's like using green compost. I'm going to experiment further.. oh and I'm still letting the seeds grow and watering them with the different solutions. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for sharing your progress mrgrackle. I assume you have prepupal larvae migrating out of your colony by now.

Randy, are you seeing a good number of larvae hatching? Did any of the live larvae survive? I suggest you let any final stage larvae pupate near where you want your BioPod. I believe it takes them about 2 weeks to develop into adults and when they emerge they should mate and look for the closest good place to lay their eggs. If you have an active colony they'll find it easily. I've read that they mate on bushes so consider that for your set up.

You might want to keep a few of the final stage (dark colored) larvae for observation so you know when the others are emerging. They will prefer some sand or soil to bury themselves in. If you like I'll send you another shipment of eggs so you have some active larvae when any adults emerge. A week from now seems like good timing.

If you have your own local population of BSF visiting your container then you don't need to worry about releasing any final stage larvae or getting more eggs. If they're coming it should be easy to observe them on a hot sunny day.

Good luck.

Hi GW, h/w an update: unfortunately, the eggs didn't hatch, but the larvae have done real well. I put them in the box that you shipped them in and added scrapes. It's hard to tell what they liked best, but I know they liked potatoes. Yesterday I was going to clean out the box and move them and was surprised at how well they have done. I probably have about 150+ with about 20 in the brown stage. The strange thing was that when I cleaned out the little box there were only about 20-30, and I was about to throw the box away when I riped open a corner of the corrugated box and there were some hidden in there. The more I tore open the more I found (at least 100-125). Some were in moist areas and some hard climbed up the corrugated "tube" into the upper dry area. I moved them to another box that wasn't sealed properly and they immediately went for the openings and escape. As of this morning I still haven't seen any adults - my container is in a shaded area. Should I let some of the brown ones loose and hope they come back and lay eggs? Move the container to a more sunny area? Any other suggestions?
Thanks, randy

Randy, I had the same impression about some eggs not hatching before, but I was surprised several days later to see tiny larvae. You probably wouldn't have seen them without magnification. The best thing to do is to put the cardboard with the eggs in your container (but not in the food) and leave them.

I would keep the colony shaded, but a hot sunny day will be when the adults are most active. If you aren't seeing adults yet then definitely let the mature larvae go. I would place them on loose soil so they can dig in before toads and birds get them. I set aside some prepupal larvae a few days ago and I'll let you know when they start to emerge. You can follow the progress at my blog if you want to.

I'm collecting more eggs and I'll send them to you in a few days if you're interested. In the future I think I'll send people a combination of eggs and pupae or final stage larvae (prepupae). I think that would be an effective way to seed an area.

Thanks for the report, still no word on the BioPods yet.

edit: I'll bet the larvae you found in the box hatched during shipment and got out of the plastic bag. I think that would explain how larvae got into the box.

mrgrackle, I couldn't find any sources that indicate that BSF enter active bee hives, can you share any links? The only reference to bee hives I could find had to do with abandoned hives. I've been wondering how a black soldier fly could manage to get onto a hive without being attacked by the bees.

I did find articles stating that the BSFL tea can be used as fertilizer.

How are your plants coming along?

I started putting out BSFL for the wild birds to eat. To begin with I'm using a white plastic lid tacked onto a fence post. Once the birds get used to taking the BSFL from the lid I'll work on gradually acclimating them to a more substantial feeder.

The small lip of this lid is enough to contain the BSFL unless there is significant condensation. If the sides are wet they can usually get enough traction to crawl up vertical surfaces.

Hey GW, I meant to tell you the blog looks great!

Thanks jhap. I've been busy building my girl a carport so I haven't had time to post much lately, but I'll get to it soon.

I uploaded a cool video to YouTube featuring some BSFL and a few very happy toads.

ATTACK OF THE LARVA MUNCHING TOADS!!!!!!11

A friend on another forum sent me a link to this thread here and I've got to say, I'm really impressed. I read through all 11 pages in one sitting, and as a salamander breeder, the potential of raising BSFL (which I'd abandoned as amphibian food due to the cost) could really make a huge dent into my bills. But before I go out and start putting a large-scale BSFL culturing project together, I wanted to see if I could attract them to my yard, as so far I've had no luck (though it's only been around 4 days.) I'm using 12 pack carton like GW suggested, with some damp dog food, a banana, a spoiled Kraft single, and some lettuce as a started, but all I've been getting so far are fruit flies and various housefly species.

Do any of you BSFL culturers have any advice as that what I might do so that I can attact some adults to come lay? I'm in a city, but it's not a real urban environment; lots of invertebrates around as well as gray tree frogs, etc. Would it help to get some BSFL or some of their "juice" to help attract them, and if so, would someone on the board be interested in selling me some? Any help or advice would be appreciated; I don't think I'll be able to afford one of the neat Biotope units unless I can find an outlet to sell surplus larvae, but if things go well and a homemade unit is a pain it's always a possibility.

Thanks!

Hi OneTwentySix, thanks for the kind words.

I think that you could establish some BSF around your place without much trouble. You could order a small number of larvae and feed them until they're ready to pupate. Then you would release the prepupal larvae in the area that you want to culture BSFL. When they emerge as adults they will hopefully breed and the females will seek out a food source which you would have ready. I think each female lays something like 900 eggs.

If you try this I recommend keeping a few pupae in a container so you can know when they're emerging. I believe the transformation takes about 2 weeks so you could probably estimate the timing. I have a post at my blog where I'm testing the pupation time of my first larvae from this year.

MORE VIDEO OF TOAD FEEDING ADVENTURES

GW, good news! Things are looking up over here. The larvae that you sent are black and trying to get away. I've let quite a few go (with the assistance of my dog who was after a tuna sandwich). Also in that group are at least 100 small ones that are either the eggs that you sent (that I put in there thinking that they were dead) or we've had some female visitors. I also put a larger container in the back yard and in spite of ants and every other bug known to man, we have BSF larvae in there - lots of 'em!
Just wanted to keep you updated. Thanks again for your help.
Randy

Sounds great Randy. I hope you have local BSF coming to your unit, but if they are it should be very easy to ID them. They rarely land on people, but neither are they shy about landing and laying eggs with someone observing.

I think ants are the biggest annoyance when keeping a colony of BSFL. About once a week I spray a little repellent on the legs of my BSFL unit.

Keep us posted!

I've been playing with toads...

Everyone needs a hobby.

I'll see if I can find the link about honey bee hives. As far as the bsf liquid byproduct as fertilizer experiment... mixed results. The liquid diluted to 1:15 doesn't seem to make much difference vs water. But the basil I watered at 100% bsf liquid does seem to be doing better. I used basil seed I had left over from last year (and maybe the year before) and not as many germinated as I would have liked. The few basil sprouts in the 100% bsf liquid pots are doing much better then the few basil sprouts inthe 100% water pots. I also planted some squash seeds and those have sprouted as well. I was watering 6 pots with 100% water and 6 pots with 1:15 bsf:water solution.. there doesn't seem to be any noticable difference. I've started watering with 100% bsf liquid and maybe we'll see some changes.

My colony is full of larva but I don't have a convenient collection bucket system like the biopod has. I just place fruit cut in half in the top of the colony. After a few hours I can lift the fruit up and there will be an absolute writhing swarming mass of larva.. I just scope them out with a spade and through them to my bluegill.

You where right about having leaves in the colony (as in, I shouldnt have them in the colony). They've become a rotting mess that stinks, yet the bsf don't want to eat them. It's heating the bin up pretty good... the bsf don't seem to mind to much yet. I've thrown some of my worms from my vermicompost into the bsf bin to help them out with the leaves.

Thanks for the update mrgrackle.

I imagine that the concentration of the BSFL tea varies depending on what you feed them. I don't typically add anything with a high moisture content so I don't even get the tea. In fact I often add water to make it easier for the larvae to work.

You may want to consider finding a way to harvest the prepupal (dark) larvae. I think it would be better to feed those larvae to your fish since they aren't processing any scraps at this point. I suppose they could pupate in your container, but I don't think it's the most desirable situation. All you would need to do is angle the container to about 40 degrees on an afternoon when you're at home. The final stage larvae should march right out and drop into whatever container you put underneath. If you get more than you want to use that day you can store them for several weeks at room temperature.

I hope to hear more about combining the worms and the larvae.

I think that's exactly correct GW. I think that it depends on the concentration of the liquid. I piled a bunch of vegetables I found in a dumpster into my fly bin and they produced a LOT of liquid for number of days. Now it's tapered off a lot and I'm getting a lot less of the liquid. Another thing may help is to let the liquid sit around for a week or more to let it finish 'cooking'. Biological action in green compost can actually be detrimental to plants because it takes nitrogen and oxygen out of the soil. I'm still taking pictures. I'll post when I get a series put together.

I've read that worms and maggots work together pretty well. I actually have some bsf in my worm bin as well. Honestly, I wish they weren't because they eat the compost before my worms have a chance. There aren't a whole lot of them though so it's alright.

I found a reference to beehives on the biopod site:
http://thebiopod.com/pages/pages/bsf.html

fly control site
http://www.flycontrol.novartis.com/species/soldierfly/en/index.shtml

entomology site (though they say "waste materials found in beehives")
http://www.entomology.ucr.edu/ebeling/ebel12.html

Thanks for the links mrgrackle, I'll check them out when I have some time.

Good question Charlie. I was wondering the very same thing and joined this forum specifically to participate in this discussion.

I don't have a pond and the only fish I have are the ones in the lake off my beach down the road (I live in Canada on the north shore of lake Erie) but I am interested in the black soldier fly.

I first heard about the BSF in a vermiculture forum as I have begun my own worm bins. To feed my worms I grind up vegetable/fruit scraps in a food processor to make it easier for the little critters to digest the food. If the BSF consumes whole scraps as quickly as claimed, I've been curious about whether having them break down the food first would be a labour-saving step in my worm project. From what I understand BSF larvae also consume meat where the worms are mainly vegetarians. It would be nice to be able to have the fly larvae consume all of our household "wet" compostable scraps then feed the resulting compost to the worms.

Just this morning I started my own trial BSF "bin" in a 5 gal pail. I want to see if I can attract BSF and establish a colony. If successful, I'm seriously considering investing in a BioPod but have two concerns: 1. how do I keep the colony alive and functioning over the winter and 2. what do I do with the all pre-pupae larvae?

Anyway, I'm going to keep reading all the other posts in this thread to learn more.
Thanks for letting me chime in.
Barbara.

Welcome to Pond Boss Barbara.

I'd like to propose a counter-question in regards to Barbara concern about over wintering.

Could you not create a "zone map" similar to what tree growing enthusiasts have that would show an image of North America with East to West lines that could show a BSF newbie where they could expect various over-wintering challenges? Does that make any sense?

I'm just thinking that most people won't get into something like this if they think that there's going to be a difficult re-start project every spring.

Hi Barbara, a word of caution; if you read this forum much you might catch the same bug we all have.

I like your idea Bruce. I'm hearing the same question from several people in colder climates. I recommend you all move to the south.

From everything I've read to this point BSF can be anywhere on the continent with the limiting factor being freezing temperatures. I know that pupae can be stored for extended periods with refrigeration and that a colony will remain active through cold weather if the colony is insulated. They actually generate heat by churning and all you need to do is contain that heat. Even though they would be warm under these circumstances their development slows down considerably so you can use the same individuals to process waste for months instead of weeks.

What I want to learn is whether or not they can survive on their own as pupae through sub-freezing weather. At the least you can establish and then restart your own colony each spring. The good news is that once the colony is established it takes very little maintenance.

Latest video: The Black Soldier Fly Cucumber Festival

Thank you for the welcome Bruce. A zone map would be a marvelous tool for newbies like myself.

From what I've read today, the BSF's range is as far north as Boston. Interestingly, where I am geographically is actually south of Detroit in a region of Canada's only Carolinian forest. Our summers are positively tropical with very high humidity while our winters are relatively mild (relative of course to the rest of Canada). We get snow but generally we get two or three "dumps" of up to 12 inches per winter and it usually melts away within a week or two.

I feel sorry for the folks around here who own SkiDoos as they only get to play with them, if they are lucky, two or three times in the season. Unlike when I lived on the James Bay frontier and people used their snow machines to go through the McDonald's drive thru. (grin) I moved here from there because it was as far south as I could go and still be in Canada. (grin)

My concern with the BSF is how to over-winter them. I've read that placing a layer of styrofoam over the container will help keep the heat in. Does anyone have experience in over-wintering their BSFs?
Thanks again for the welcome, Barb.

Gee, I'm afraid it's too late. I've already been exposed. (grin)

I think I caught "the bug" the day my worms arrived. Being introduced to the BSF has just made things worse - I think I am hooked.

Today I found a site from the local university's forensic science, forestry and agriculture department and a couple of the grad students there have been doing some studies with the BSF. One on "Waste conversion by black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens, and impact of diet on developmental rates" and another on "Reproduction and development of Hermetia illucens at different temperatures". That last study might answer some of your questions. I've emailed the head of the department for more info so I'll let you know what she says should she respond.

This morning I put out a 5 gal pail with an apple core, couple of used tea bags and a couple of slices of roast beef (that should be thrown out). I put some crumpled paper next to the food, drilled four 1/4 inch holes a few inches under the lid and placed the pail outside. I'm not sure if that's going to be enough to attract some female BSFs. I have some really smelly tuna in the fridge. Do you think I should add that to the pail?

Thanks, Barb

Barbara, given your climate I think it should be fairly easy to maintain a colony all year. I found this at the BioPod website:
SOURCE

And this from ESR Intl:
SOURCE

Since I discovered how well dry dog food works to attract BSF I personally wouldn't use anything as volatile as meat or fish. Anyway the worse case scenario is that you'll have to dump some nasty garbage out in a few days.

If you have some time on a hot sunny afternoon, see if you can identify any BSF that might be visiting your scraps. They're easy to recognize and they aren't afraid of humans observing them.

You might need larger holes in your bucket. Maybe not, but they're pretty big and I've never tried limiting them to 1/4 inch holes before. If they can't enter easily they will probably lay on the outside of the bucket.

Good luck.

Thanks GW!
Since I just put that bait out this morning I'll trash it and start over with some dry dog food I have out in the shed. By the way, when I say shed it's really a small insulated room attached to my house (I live in a small cottage by the lake) that houses my furnace and hot water tank. I've set up a small workbench in there and keep my camping gear and worm bins in there. I call it a shed because to access it, I have to go outside.

I'm going to go right now and drill some bigger holes in the pail too.
Thanks again, Barb.

I drilled new holes with the largest drill bit I have, 3/8 inches. Hope that's big enough. And I fed the roast beef slices to the feral cats in the neighbourhood and replaced that with some stale Iams dog food I had (soaked the dog food in some water). I took a couple of pics but don't know how to imbed them in this message. Thanks for your help.

Just a quick follow up. I've been checking every day since I put the moistened dog food out in the 5 gal pail. All that's happened was I grew a whitish fuzz over all the dog food. No evidence of flies or egg clutches.

I just checked again tonight because I was thinking about scrapping the whole thing but when I looked very closely, there on the lid and along the inside side of the pail I could see tiny larvae. They are about the size of a grain of rice - gee, maybe not even that big - but I saw 5 or six of them squirming around. I have no idea if they are the larvae of some other creature or genuine BSF larvae.

I'm going to leave things be for a few more days to see what develops.

On another note, I called the BioPod folks today and had a nice chat with a lovely young lady. I've asked them to send me some information. Thanks everyone for your suggestions, Barbara

Barbara, it's very likely that you've got larvae of some other species of fly. When I started my colony this year I cycled through a week or so of house flies being the dominant species. Once the BSF start visiting it doesn't take long for them to take over.

Hello! I found this wonderful thread while doing a google for "soldier black fly larvae nutrition".

I've been researching feed-worm nutritional values for feeding turtles (particularly my Box Turtles) and have pretty much decided upon using SBF's for preferential feeding as they are nutritionally FAR superior to mealworms and even crickets. With turtles, the vastly superior calcium content of these larva is especially welcome.

Is the BioPod shipping yet? I've checked the parent website and can't find any purchase information. I'll send GW a PM to see if I can order from him (I'd also like some 'starter' larvae - I've never seen any BSF's in urban Houston).

I guess once I get my colony going I can contribute my observations from the herp side of things

It wouldn't surprise me if they were the larvae of some other species. At their size I couldn't tell one type of larvae from another. I suppose I'll just have to be patient.

Just got home from work and checked the pail. The dog food is still growing some sort of hairy mold and I saw five teenie, tiny white larvae.

Sure wish I could simply put the pail out and ring the dinner bell. :-)

Hi Lumpus, welcome to the forum. The first BioPods were scheduled to arrive last month, but I'm sure delays are common with the first of any product. Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with the man that developed the BioPod and he said the shipment was on it's way from Viet Nam. Interest has been good so far and I hope it's a big shipment.

Barbara, for me the hardest part of raising BSF has been getting the colony started, after that it really runs itself. I hope we can get your colony started and then maintain it through the winter. Do you have the skills to take and post photos?

Same question applies to you Lumpus, I would love to see some photos of other people's projects eventually.

rmedgar, are you still out there? Are you getting any recruitment?

Hi GW, everything is going fine. a few random observations:
I've got the containers in three different spots (sunny, shady, & under my shed) and that doesn't seem to matter - I've got activity everywhere.
Fish like the natural color larvae much better than the black.
Mine love cantelope.
Do the little knats ever go away?
Will the BioPod units have a way to eliminate liquid. I have a good bit of build up.
That's all for now,
Randy

I think that this thread has.....and will continue to......introduce more new members to this forum than any other thread ever has before.

The great holy grail of this project would be to find a starter food that BSF would target yet wouldn't attract the other fly spieces.

Keep it up GW and don't forget to try adding FA to a colony to see if they will consume it.

Hey Randy. BioPods have a container underneath to collect the filtered liquid. The amount of liquid the black soldier fly larvae produce is relative to the water content of the waste you feed them. My neighbor, the good Mr H, gave me a bunch of spoiled cucumbers from his garden last week and my larvae have been putting out a lot of liquid since I started adding them. Last year when I was feeding the larvae only dry hog feed I had to add water everyday. The feed was pretty cheap (17 cents/lb) and I'm going to use it to regulate the amount of liquid in my unit. If it gets wetter than I want it to be I'll just add a few handfuls of the dry feed which will absorb it.

I get very few gnats or other flies in my container now that the BSF larvae are thriving. Are your containers covered except for some small vents? An enclosed space helps to concentrate the larva's info-chemical that repels other flies. More larvae in the container will have the same effect I think. If you combined all of your larvae into one container and covered it well I doubt you would have many gnats. My unit currently has a 2-3 inch layer of larvae.

Another reason you may be getting excess gnats is because you're adding too many scraps for the number of BSF larvae you have. Whatever you feed them should be completely gone in a day or so. Maintaining that balance will also keep bad odors from developing.

I've also noticed that fish prefer the grub-colored immature larvae over the final stage coffee-colored larvae. I think that when I'm feeding my pond fish the mature larvae on a daily basis that they will get conditioned to them and take them just as eagerly.

Randy, have you confirmed that you have wild BSF laying eggs in your container?

DJT, thanks for the encouragement, I hope the Pond Bossers can accept "our type" (me and other BSF lovers) around here.

I don't believe there is a bait that will attract BSF without attracting other flies initially, but there may be a procedure to accomplish what you're talking about. To get to the point where other flies are repelled you need a substantial BSF larvae population in a relatively closed container. You could get to that point very quickly by adding a few thousand BSF eggs or young larvae to a new container and then closing it off to outside flies completely. Once the BSF reach a certain density in the container you could open it to outside flies and I expect that species other than BSF would be mostly repelled. One problem might be that the initial larvae would mature and migrate out at roughly the same time and you could have a gap between their presence and that of the new larvae deposited by wild BSF. That might be solved with a second introduction of eggs or small BSF larvae to stagger the population.

DJT, feeding filamentous algae to the larvae is on my list. I also want to see what they do with duckweed and other pond weeds.

Definitely a legendary thread.

BSF's already have the highest calcium and Ca/P ratio of any feeder worm and probably wouldn't require 'gut loading' at all for feeding to herps (especially turtles and their high calcium requirements). However, I am curious to see if a high calcium diet for BSF larvae carries through. Particularly, I want to start my colony off on a diet of primarily mustard & turnip greens and something relatively new called Green Amaranth (or Chinese Spinach). The Amaranth sounds especially promising as it is the highest level calcium green veg I've been able to locate.

Now I just need a biologist to compare before and after calcium levels of the larvae.

I agree with the others - GW, you have really poured a lot of time into this and have educated many of us. Great job!
Yes, I'm getting new eggs all the time - lots of activity. From what you said above, I think my problem is that my containers are too large, and not not heavily populated enough. I'm away from home for a day or two and will consolidate all the containers and put a lid on etc when I get back.
Thanks again, Randy

I've abandoned my bsf liquid fertilizer experiment. My can has started producing less and less liquid. It seems that some of the basil that was watered with the bsf liquid did a little better then the basil that was watered with just water. In the squash I could tell little difference if any. I believe I've got to much spent organic material that the maggots won't break down (leaves). I've started to see a surge in a different maggot variety in the bin, even though there are bsf maggots through and through. These new maggots are skinnier, don't get nearly as big and can curl them selves up and spring a good distance.

Here's a picture of my homemade bsf bin (you can see a pan under it for liquid collection. The bin is up on bricks)


I think my bin is way to tall/deep. Also, I think I'm not feeding it enough material. I think those two reasons are why I've got other flies in there. Still, the population of those flies is very small compared to my bsf population.

To the left of the bin you can see my worm bin. There's suprisingly few number of maggots in the worm bin. I was really worried they'd infest it and eat up the compost for the worms before the worms could get to it. But, I just make sure to keep the stuff in the worm bin well covered with other worm compost and it's worked out well so far.

Umm... more later.

One of the flies is oviposting (laying eggs) and the 3 others are looking for a place to.



Black Soldier Fly upclose



Maggots upclose eating an orange

That's really cool.

Is there some way that I can place a special bait outside my farm, that would be extra appealing to BSF, just so I can see if they are found in my region?

doesn't require any special bait Bruce. My dog got into a fight with a possum. Possum crawled under my house to die. I figured all this out 2 days later when it started to stink and I had to go fish out the dead possum. That thing was so filled with soldier fly maggots that I don't think there would have been much left of it in a day.

Bruce, just place a bucket with food scraps (fruits, veggies, dead fish, dog food, bananas) in any area of 1/2 sun and shade and let it sit a few days.....or wait 'til GW checks in and he'll give you some good advise.

I'm just afraid that our everyday houseflies...or whatever they're called will get there first. Then my wife will have another grounds for divorce.

Great photos mrgrackle. It seems odd that you have another species of fly larvae in your container, could it be some other type of insect all together? The fact that they're jumping is interesting, can you get a picture of them? You should also be able to observe the other species of adult fly around the unit, if that's what it is.

Bruce, I think the best bait is dry dog food, kept slightly moist. The bad news is that you will get house flies first, and if you use any meat or animals you'll also get blow flies. Of course if you use fruit you get a ton of fruit flies, plus house flies. I had to tolerate the house flies for a little over two weeks when I started my colony. I never had anything like a swarm of house flies, just a constant presence of 4 or 5 at a time. You need to be a lot more careful working around house flies than with BSF, but it was easy to collect the house fly larvae and feed them to my small fish which was fun.

You can also look for BSF without setting out any special bait. If you have a closed garbage can that's fairly full of food waste you can observe the area around it on a sunny afternoon. BSF are relatively large at up to 1 inch/25mm and they don't fly very fast.

You can also look for their eggs on the outside of a garbage can. I never have found BSF larvae in our garbage but I do see their eggs, mostly on the can liner where it's exposed around the lid. BSF try to find protected places to lay, so often you'll find the eggs in the folds of the can liner. People probably don't see BSF in their cans very often because it takes several days for the eggs to hatch and most people will have thrown out their trash by then.

Here's what the eggs look like:


You could also acquire some BSF larvae and set up a minimal container for them. The scent of actively feeding larvae is a strong attractant to adult BSF females. If you find that you have wild BSF in your area you could release the imported larvae to pupate or feed them to your fish. If you don't attract wild BSF you have the option of destroying the larvae after they mature, or using them to seed your area.

GW

I figured out what the tiny maggots are. Cheese Flies.

http://gardener-matt.blogspot.com/2007/07/more-with-jumping-worms.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese_fly

The fly itself is 4mm long so it's tiny. Maybe I just haven't noticed them or maybe they deposited the eggs on some compost before I got it in the bin. They eat fats.. meats and cheeses. I don't put meat into my bin but a little cheese might end up in there from time to time.

I'm really surprised that the BSF larvae aren't repelling them. Please let us know if they remain in your unit.

Do you guys have pictures for a system that would require little maintenance? I was thinking that I could get a 5 gal bucket and put it on a couple cinder blocks a few feet into the water and just let the larvae fall into the pond. I only get to visit my pond once every couple of weeks so I would like to have a constant, cheap food supply for my BG, and small LMB.

Brett, you might be able to rig up something simple that you could dump a bag of cheap feed/grain into when you visit. You would need about a 40 degree exit ramp, shade, a lid and some small vents. If you can make the ramp lead to a pipe you could extend the pipe out over your pond and the larvae will drop into it.

Honestly it would be hit and miss and it would be tough to get a significant amount of larvae.

gw - like i said, it may have been that the cheese fly eggs got lain on the compost before i put it in the soldier fly unit. I first noticed one of them in the unit a couple weeks ago (their numbers are increasing.) I think part of the problem may be that my can is to deep and the bottom of it is filled with composting (rotting) leaves. There really isn't much soldier fly activity down their because they're at the top where the good stuff is being put in. I think I need to empty my unit to get the decomposing leaves out and keep it less full. Even with some of the problems I'm having I'm still producing a LOT of soldier fly larva. I feed 30 bluegill in a 300 gal stock tank 3 times a day till they won't eat anymore.

I have some type of larva in my fish feeder. The larva are white until they begin to mature and then turn black. I am assuming that these are just commmon fly larva. Does anyone else get them in their feeders? They couldn't be the soldier fly larva could they?

James, they could most definitely be black soldier fly larvae, especially if you're in the southeast. Here's a good close up of some mature (prepupal) BSF larvae for reference:

(click to enlarge)

Finally figured a good way to get the bsf larva out of my bin without having to dig around for them. I don't have a biopod so I don't have an automatic collection system. What I do is this... I drink coffee every morning. When I'm done with my coffee I pour the used grinds into a small plastic starter pot. I make sure not to let much of the coffee grounds fall out through the drain holes in the bottom of the pot. Then I just set the pot on the top of the compost in my bsf bin and over it up. The next morning the pot will be absolutely teaming with bsf larva that have crawled up inside the pot. I just dump it out into a bucket and the larva are pretty easy to seperate from coffee grounds as opposed to the compost mess in the bin.

I would love to know why BSF larvae are so fond of coffee grounds.

hehe i think they're just fond of everything. what i do find they don't like are orange peels. i find it interesting because orange oil is used in many cleaning products and insecticides. i've got a seville orange tree in my front yard.. unfortunately seville orange trees are super sour/bitter (some people call them marmalade trees). but their peels do contain a lot of orange oil. the bsf will eat the entire inside of an orange if they can get the smallest crack, rotten spot, stem hole, etc. but will not go through the peel. once on the inside they'll clean it out and leave the peel intact.

hey i was wondering... i've read a few times that bsf have no moving mouth parts, etc. Today found a site that implied that bsf are nectar drinkers...

http://ipm.ncsu.edu/AG369/notes/black_soldier_fly.html

Haven't seen that anywhere else. Like I said.. I've always read that bsf have "no moving mouth parts." What does that exactly mean.. they really don't eat as adults (which I've always thought) or they don't have a moving mouth aka mandables. do they have a proboscis?

It makes sense that if the adults live for up to 8 days they must at least need to drink. If I learn anything about BSF mouth parts I'll let you know. Hopefully I'll speak with Dr. Olivier again soon, and if so I'll ask him about it.

It's not just orange peels that the BSF larvae avoid, the same is true of most fruit and vegetable skins. I've seen them eat entire cucumbers, potatoes and squash except for the skins. Once I added some pecans and they even left the super thin outer "skin" of the shelled nut. Like humans, BSF larvae can't digest cellulose, so they simply pass on anything with a high cellulose content. That's why they won't eat grasses.

GW, same with cantaloupe - they love the inside but don't eat the outside. I've collected about a cup of liquid - got to find something to experiment with it on.

GW that is exactly what they look like. I have found they make very good bait because their skin is tough enough to keep them on the hook. How can you tell if they are soldier fly larva or fly maggots?

James, I'm not sure how many flies might have larvae that closely resemble BSF. Blow fly maggots are smaller and the pupae are red, and house fly maggots are much smaller than BSF. Also the fact that you're finding these larvae in fish pellets makes it likely that you've got BSF. In south Georgia people often call BSF larvae "meal maggots" because they're commonly found in exposed feed that has gotten moist.

The best way to identify the species is to observe your feeder on a hot sunny day, after noon. If you have active BSF larvae in the feeder you can be pretty sure that there will be adults attracted to it as well. The larvae are a powerful attractant to adult BSF and that way they maintain their dominance at the food source.

It's really easy to identify an adult BSF. They are 3/4 to an inch long and have white legs. You can stand within a few feet of your feeder and they will still land on it. If anyone asks why you're standing there staring at a fish feeder, just tell them you're doing scientific research.



In the U.K. maggots are a very popular bait and most bait stores stock them. Here's a web page that describes rigging with them: PleasureFishing.com

I haven't found evidence of one black soldier fly in NW PA. I have had carrots, strawberry, lettuce, apple, cardboard, and scraps of paper in a bucket hanging on my porch for a month. The sun hits the bucket in the afternoon, shaded all morning. All I have seen is fruit flys and houseflys in it, maggots galore, nothing resembling a black soldier fly or its larva. My conclusin is we have none in Pennsylvania.

C'est la vie I suppose.

Joe, the range of BSF is still a mystery to me. The only limiting factor is that they can't freeze, but I would think that's true of other fly species as well. Furthermore it does get down below 20 degrees in south Georgia but the wild population doesn't get wiped out.

I've read that the development of the larvae slows down considerably in cold weather, so it seems they time their emergence with warm weather. I didn't see any adult BSF around my place until several weeks after the last frost. They had to survive as pupae somewhere during that subfreezing period, otherwise I wouldn't have seen adults later on.

Some researchers report that BSF can be found nearly everywhere on the continent, but specific data is hard to find. It's very possible that BSF are relatively near where you live, but just not in your immediate area. I doubt that they will find your scraps if they aren't pretty much down wind of it.

As a long time member of the Pond Boss family you qualify for a free BSF seeding kit (while they last). If you want to try your hand at raising some, just send me a PM with your shipping address.

GW as I am sure you know we get weather much colder than that here. It's not uncommon to have negative temps here during the winter and freezing temps happen as late June and as early as September here as well. Flies that live here do freeze at times but still seem to be here each year.

I will accept your offer and would love to try to start a colony of these little wonders, I also appreciate your efforts and diligence in bringing this creature to light here on this forum. I have been away for a while but am finishing my second pond and hanging out here more often these days. I would love to produce more forage for all my fish. Thanks again.

There isn't nearly as much information about BSF as there is about the common house fly. I think I'll look into how other flies survive northern winters for some possible insight into BSF.

I'll send you some eggs and larvae as soon as my BSF unit comes back into balance after a recent crash that I caused. I pushed the limits of my small container and I went too far. It's all in the name of (pseudo) science.

If you're curious you can read about the crash at my blog.

I got my starter bucket ready finally and I've found out that my local Krogers has a awesome fly buffet ready in the making... tons of old produce just sitting next to the dumpster waiting to be rescued.

GW, I guess I'm ready for a starter load of larvae/eggs anytime you're ready. I've primed the pump, but the only flys I commonly see in Houston are houseflys, so I'm not sure I'll attract any BSF's until I stock the neighborhood a bit.

Lumpus, we know that Houston has BSF. The reason most people aren't aware of their local BSF population is because these flies don't land on people normally or enter houses. I lived in an area with plenty of BSF for two years and didn't know they were here.

I hope to have more eggs very soon.

The first BioPods will ship soon and I'll be getting my blog set up to take orders today.

I'm not sure why but my current BSF larvae are larger than I've had in the past. A few weeks ago I experimented with adding about 5 lbs of decomposing fish to my unit, a test that caused some problems with my container. I wonder if these new extra large larvae are a result of the high protein content of the fish.



I think the size of these larvae make them even more desirable as forage for pond fish or bait.

I was wanting to try a controlled experiment with groups of BSF's eating different things. I particularly want to try a calcium rich diet to see if it makes even better chow for herps. I'm just concerned that a protein rich diet would attract too many house flies.

Observations from west GA: my larvae love tomatoes. They ate everything but a thin transparent skin that I wasn't even aware of.
I rigged up a situation where those with an urge to wander can escape (they think!), and the ones who took that path are not black like before, but gray. Also, it's amazing how clean they are when they leave the bucket of scraps - no slime, etc. Amazing little critters!!!

Lumpus, I've fed my larvae fresh whole fish on a hot summer day without any problem from house flies or blow flies. I recently ran into trouble adding fish because they were partially decomposed when I added them. My small colony managed to process the fish quickly but the odor was a powerful attractant for pest flies. It made my unit unpleasant for almost 2 weeks. I won't do that again. If you want to give your larvae a high protein diet I recommend using fish pellets or some type of animal feed. That type of food doesn't have a strong odor and shouldn't attract pest flies. Be aware that if you feed them only a dry mixture you will need to add water. Also, a little dry feed goes a long way and it's easy to over feed them.

EDIT: When I fed my colony freshly dead fish there was almost no odor noticable outside the container, even on a hot day. I saw 2 house flies in the vacinity of the colony in the hourly trips I made to the container that day. The chances are pretty good you will see 2 house flies anywhere. on any given day.

rmedgar, sometimes you will get a large percentage of large gray larvae exiting the unit. These larvae will transition to the black and final larval stage soon after they migrate out.

Nope, definitely not doing high protein... I'd prefer greens.

So far, after almost a week with my starter bucket, I've got tons of gnats and some regular flies. Not a single BSF sighting.

I think I'll definitely have to pre-stock to get my colony going.

I'm sold on using dry dog food, slightly moistened each day, to attract BSF. It doesn't get moldy if you don't over wet it, and it won't attract so many fruit flies. I had some out for about 2 weeks and it hardly looked different after that much time. Of course the simplest way is to seed your immediate area with BSF eggs and larvae.

I thought you were using the cheaper Pig Chow from the local feed store? I started my pail off with about 5 pounds of old produce from my local Kroger dumpster. The gnats seem to love that stuff, but not a single BSF in sight. It's all just about rotted away now so I'll try replacing that with some dog food.

But, I think I'm definitely going to have to seed the area for sure before the BioPod goes in. Is your colony just about under control again GW?

Lumpus, I fed the larvae Pig feed for a while last year as a test. I used the dog food to attract adults.

I sent you an email yesterday about seeding kits. If you didn't receive it please PM me here.

I just uploaded a video I shot of a BSF emerging from it's pupa. I think I spent 5 or 6 hours total to record a 5 second event.

Everyone needs a hobby, right?

VIDEO

Cheese fly maggots are gone. I do find one every now and then but nothing like the amount I found a few weeks ago. I still think I must have introduced some stuff into the composter that already had fly eggs on it. I scavange a lot of my compostables.

nice video! I got to see that in person the other day when I grab a handfull of larva/pupa to feed my fish.

I received my BioPod today.

Instead of adding the colony I already have I'm going to start this one from scratch. Granted, it should be pretty easy since I have a colony nearby, so this should represent the best case scenario. The new location is about 200 feet from my existing colony.

Also I would like to introduce the cutest BSF researcher ever:

Meet Alana.

Ooooo... give us all of the details. Was the setup easy? Is the unit solid and well-made or does it have early production flaws?

Pics please

(your seeding kit arrived yesterday - I need to tweak my bucket setup a bit and then in they go!)

Lumpus, the larvae I sent you can't eat and won't do anything with food scraps except hide under them. Those are prepupal larvae and at that stage they don't even have a mouth, instead they have a hook to help them crawl to a pupation site. Those larvae are almost literally "seeds" and with a little care will soon turn into adults that will mate and then seek out some food waste to lay their eggs by.

I thought I had emailed you some instructions but just realized I didn't. Check your messages here for some info on how to handle these larvae. You can also email me if you need more help.

Man, I've been busy lately!

The set up of the BioPod went fairly smoothly, but like most new designs I have some suggestions that I'm going to share with ProtaCulture. I like that they chose to use stainless steel hardware for an outdoor product. Most of my suggestions will be modifications to the assembly instructions.

I'll post some photos later today.

Here's my new BioPod set up near a woody area by the house.

Hahaha! Mr. Toad obviously appoves of the BSF! And look at that belly!

Good one mrgrackle. That photo would be good for my blog...

GW - go for it

Hey GW,

I just want to thank you for all of the information you've shared. I've read the entire thread and have gained a wealth of knowledge thanks to you!

I'm new to the group. I found the group while searching for info on BSFL. I have one question though, when you said you had a "colony crash" what exactly did you mean? I'm not sure if I've had a "crash" but I had ants in my compost barrel/BSFL barrel and I flooded it to get rid of the ants (the barrel has lots of holes in it so the water drains out). I also turned it again(in the beginning I turned it when ever I added kitchen waste but stopped that practice a number of days before the ants appeared) I also added a bunch of coffee grounds and rabbit manure that I'm sure had a fair amount of urine on it. The ants went away but the BSFL seem to be different. They don't seem to care any more for cantelope. I figured they were eating the coffee but it seems to be gone or atleast the smell is but the BSFL numbers seem to be down. The ants happened over a week ago. I also put them in the shade with a hot water heater pan under them (to keep the ants out). I would love to get your thoughts on this.

I have only seen BSF in the barrel twice and have never seen any eggs. I was thrilled when I saw the BSF because I had never seen one of these marvelous creatures ever in the wild and my husband was quite unsure of all this and thought I might be wrong in my identification of the larvae. I will admit I was horrified when I first saw them in my compost barrel. The composting barrels are another story.

Now for the good news! Since the prepupae fall into the water I decided to collect them and see if I could sell them to the pet store in town. I sold 275 for $7. They initially offered $10 but for some reason I felt like I was taking advantage of them. It was the staff and not the owner/manager. I also took the prepupaes in in a styrafoam Sonic cup! They sounded like Alka Seltzer in the cup! It sounds like if they can sell them I'll be their supplier. One employee said they're having a hard time getting mealy worms.

My daughter says I'm obsessed and my husband asked yesterday, just before we left for church, if I wanted to take them with me so I could gaze at them during the service. My daughter nearly threw a fit when I called them my babies. There could we worse hobbies, right?

If I can figure out how to post pics, I'll do that soon.

Thanks again for sharing. I know it's taken lots of time and effort and it's much appreciated!
Tweeza

Well, I got my Biopod unit and set it up and everything is going great. It sure takes a lot of the work out of this project. My babies are eating like pigs, and self harvesting as advertised. My fish love 'em. Think I'll take a few down the road this eve and see if I can catch some big BG. One other thing, this unit produces about 10-12 ozs of "tea" a day - I mixed with water and put it on some grass and will see if there is any difference in growth.....
[IM

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ...produce

So I had a colony collapse. It looks like all the smaller maggots have dissappeared and the only ones I can find in abundance in my unit are larger maggots just before the pupa stage. I had a bunch of brown-rice/vermiculite cakes from a different project that started to rot, so I tossed them into the bsf unit. Within a day or two my maggot population crashed. I don't know if that was the cause of it but it's the only new thing I've introduced. Since the maggot population has declined I've seen an abundance of some tiny whitish insects that move around pretty quickly. I was wondering if they ate the vermiculite if it would be bad for them in the same way diatomaceous earth is..?

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).

I addressed this topic in one of my blog posts:

The joy of feeding animals-nurturing black soldier fly larvae


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 can read more about it here.

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.

Peat moss might work in the bottom of the unit to soak up the "tea". I used some in the bottom of the collection bucket to soften their fall.

Awwwwww.

At any rate the Peat should work to stop them from constantly crawling in circles.

Heheh... I doubt they just decided to look for food elsewhere. This is the 2nd year that I've had bsf in these perforated garbage cans. This is the first time I've tried to actively increase their numbers but even last year when I didn't care about their presence either way they wouldn't leave.

I understand that you're selling the Biopod and you started this thread (as well as a few on some other boards I frequent...? nanfa.org, backyardaquaponics.com.. could be a different biopod guy) but lets not make things up and say you can't keep a consistant bsf colony in a perforated container. The cool thing about the biopod is the way it collects the pupa, but if someone wants to keep a colony of bsf it can be done easly without a biopod (at least in Texas where I live)

mrgrackle, I've been asked by a few people why the BSF larvae in their compost bins either disappeared or nearly did so. It happens in compost bins and I believe it would be a very rare occurrence in a properly designed BSF unit. I agree that my use of the word "never" was inaccurate, but to say I'm making things up is also not completely accurate and perhaps a bit rude.


A perforated container allows the larvae to leave when conditions become less favorable. That could happen if the food supply is interrupted, if the compost gets too hot, or if other insects such as ants invade it. A more closed container reduces or eliminates these factors. Even in my homemade unit I've seen large numbers of immature larvae migrate into the collection bucket, but I still had control of them. When I say a consistent colony I mean a steady population like the 10's of thousands of individuals I've maintained at one time in a 12 X 20 X 14 inch container. My homemade unit is much more efficient for raising BSFL than a compost bin and the BioPod is more efficient than my design. I'm happy if you or anyone else wants to encourage BSF in their compost bins, just don't expect it to perform on the same level as a BioPod or homemade equivalent.

I've spent a huge amount of time and energy giving away what I've learned about BSF. I've coached people about what they need to consider if they choose to build their own BSF unit. I sent one nanfa member (PM for name) two separate shipments of BSF eggs and larvae, at my own expense, even though he made it clear he would rather build his own unit. He's a self-proclaimed tinkerer and I'm sure he won't buy a BioPod, but he's enthusiastic about BSF so I'm encouraging him.

Sure, I love the idea of selling a product I believe in, one that is manufactured by a company I believe in. If I make an incorrect statement I want people to correct me, but I expect people to do so with respect. I've enjoyed your posts up to this point mrgrackle and hopefully we can get back to sharing experiences and opinions in a way that is consistent with this forum.

I've never posted on backyardaquaponics.

Edit: The nanfa member offered to cover shipping both times, or to send me some of his earthworms in exchange for the BSF. I'll probably take his offer of the worms at some point when I have time to work with them.

I've been feeding BSFL to my Redears everyday for about a week and they are taking them with enthusiasm. They do have a preference for the immature larvae over the coffee colored prepupal larvae. It's a lot easier to feed the dark larvae because they self harvest and they're cleaner. Now that the fish have gotten used to the immature larvae I'm going to start substituting the dark larvae. I think they'll adapt to them fairly quickly.



The video quality gets reduced when I upload it but if you watch carefully you can see some FH trying to hit a few of the larvae. I guess it's good to dream big.

I only have 24 large RES in my pond but they're concentrated in one place for spawning. The small RES in the video are the 1 1/4 inch fish I stocked in late March.

Lookin' good. My HBG & Redears prefer the lighter colored larvae too, but don't get them very often, and are very happy to pound the black ones. They'll eat what I feed them and like it, or else!!

A man who hand-feeds his Redears can't be all bad. (sniff)

it was a bit ruderer then i ment, but i think it's silly to say the the biopod is such a better place for raising bsf maggots. the only thing the biopod does better then a decent homemade unit is help harvest the maggots.

to have a decent homemade unit all you need is:

1. make sure the container isn't to big/small for the amount of feed you add.

2. make sure it's ventilated to help get rid of heat.

3. make sure the female can lay eggs in a place where the hatched maggots can easily find food. this is easily accomplished with step 2.

4. if you're feeding them foods that contain a lot of water you need to account for the liquid they release. btw, i've yet to see this 'tea' help my plants. i really do hope it does.. I'm actually letting a gallon of it 'finish composting' and them I'm going to apply it to some plants in a more controlled way then i did last time.

drawbacks I see to the Biopod...

1. expensive

2. with the biopod you're kinda stuck with the size of the compost area. if you have a lot more or less compost, you may run into problems... i guess you could buy the more expensive, yet larger, biopod version. is that one in production yet?

2. you can build very efficient units from recycled materials around your own area. These units are built in.... Vietnam right? Maybe the wrong country but they are being built in SE Asia. Globalism/consumerism and a lot of shipping things around the world. I dug my unit out of large trash pickup in my neighborhood.

3. doesn't address the problem of waste disposal in poor rural communities where this sort of technology would be HUGE just for the sanitation point of view. bsf should be able to be put to use with items people find right around their area for cheap. i've seen this done with biogas to turn human waste into cooking/lighting gas fuel.

I've also come up with my own solution to harvesting maggots. I drink coffee every morning and the maggots love coffee. Every night I put my coffee grounds in a small plastic starter pot and then set that on the top of the compost in my bsf unit. During the night the maggots crawl up through the holes in the bottom of my pot and the next morning the pot's absolutely teaming with maggots. I just through the maggots/coffee grounds into the fish together. This also allows me to feed my fish maggots in all life stages, not just the huge/hard pupa that are heard to eat for smaller fish.

Like I said, I think the biopod is a cool deal. Whenever I think about designing a bsf unit I do think about how the biopod does it. but ultimately i don't think it's any more necessary to have a biopod to successfully raise bsf then to have one of those expensive compost tumblers to make compost. i also think people need to be careful about claims they make.. the bsf tea is one thing ive seen described as great fertilizer, yet i've to see any noticable or provable result.

another thing i have a personal aversion to is sending bsf to places where there aren't any bsf already. i live in texas and we used to not have fire ants, killer bees, asian tiger mosquitoes, tilapia, zebra mollusks, hydrilla, duckweed, camels... ok, who doesn't like camels lol. the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

mrgrackel, I am a satisfied customer of the Biopod unit, because it is cleaner and neater than my homemade unit, and it saves me time. Probably 1/2 hour a day - in a week or so it has paid for itself. Sure my old system was ok, but I wanted to upgrade. That's the great thing about living in this wonderful country - you can say whatever you want to, and you don't have to buy a Biopod unit if you don't want to. We're just talking about maggots - lighten up.

Based on what?

I've shown you one recent post by someone who's colony disappeared from his compost bin. Just a few posts ago in this thread someone related how ants had entered her compost bin. If nothing else the ants represent competition for the BSFL. That's less efficiency.

Your method for collecting larvae is great and I've used it myself for the immature larvae, but it still requires forethought and a number of steps. That's less efficient. With my homemade unit or a BioPod you can ignore the unit for several days and still walk out to it, open a bucket and remove the larvae.

A more closed system like a BioPod is better at concentrating the info-chemicals that the BSF produce. These chemicals work to attract female BSF and to repel pest flies. Concentrating these chemicals is more efficient.

mrgrackle, I'm not debating that people can build a satisfactory BSF unit with cheap materials, I've never said otherwise. I did it myself a year before I even knew BioPods would ever be available. I didn't think of it myself though, I borrowed the idea from Dr. Paul Olivier of ESR Itnl. who published details of his design on the web for all to see.

After tweeking my unit for over a year I'm very familiar with it's strengths and weaknesses. Now that I have a BioPod I feel very confident in saying that the BioPod is significantly more efficient than my unit. I can raise millions of BSF larvae in my homemade unit, I can do it with more efficiency and convenience in a BioPod. Until you test a BioPod and a similar homemade unit I don't see how you can claim to understand the difference between those and a traditional compost bin.



1. Cost is relative. My girlfriend bought a Rubbermaid garden cart last year for the exact price of a BioPod. The BioPod took years of research and testing to develop, the garden cart not so much. The cart gets used occasionally and a BioPod will function continuously for months at a time or in most cases year round. If a person used a BioPod for one year it would have cost them about $.50 per day. Use one for 3 years and the cost is more like $.17 per day.

2. ESR claims that the BioPod can process 11 lbs. of waste every day. That's a lot of organic garbage. I haven't personally added that much to my unit or a BioPod so we'll have to see if the claim is true. If you had more than 11 lbs. of waste on a given day you could still add it to the unit, but you would have to adjust with smaller amounts later on. I'm not sure I completely understand the merit of this particular criticism. All tools have a limit to what they can accomplish. The larger ProtaPod is about twice the diameter of the BioPod and handles twice the waste. It's a rare household that produces more than ll lbs of waste per day. I'm not sure if the ProtaPod is available yet. It sells for $300, roughly double the price.

2.5. It seems like the globalism/consumerism argument you put forth is being used more and more, often by people using computers made in China or other distant countries. The people using this argument against a bio-composting unit that weighs 15 lbs. ought not to be watching an imported television or an imported computer monitor, or wearing imported shoes, etc. I applaud the sentiment, but there are many many products that we need to criticize this way before we get to the BioPod. The BioPod is a practical tool that can help introduce people to a sustainable technology that they otherwise might not attempt.

Dr. Olivier's ultimate goal is to eliminate landfill completely and convert a steady stream of food waste into a stream of nutritious animal feed. The BioPod is one aspect of this larger goal.

Yes, the BioPod is manufactured in Vietnam where Dr. Olivier currently lives. He has worked with the government of Brazil to find a solution to sewage treatment without wasting potable water as our system does. I believe he is involved in a similar way with the government of Vietnam. If the people of Vietnam benefit from manufacturing BioPods I'm alright with it.

3. It's true that poor people can't afford a BioPod and Dr. Olivier is aware of that. Here's a quote from his company's website:

SOURCE


I think that's a valid concern, but from what I've read there is almost no place in the continental US that doesn't already have black soldier flies. There is certainly nothing stopping them from naturally migrating. I've put thought into this important issue and I still can't imagine what negative effects a larger population of BSF would produce. I think the species that would suffer the most from increased BSF would be the house fly. House flies are fairly dependent on human activity and replacing this disease carrying pest with a non-pest cousin sounds like more of a solution to me than a problem. I could be wrong about this and I welcome any evidence that might support the idea that encouraging the BSF population is harmful.

mrgrackle, like you I'm very skeptical about people's motivations, especially when there is profit at stake. I don't object to your questions and I pardon any lapses in politeness. Most of your points warrant an explanation and I'm happy to provide them to the best of my ability. Of all the people I've corresponded with you seem to be the most experienced and knowledgeable about BSF, unfortunately you have no experience with a BioPod. Maybe someday you'll get one or build a copy of one and at that point I'll be even more interested in your observations.

Feed 'em some lighter colored larvae today and a couple came out of the water with excitement....

Nice photo!

Randy, soon I'm planning on bypassing the collection bucket and directing the larvae into a pipe that extends over the pond so they will automatically drop right in.

I would like to test it with 200 - 300 feet of pipe to see if a BSF unit could be set up that far from a pond and still work automatically. With a set up like that the only time you would have to collect larvae is when you want a few for bait or to get some immature larvae.

I'll bet you could have caught a few of those fish if the larvae had hooks in them. (tied to line of course)

Great picture, rmedgar!

Thanks, some of the fish will jump completely out of the water.
GW, I haven't fished from the dock yet (kind of a poor man's VIP dock), but if I want to sample, I just cast to it from shore. You catch something every cast. They are very aggressive.
Would the 200-300 foot pipe have enough oxygen or get too hot?
Does sound like a good idea.

I've been picturing 1 inch pvc and I'm not sure what the inside temperature could be on a hot day. I think the best way to accommodate a long pipe would be to bury it anyway which would take care of that problem. As long as the pipe wasn't angled sharper than about 40 degrees anywhere you could come out of the ground and up the back of a dam. You could also run it underground to a dock, then along the side of it and out over the water. I think it would concentrate some fish there.

If you want the larvae further out you could possibly support the pipe with something like "noodles" for flotation and run it on the water. You would turn the pipe up at the end to keep waves out and back down a short distance to keep rain out. A small amount of water in the pipe won't stop the larvae. Now that I think about it maybe you could somehow anchor the pipe below the surface so you don't have to look at it, and then turn up out of the water at the end. Anyway, you get the idea.

It's not easy being black soldier fly...

My humble 2 cents:
You can raise BSFL in a barrel with lots of holes but you would need to assess your needs. I have one of those barrels and at first it was great. I'm new to composting and I'm not embarrassed to say, I’m not very good at it. When I found the BSFL and figured out what they were I was pretty happy. They made quick work of all the cantaloupe waste we had and a lot of other stuff and I don’t have to worry about putting anything else (i.e. grass clipping or whatever else you’re supposed to put into it) into it and no turning! It wasn’t until I put a hot water heater pan under it that I got serious and also started to have problems. My herd is not as extensive as it once was and I’ve been loosing a lot of tiny larvae into the water. The adults are easy to get out because of their weight the little ones are like trying to catch tiny pieces of Styrofoam, it’s next to impossible. Next time I go to town I’m getting a turkey baster.

This barrel system is not very efficient. It was okay when I was just looking to compost kitchen waste but now that I’m harvesting them it’s another story. I’ve been plucking these little darlings out of the water one and two, sometimes three, at a time. It’s a pain and time consuming. I do this morning and evening. I tried putting some ramps on the inside of the barrel but alas they prefer going out the holes. To those of you who are handy with being able to design things and then to be able to make them, I’m jealous!

Last night a frog jumped into the water so I’m supposing they’re steeling my larvae. If it’s not one thing it’s another with this system.

Now for my really good news, I told my husband I sold some more larvae. He said, “WOW, in ten times you’d have that thing paid for.” My reply was, “yah, and it wouldn’t take me as long and I wouldn’t be sitting here scooping out larvae.” I should have mentioned it would give me more time to clean the house but didn’t think of it until just now. That might have helped him to decide to get me a Biopod faster! He’s thinking about it so I hope I won’t have to wait for Christmas. He got online and was looking at them. I’m pretty excited.

One question though, GW. After awhile how do you get out the stuff they don’t consume and their waste? I figure you wouldn’t have to empty the whole thing just enough to lesson the volume. I asked this question on your blog but I’m not sure it went through. Oh, and I told my husband we had to get the Biopod through you. I’m sure I’ll need all the support I can get and I know you’re able to give it (I won’t go into my story as that would be off topic, of the BSFL that is).

Thanks
Tweeza

Do you know if BSFL like onions? Also, just harvested our fennel and found it's pretty much useless for what we wanted it for, do you think it would be okay to give to the larvae? It smells just like licorice (yum). You wouldn't think anything would repulse them but what about the adults?

Tweeza

Tweeza, one thing to consider with your catch pan is that if the sides are damp you probably also have larvae crawling out of it. They can't climb a vertical surface unless it's damp. That's why it's recommended that you keep sawdust or similar bedding in a collection bucket.

mrgrackle described a good method for collecting the immature, light colored larvae. Here's a few photos that show my sophisticated immature larval collection system:

The collector with fish pellets placed on BSF compost:


After 2 minutes:


11 minutes:


After 40 minutes:


I'm not sure what to recommend for separating the larvae from the compost. I think a good approach might be like what is done with earthworms where you attract them to specific areas with fresh food. As you can see by my photos the larvae will migrate to certain foods very quickly (for larvae that is )

One idea would be to layer some fresh food in a separate container like a plastic storage box. Over the new food place a wire mesh, maybe 1/4 inch, and then empty the active BSF larvae and compost onto the mesh. Most of the larvae should migrate down to the new food pretty quickly. If you had a day or two to wait I think almost all of the larvae would move below the mesh and you would just lift the mesh out. If you had two stackable containers you could cut most of the bottom out of one and attach the mesh to the bottom. Then put the scraps in the unmodified container and then stack the one with the mesh bottom into it, making sure the mesh touches the new food. I would probably put the lid on the top container and let it sit for a day or two, checking on the progress occasionally.

Tweeza, I'll help you even if you don't buy something from me. The information is free. I appreciate your input.

edit: I just saw your second post. I've read that BSF larvae will eat onions and I think they would love some fennel too. It's true the larvae can and will eat almost anything except paper and grass, but the adults don't eat anything. They only live a few days and they live off of stored fat. I've read that they drink nectar from flowers but I can't say much about that. The (dark) prepupal larvae don't eat either. In that stage they only want to find a quiet dry place to pupate.

Tweeza, to leave a comment on the blog just click the word "Comments" that's on the bar at the bottom of any post. It will take you to a message window where you can type what you want.

Yucky but useful: Maggots make compost

Maria Gaura, Special to The Chronicle

Friday, July 25, 2008









SOURCE

Like I said before, if it's not one thing it's another and it's almost like a duh thing. I think I have mosquitos larvae in my water pan.

My husband told me to go ahead and order a BioPod so I'm on my way to http://blacksoldierflyblog.com/ to get me one!

Tweeza

That's easy to fix, add fish to the pan!

...and thanks!

I would add fish but the pan and barrel are on a slant and the backside barely has enough water to keep the prepupas in. The pan is pretty shallow.

The prepupas don't seem to know how to swim. I seems that when they hit the water they're in shock until they're removed and then they come alive! It only takes them a split second to start climbing up the straight sided container.

I only deal with the dark ones (prepupa stage). I still have an aversion to touching the larvae. I pick up the prepups by hand only if I have too but I still love them. I am getting better though.

Tweeza

Hi GW,

Thank you for posting this blog it has proven to be very beneficial.

I wanted to inquire to see if a closed loop indoor system has been successfully implemented for the Black Soldier Fly as it has for Waxworms where they can be cultured and grown and reproduced in indoor units?

If this is at all possible with BSF it will certainly help us folk who live in the northern colder climates of the US. Thank you once again for all your help and ocntributions on this website.

Jav

Hi Jav and welcome to the forum.

So far I don't think anyone has been able to mate BSF in artificial light. I'm pretty sure some have done it in greenhouses though. BSF mate in flight so they need at least a little flying space. I think I've heard about 10 X 10 ft enclosures being successfully used.

Even without indoor breeding there's no reason you can't compost with BSFL. They should do well in the summer up north and you can extend the function of a colony right through a cold winter with some simple insulation. If you're curious you can read about winter bioconversion at ESR's website:



Source

I think I know what you mean!
These guys are just asking for a nice cooling swim. heeehee.

Randy, it looks like you're feeding those pups pretty well!

Are you getting immature larvae climbing out of your unit regularly? This looks like a perfect example of what the page at ESR that I linked to was saying; in cooler weather the immature larvae that are climbing your ramps would be staying in the unit to process those scraps.

What will you ever do with all of those extra larvae that are dropping into the collection bucket......?

Can you give us an odor report?

Since I got the BioPod, I'm feeding a good bit more. As a result:
(1) the BSF larvae have increased tremendously.
(2) the amount of "tea" produced is probably 10-12 ozs per day.
(3) the inside unit is hotter and the larvae are exiting before they are mature (black).
(4) I have noticed a return of regular flies.
(5) there is a smell that wasn't present before.
I have rigged up a funnel into a milk jug in order to catch the tea. This helps me stay ahead of the tea production, but it exposes the tea smell (whereas the normal set-up doesn't), and I think that this is causing the return of the flies and the smell that I mentioned.
My fish are loving the lighter larvae (although they eat the black with no hesitation), so all in all things are going good.
I went fishing a couple of night ago at another lake and the BG loved the larvae. In the interest of different genitics, I caught about 20 little ones (2-3") and brought them back to my pond.

I agree that it's probably the exposed liquid that's attracting the house flies. I think the repellent properties of the BSF larvae work best if concentrated in a more closed container. One downside to exposing the tea is that it will attract females to lay outside of the unit, but it looks like you're getting plenty of eggs laid so it shouldn't be a problem. I have BSF laying in several areas because of my different tests and they still are barely noticeable. They are the ultimate respectful visitors.

I think I've mentioned before that I want to test some methods of running a BSF unit without a drain. I may get a second BioPod and try sealing off the drain hole to test the different approaches.

I also had a thought about a way to regulate the heat during these hot summer days. I'm thinking it might be advantageous to withhold feeding the larvae until sundown so they can do the majority of their work in the cooler evening hours and then rest more in the daytime.

Thanks for sharing your results rm.

GW, are there any links or places I can obtain more information from folks who have implemented an indoor system via Greehouses or 10 X 10 sheds or the likes of?

Thanks again.
Jav

Give this a read:

http://www.thebiopod.com/pdf/colony2002.pdf

rmedgar, is the odor you're getting a bad one? A colony of BSF will often have a noticeable smell, but it shouldn't be strong and it shouldn't be foul. The usual smell should be pleasant in an earthy way, like wet straw. If yours isn't you need to make some adjustments.

Can you estimate how many pounds of scraps you're adding each day? What types; fruit, veg, grain, meat, dairy?

I assume you've got the BioPod in full shade but I just had a thought. By placing the pod in a location that gets some wind action you could theoretically increase it's performance because of the venting/cooling action. I realize that shaded and exposed to breezes might be difficult to arrange, but I think it would be the best place.

You may want to try feeding only at sundown. My theory is that the larvae will then do most of their work in the cooler evening hours.

Please keep me posted.

GW, you may have already answered this question, so forgive me asking again. Why is this form of recycling household food trash & creating fish food more desirable than using compost bin with red worms? I did the red worm thing at our old farm(prior to pond) & used the worms in my garden...du

Thanks for asking david. Composting with BSF larvae may be more desirable but it all depends on your goals.

BSFL can consume almost anything plant or animal, except for high cellulose items like grasses and paper.

BSFL can consume food scraps several times faster than earthworms and they can process meat, dairy, oils, and citrus. Scraps can be placed on top of the compost without mixing in or chopping them.

BSFL are self-harvesting and can be held with almost no effort for weeks. Worms require period harvesting which involves several steps.

BSFL have a wider range of acceptable moisture and temperatures (33 - 100 degrees). They can also tolerate a wide range of pH and are resistant to many chemicals. In one test a BSFL was submerged in isopropyl alcohol for 2 hours and survived.

Earthworms might be the better choice if your main goal is to produce compost in quantity. (BSFL reduce most household scraps by up to 95% of their original volume)

BSFL can't eat grass or paper.

Having said all of that, the best method for processing organic waste is the combination of BSFL and earthworms.

Here's a post from my blog for more info: POST

Hi everyone. Thanks for all the wonderful information. I actually stayed home from work today to read about the BSF. I think I take a great deal of comfort in finding a group of people as strange as I am. To get to the point, I am located in the Philippines and have a small piggery. The cost of animal feed especially protein sources have gone crazy high in price in the last six months that I’ve started to become interested in alternative sources to traditional sources like fish meal and soy bean meal.
Do you think it’s possible for the BSFL to be a feasible protein and fat supplement to the pigs existing diet? We have more pig waste than anyone could ever want, Maybe 5 tons a month. It’s always hot here and there are enough insects to blot out the sun. Any advice? Thanks.

Hi Santarosa, welcome.

I believe black soldier flies are common in the Philippines and your situation seems ideal for using them. You may find some good information in this article: http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/waste_mgt/smithfield_projects/phase2report05/cd,web%20files/A2.pdf

The BSF larvae are proven to be a good supplement for swine and many other animals. Please let us know if you try working with them.

I know that this isn't really important, but when I was filling the feeder at my dad's pond this morning a BSF landed on a 2 X 4 in front of me. I would have never known what it was if not for this thread. I couldn't get a picture though.

Actually Bruce I appreciate the report. I plan on creating a map to plot sightings of BSF around the country. Did you confirm that it had white legs?

Uh, oh.

No, I didn't. It just looked so much like some of the images that I'd seen on this thread that I assumed it was a BSF. I'm not sure if it did, or didn't have white legs. If it didn't, is there a chance I was seeing something different?

It's not unlikely that you saw a black soldier fly, but there are over 100,000 species of flies. The family Stratiomyidae (soldier flies) has 1500 species.

The banded legs and the forward facing moth-like antennae are the easiest ways to identify BSF.

Bruce, at your place I think it was more likely a Black Mannequin Fly.

You're right. It's the Genus Emjay.

GW, I wish I would have looked closer. I'm going to watch closely today out there. It very well may have had the correct legs, but I was so interested to see this new fella that I blew the part about solid identification.

Great Bruce, I appreciate the effort. I think the best time to observe them is a sunny afternoon.

A google image search for "Black Mannequin Fly" produced some interesting results. Thank you for your contribution also Theo.

Yep. My top hit was this nice looking potential girlfriend for M.J. She's in K.C., Bruce - not too far if you want to add her to your scarecrow collection.

Here's where I saw him.

Jeez, how is MJ? We hear so little of him lately. I thought he was vacationing on the French Rivera or something.

He told me he just wanted to "kick back" and enjoy the summer. Maybe spend a little time attracting black soldier flies.

I've thought about hanging some banana peels on his arms. I'm sure that would provide some good food nutrition for my Dad's fish. Sure beats the heck out of the roadkill he had to hold last year.

BTW, I am serious that if I knew for a fact that BSF were present at my farm I'd try to find a way to utilize them for natural food for the fish.

The main way I get reports of BSF is from people with traditional compost bins. BSF frequently show up in them and it usually makes a big impression on the unsuspecting gardener. Most of them do a little research and then embrace the BSF larvae.

You can ask people who compost in your area and also feed stores. Where I live people call BSFL "meal maggots" because they're often found in open or wet feed. If you don't know the feed store employees they may not be inclined to admit the occasional presence of fly larvae, even wonderful flies like BSF.

Are these the ones I'm looking for? I havent seen any adults with the white legs, just alot of these growing in some wet feed at the farm. Hope my photo posts. thanks

I can't be certain, but those sure look like BSF larvae. You could be sure by observing an adult and that should be fairly easy to do. On a hot sunny afternoon you can expect to see the adult coming to the same spot as the larvae to lay more eggs. The adults are easy to get close to which makes identifying them simple.

Well it was a hot sunny afternoon today and sure enough several BSF came to the wet sack of pig feed. You were correct in saying they are easy to identify those white striped legs are very easy to see. I fed a handful of larvae to the fish in our small pond which I thought were tilapia but now I'm thinking there piranha. The water bubbled like something out of a Tarzan movie. The fish rely do like those things. Next I'll try it on the chickens and the pigs to see if they have a taste for them. If the pigs like them and I'm able to find an efficient way to dry them this could save me a good deal of money on fish meal and help dispose of allot of pig waste. Do you have any info or links pertaining to the processing of BSFL? I can't seem to find any. Thanks

Hi Santarosa, I'll jump in here before GW answers. My BioPod unit is "self harvesting" - they crawl up inside ramps and drop in a bucket when they turn black. They are clean and dry and no problem to handle. Quite a few of mine are self-harvesting early, and they are still wet. Don't know why they do this, but the fish seem to like them more than the black ones.

Reminded me of a guy that works for a local hospital. He has several female mannequins. Has a closet full of hand made clothes for them. Dresses them up & has dinner with them. Calls them his "girls".
Let's don't encourage Bruce.

Randy, it sounds like all is well with your unit. Please let me know if you run into any problems.

Santarosa, I'm not aware of any info about drying the larvae, but I imagine it would be fairly simple. Please let me know if you try it.

I have no doubt that your chickens and pigs will go for the BSFL. You may enjoy this BSF thread from a neat chicken forum: BackYardChickens

Ric, I'm not goin' there.

GW, I'm a new subscriber but I've been following your really great observations and comments for several weeks. I've had a Biopod for about three weeks. I can't seem to find any native BSF so I ordered a start-up colony plus about 400 maggots from Wormman. My question concerns moisture in the Biopod. I've been feeding saturated dry dog food, as much as they will eat, but I've collected no liquid drainage. Is it necessary to have drainage? Should I add more water? For the first two weeks the larval activity kept the bed at close to 100F, but in the last week at least half the larvae have gone to black prepupal or pupal stage and the bed temp has reduced to near ambient level. Is this sudden maturation to be expected, or did I force it with too much dry food? I had planned to corral the adults to breed, but after reading the reprint on lekking behavior I doubt if it will happen. In Montana summers, the days are warm, 80s and 90s, but the nights are cool 50s, and I don't know how that will affect the lekking.

Hi geordie41, welcome to Pond Boss and congratulations on getting a BioPod.

First, I'm not sure what you started with. Did the start up kit include either eggs or pupae in addition to the larvae. There may some confusion about terminology. I don't usually refer to BSF larvae as maggots simply because most people have developed an aversion to the term because of housefly and blowfly maggots (larvae).

The seeding kits that I send out with my BioPod orders contain both eggs, the dark prepupal larvae, and/or pupae. If you seeded your BioPod with only immature larvae then it would make sense that the activity is slowing down as they mature. Keep in mind that you very well may have wild BSF visiting your BioPod and laying eggs. Have you checked the egg disc? The eggs look like this: BSF eggs in a BioPod egg disc

It will be easier for me to help you if you'll read my blog page that describes my seeding kit. You can find it here.

It's not necessary to have the excess liquid that most people get. The "tea" is a byproduct of the larvae processing high moisture foods like fruits and vegetables. BSF do best in humid environments and if it seems too dry just add a little more water. I think it would be better to add too much water than not enough. I would try gradually adding more water until you see some tea being produced and then you can always reduce the amount a little. Also it would be a good idea to produce some tea because the scent of it is a strong attractant to BSF females. I would paint some of it on the underside of the lid or on the egg disc. (It's always a good idea to wash your hands after handling the tea.) Of course once the colony is established you won't need to worry about attracting adults, it will happen naturally.

I think your summertime weather would be fine for the entire BSF cycle. I think you could corral them in a large greenhouse of screen enclosure, but it's certainly not necessary. BSF aren't the best fliers and they only have a few days to mate and lay eggs so I don't think they'll tend to wander too far off.

Let me know what you think after reading about my seeding kit instructions.

i f i set up a biopod will the bsf stay around or fly away somewhere? do they keep coming back to the bio pod? thank you

BSF don't seem to be designed for long or sustained flight. Most of the research I've read refers to them as poor fliers so I think they would tend to stay close by.

The first female BSF to lay eggs in your BioPod will deposit several hundred eggs. Depending on which source you use, one BSF will lay from 500 - 900 eggs. For every 10 females attracted to your BioPod you may have as many as 9000 larvae and moralities are rare. If you allow even a modest percentage of those larvae to pupate near your unit it's a pretty safe bet that you'll have plenty of new adults to replenish the population.

For the record, I've released 10's of thousands of BSF on my property over the last 1.5 years and still they are not very noticeable, but they are here. I see a few by the garbage cans if I'm behind in taking them to the dumpster, and I see them occasionally in and around my BSF units. They emerge, they mate, the females lay their eggs, and then they die. During the adult phase of their life cycle the BSF are like the perfect guests on your property, quietly minding their own business and then disappearing. I wrote this because I believe people imagine swarms of flies buzzing around their house and disrupting their lives. Not even close.

I've been managing the construction of a garage for my girlfriend and there have been several subcontractors on the project. My main BSF unit is 30 feet from the site and no one has been pestered by a fly. The BSF don't benefit from direct contact with humans so it's rare to even see one.

i dont have bushes or plant life around my yard would this be a problem you think ?

I don't think so. I've only seen one pair of BSF mating and that was above the large concrete apron of the garage I mentioned. I managed to record a few wobbly seconds of it and I'll post the video later. (Now I have to go and test some BSF larvae as bait at my neighbor's pond. )

I think a lawn would be good at least, but even in the absence of a lawn I think some BSF would survive, but maybe not at optimal levels. You have numbers in your favor because the BioPod increases the survival of the larvae to a dramatic degree compared to the loses they would experience in the open. In nature I expect that only a very small percentage of larvae live to transform into adults whereas nearly all survive in a BioPod or similar device.

In a seeding kit it's not unusual for me to include over 1000 prepupal larvae. If 500 of them are females, that represents the potential for as many as 450,000 individuals (500 females X 900 eggs each) in the next generation. If you use the more conservative estimate of egg laying capacity it still equals a lot of larvae.

thank you

Here's the video I took of the BSF mating. It's ridiculously bad but someday I'll get a better shot. They eventually landed on the slab and then separated after a short period of cuddling.

While looking up phoenix worms a while back I stumbled upon this thread. I was inspired to start my own black soldier fly project. Unfortunately my first attempt in early spring failed. I put out too little food and let it get dried out. I found about three black larvae in my collection cup, but those were probably ones I had seeded. As of about a week ago I have started a new attempt. This time I am paying more attention to the conditions of my colony. So far I've only got fruit flies and house flies. I saw a bsf in my yard last summer so I know they live around here. I just ordered some larvae to seed it because I'm impatient. Hopefully it works out this time. It's strange to be so excited about maggots. Anyway thanks for the inspiration GW.

Oh and by the way I'm amazed you were actually able to get BSF mating on video.

Thanks Torin.

I recommend multiple orders of larvae in small quantities and staggering the deliveries every 1 - 3 weeks depending on your budget. The goal is to have actively feeding larvae at the same time your earlier generations are emerging. The combination of food scraps and actively feeding larvae should be very attractive to female BSF.

GW, almost overnight most of my Biopod colony turned black and migrated to the collection bucket where they remain very active. I can actually hear them moving around. Since they migrated out of the food area, I assume this prepupal stage no longer eats, but what about moisture. Our relative humidity is about 35%; should I spritz them occasionally or just let them be? I'd like to expose them to hatch; should they be protected from direct sun, etc.

geordie, you're right about these prepupal larvae not eating. They're moving around trying to find a good place to pupate. I would move them to a closed container like a 5 gallon bucket and lid with a few .5 - .75 inch holes high up on the side. The lid will keep predators from enjoying tasty snacks and the holes are to let the adults out after they emerge.

Your humidity might be acceptable, but you could keep a bowl of water in the bucket as insurance. Misting would work but don't go too heavy. I would set it up so the larvae have a few inches of bedding such as sawdust to induce them to settle down and pupate. Keep the pupae near the BioPod and yes you should avoid direct sunlight. After a few weeks you can start checking for emergent adults. To see if they're emerging you can sift through the pupae and look for empty skins. Here's a video of an adult emerging: VIDEO

Since your starter kit contained similar ages of larvae I recommend ordering more immature larvae to help attract the new adults after they mate. Actively feeding larvae are the best attractant for female BSF. The "tea" is also excellent for this so if you don't want to order more larvae you might try to preserve any if you have it. Freezing it might work, but you would probably want to check with any roommates, spouses, etc. If you don't have tea at least keep whatever BSF residue you have in the BioPod.

If I were you I'd place an order for 100 of the smallest "Phoenix worms" every week beginning two weeks after your first generation larvae pupate. (When they pupate they look the same, just stiff and usually straight.) 100 larvae isn't much but it should help. I think you can have them delivered for $6/100. That will ensure that you always have an active colony and some tea when the females are seeking a place to lay their eggs.

Let me know how it goes.

GW, thanks for the attention, I have a bunch of 5 qt plastic buckets and lots of sphagnum peat, so I'll set up a puparium. So that you'll know where I'm coming from, I'm on the east slope of the Rockies at 5000 ft, a "semi-arid" climate, with warm days, cool nights, and low humidity. I've never seen a native BSF, but then I wasn't looking. August is sort of unstable, with days of 80s-90s and nights of 40s-50s. When the Biopod was active, it maintained a temp of about 100F, but with the mass pupation the pod temp dropped to ambient temps; for this reason I brought the pod indoors to keep it about 75F. According to the literature, the grubs will continue to eat at low temps but won't metamorphose. But, mine did, en masse. And the tan grubs that remained were fat and torpid, barely moving. I like your suggestion of weekly ordering to keep the pod active, but I'd really like to establish a self-propagating population, but I'm realizing that may not be an eventuality in this geographical area. It is one thing to insulate an active pod and keep it working over a cold winter, but it is something else to make it self-propagating. It will be an interesting winter.

geordie, winter will be challenging but summer shouldn't be too bad. I think the worst case scenario is that you will have to nurse the pupae a little, but otherwise summer should be easy.

I would keep returning any light colored grubs from the collection bucket back into the BioPod. They may be inactive because they're getting ready to shed their skin and maybe they have another stage of active feeding to go. It's not unusual for immature larvae to migrate out of the unit, especially if it gets a little warm.

With your climate you probably don't have a local BSF population. For the record I've shown many native Georgians their first BSF, this is BSF country. The reason for that is the life cycle and habits of these critters. They just don't go around people normally and the adults live such a short time. I'm sure many people picture swarms of BSF around a BioPod but it just isn't true.

I just finished a blog post about Wikipedia's misleading entry for black soldier flies. Normally I would just post my opinion here also but the post got to be too long. Here's the link:

"Wikipedia misrepresents black soldier flies"

Edit: I am completely amazed at how easy it is for absolutely anyone to change a Wikipedia entry. If you have a computer and a 3rd grade education you can modify any entry in about 3 minutes. Of course anyone else can come behind you and undo your changes and that's the way it works. Wikipedia can be a handy and valuable source of information, but take it with a block of salt.

Pasture fresh meadow muffin served with a wedge of melon and garnished with tomato leaves. These BSF larve are lovin' life!

That's certainly an attractive photo.

You have an eye for beauty Theo.

Hey rm, those larvae look to be fairly large, have you tried using any for bait? I used some over at my neighbor's pond last week and the BG hit them hard. I used a #6 hook, a bb sized split shot and a small bobber. Once I found a school the action was very fast. On one cast I had a moment where I thought the bobber had lost it's flotation because when it hit the water it sank immediately. It only took a second to realize that a fish was responsible.

That was the first time I used BSFL as bait rigged correctly and they're irresistible to fish. You don't thread them on the hook like a worm because you want to let them wiggle freely. Use a small hook and barely nick the back end of the larvae leaving the hook exposed. The fish don't care about the hook apparently. I used a red hook but I doubt it makes much difference. In the UK and AU maggots are a favorite bait and they're very common in bait stores, like worms are here I think. You can put multiple larvae on the hook if you like. In my one experience so far there was no such thing as a nibble, just a disappearing bobber.

If you want the larvae to be more buoyant you can soak them in water for a while I hear.

Theo, thanks. Feel free to use any time.
GW, some of the larve are about 7/8". I have used them for bait and they are better than great. I went one day an fished close to the bank for 2-3" bream and caught 2-3 per piece. Last night I went down to the pond and hooked 'em with a small hook - fly rod. Three casts = 3 fish - total time <2 minutes. I ate 'em (HBG) and they were good. Like you said - no nibbling, they attack 'em!
After their feast last night, I harvested about 350 BSF larve and just feed to the fish. Honestly, I don't feed and attend to as much one should, but they are alive & well and appreciative of whatever attention and food that they get. Still haven't found any good, productive use for the "tea". I have the BioPod unit right up close to the house - "no smell, no flies, no problem" (hey, didn't Kenny Chesney sing a song about that).

They're eddible too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuB3kr3ckYE&feature=related

US Patent 6938574 - Rearing fly larvae and animals in space for waste recycling and food supplying

And I don't recommend watching Ric's video if you plan on eating anytime soon.

Thanks for the previous posts GW.
We know that BSF larvae have a hefty appetite. Phoenix Worms Shop on the other hand instruct their customers to not feed the larvae and just use them as needed and hence they are shipped and stored in what appeared to be sawdust. Of course when I got mine I did the exact opposite and to town the soldiers went the second I put food in there. They have thrived from that point on and I have released all of them into the wild up here in Northern Wisconsin.

My question is... for adequate growth and pupation, what is the minimum amount of food required for the larvae to develop? In nature they probably don't come across the banquet of foods and respective quantities that we feed them do they?

For experimental purposes I did try feeding them various types of manure (free feed) and they absolutely loved it. I tried cow manure, pig manure, dog droppings, and rabbit droppings. All were consumed. Some literature out there states that cow manure doesn't work very well. I found that to be true but only due to it's harder consistency. If mixed with a little water they will consume it happily. The same goes for dog droppings. The other thing is they preferred fresh manure to five day old manure. When fed fresh manure, the fowl smell of manure was neutralized fairly quickly however I found that five day old dog droppings released a foul sewer like odor when being consumed by the larvae. The smell fouled up my neighborhood so bad that I never determined whether it was a fluke or not and quite frankly for the neighbors sanity I won't be trying it again anytime soon. Perhaps if I mixed in a little water that would have solved the problem.

Anyway, enough talk about feces. I just thought I'd update you on what I found and wanted to see what your thoughts were on minimum amounts of feed. At the current rate I am finding that for every pound of larvae yielded you need 5 to 8lbs of feed. I would like to see if we could get that down to 2 lbs or perhaps even 1 lb of feed without hurting the larvae. That would prove BSF to be economically feasible for many types of applications wouldn't you think.

Thanks again.

Jav

You're very welcomed Jav.

The Phoenix worm shop probably suggests that you don't feed the larvae to keep the process simple. It may also slow down the rate at which they go through the larval stages. Some people who feed small critters don't want the larvae to be large and with food they grow quickly as you know.

Your observation about the cow manure makes sense. I've been observing that my larvae process food much better when it's fairly wet.

I believe that most studies using BSF to process manure state that they do much better on fresh waste. Maybe bacteria consumes most of the nutrients in older manure.

I'm learning that BSF larvae can prevent bad smells from developing, but they can't eliminate existing odors. I learned this the hard way with a batch of dead fish that had been floating in a friend's pond for several days. On the other hand, I've been adding recently dead fish to my unit with no odor problems.

I don't know what the minimum amount of food necessary to produce BSFL would be. I think less food would probably result in slower development and smaller adult size. I would guess that the survival rate would be lessened as well.

I think in a typical open BSF composting system you would have trouble trying to raise larvae on smaller rations. My experience suggests that the colony will adapt to the amount of food added to the unit. I'm not sure, but I believe the female BSF are more attracted to a system that has excess food. My theory is that if you overload a BSF unit with food, that food will begin to smell since the colony can't process it quickly enough. The increased odor level will then work as a stronger attractant to BSF females resulting in the colony expanding. I'm thinking this may work in reverse so that if you withhold food you will get less eggs deposited, and therefore your total weight of larvae will be reduced to match the food quantity.

Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming.

GW, another question for you. But first, an update. My Biopod is crankin' out BSF larvae like a popcorn machine. The fish are really enjoying them. My question is about end-of-the-year clean up. I have so much stuff in the bottom that I don't know how I'll separate the BSF larvae from the muck. I thought about floating it on something out in the pond and as the BSF larvae crawled out and tried to get away from the heat - over the side they go. Or just empty out on a corner of the dock and as they try to get away they fall thru the cracks into the water. They left over muck should be beneficial for a garden?
Do you have any thoughts??
Thanks, Randy

Hey Randy, glad to hear about the "popcorn". I have two units and I've been feeding my fish 3-4 cups of larvae every day. I think it's made me very popular with the fish.

You probably have enough nutrients in your BioPod that you could stop adding scraps to it for several weeks and let the larvae reduce it's volume.

I'm working on some ideas for separating larvae from castings and I'll let you know how it goes. You could always keep the unit going until the females stop laying eggs for the year. The remaining larvae will develop and migrate out of the unit with no effort on your part.

I remember that last year I still had larvae in mid December. I was covering my bin on cold nights and I dumped the contents out before leaving town for 2 weeks. I can't recall if the adults were still active but I doubt it.

The residue it supposed to be a good soil amendment, but I don't have personal experience with it. If you know someone who raises redworms you might give it to them because it's a great worm medium.

I don't know if this has been mentioned earlier but have you thought of submitting an article on this topic to the PB magazine?

Thanks for the suggestion DJT. I might have something in the future that would interest pondmeisters.

I'm considering a system inspired by two problems common to most ponds, lack of forage and overcrowding. Obviously the black soldier fly larvae are the additional forage, but the larvae would also be the motivation to harvest excess fish.

BSF grow very quickly when fed fish and most of us need to thin out our fish populations. Some of us eat fish, but there are still probably more culls than can be eaten. Instead of throwing them on the bank for the raccoons they would go right into a BioPod to be converted directly into additional forage. This way you aren't wasting any fish that you've raised. The feed and forage that went into making the culled fish goes back into the pond as high quality protein.

I've experimented with adding fresh fish to a BioPod and they don't create an odor issue. The larvae eat the fish so fast they don't get a chance to develop a bad smell. Of course there's a limit to how much a colony can process, but even if you add a little too much the smell shouldn't be horrible. If it did start to smell you would just stop adding fish for a few days and it would take care of itself. I usually make a few cuts in the fish to give the larvae an easy entrance into it.

I'm pretty sure that many pond owners would be motivated by a system like this. Feeding the larvae table scraps is cool, but feeding them fish that you raised and then feeding the larvae back to the remaining fish is even better. I think I've mentioned my idea of running a pipe from a BioPod out over a pond so that the larvae drop in automatically. With a set up like that the whole process would be as easy as dropping the fish into the unit and closing the lid. At the end of the year you could add the residue to your garden.

If you've followed this thread there isn't really anything new about this idea, but I think that if pond owners saw this cycle in action it would create some interest. A pound of larvae per day isn't a huge increase in forage, but you have to thin the herd anyway so why not recoup that protein? I want to gather some nutritional info about fish so that I can compare it to BSFL. The dry matter in BSFL is almost 50%, so a pound of larvae probably represents more than a pound of fish. This is the kind of information I'll be looking into.

Thanks for the vote of confidence DJT.

Sounds great, GW. Can't wait for more info. I like the idea of putting the Biopod unit closer to the pond, and running pvc to the pond. I threw some fish guts into the unit the other day and they were consumed long before smell became an issue.

Geeez people! STOP releasing soldier flies into the wild if they're not in your area. I know it seems all innocent and all but that's just how we end up with all the invasive species.

I know I know ... black soldier flies are present just about everywhere. But obviously if you're having to release them where you are to try and build up a colony for yourself then they're not there and maybe it's for a great reason that we just don't understand.

Killer Bees where some guy's 'good idea' till they got released into the wild.

The Emperor of Japan was given some blue gill as a gift. He took them back to Japan and now they're an invasive species.

Tilapia are running amok in the rivers of Texas.

Hydrilla is clogging the lakes of Texas. Duckweed is causing problems all over the place.

Snails snails snails.

Asian Tiger Mosquitos, Fire Ants, Rolly Pollies (ok, who doesn't love the little pill bugs) ...

Oh and to add something constructive.

GW,

I remember awhile back you where asking about people integrating bsf and composting worms. Well if you remember I had a colony and it collapsed a few months ago. I just restarted another colony in another bin but now I was wondering what to do with all the left over bsf 'compost'. Well, since most of my compostable stuff now goes into my bsf bins I've been feeding my worms the left over bsf compost and they seem to love it.

the bsf 'compost' is pretty gross when the bsf are finished with it (at least in my opinion). But once I put it in the worm bin the worms turn it into beautiful worm compost. pretty sweet, I get to use my food four times now... i eat what I want, compostables go to the bsf, then the worms get their turn and finally my vegetables get awesome compost and the cycle repeats.

I understand the concern about invasive species mrgrackle, but insisting that people stop culturing BSF is excessive. I think you know that BSF are not classified as invasive, nor is there any evidence that they will harm the environment. On the other hand there is good evidence that they are powerful allies in helping us deal with our waste situation.


I don't see your claim as obvious at all. What you apparently don't understand is that most people who are releasing BSF on their property aren't doing it because there isn't a wild population, they're doing it because they don't want to wait for the wild BSF to find their unit. I live in an area rich in BSF and last year I released 10's of thousands of them on my property. When I started a new colony this spring it took me two weeks to get my unit started. Most people just don't have the patience. We all live around wild fish but markets still sell a lot of fillets.


This example seems like hyperbole designed to scare people. It certainly doesn't relate very well to the situation with black solider flies. Killer bees are a hybrid of two bees, both of which are not native to our continent. BSF are a native insect and they are not a hybrid. Besides that they don't sting or pose a threat to humans like killer bees do. Being a native insect there are natural predators to control the BSF population. In fact there are thousands of species that happily prey on BSF larvae and adults.


Again, these are all invasive non-native species. They are problems mainly because of the absence of natural controlling influences. This is not the case with BSF.

It's interesting that you downplay the fact that BSF are native to our continent and that they can be found in most states in the U.S. I've even found references to them living in and being used in forensic studies in Canada, but to give you the benefit of the doubt let's consider the transferring of BSF to an area where they may not currently be found. What might the harm be?

Since there are no natural barriers to BSF migration we can probably assume they haven't thrived in an area because the environmental conditions aren't favorable. In that case the BSF are not likely to survive well outside of the controlled environment of the BioPod. If you remove the BioPod from the equation then the same factors that limited BSF in first place will control or eliminate a transferred BSF population.

One of the main reasons I don't fear the effects of promoting BSF populations is that they are total scavengers. If they run out out refuse they can not target living animals or turn to fresh fruits or vegetables. In that case they would simply parish because as highly specialized scavengers they can only support a population based on available waste. More importantly as long as humans create mountains of garbage there will be no shortage of BSF food. BSF are not designed to eat unspoiled or unbroken items so they can't thrive on fresh products.

I agree that there exists the possibility that BSF will have a substantial effect on the environment and that effect is the reduction of landfill. It's really very simple, we create a lot of garbage that we don't know what to do with, and BSF larvae love to eat garbage. As long as we offer up our garbage to BSF they will eat it and thrive. If we stop they will return to normal levels because there is no other way to support a large population of them.

At this point I will repeat an observation I've made a few times before; even a healthy population of BSF goes almost unnoticed by nearby humans. I'm currently operating my old homemade unit and my new BioPod at full capacity and visitors to my property have no idea that the BSF are even there. They don't pester people. Period. Visions of swarms of BSF buzzing around a BioPod or coming into your home are simply false.

The bottom line mrgrackle is that BSF only have a larger niche because of the huge quantity of waste that we generate. By generating excessive amounts of waste we unwittingly support a huge population of bacteria that break it down. Bacteria can be beneficial, just like insects, but in the case of food waste it isn't the safest or quickest or most cost effective way to eliminate waste.

In my opinion nothing beats BSF for processing our garbage and I've even presented a challenge about that on my blog. You can find that post here: The black soldier fly challenge

Perhaps you would like to leave a comment challenging my position. The truth is that I welcome questions like the ones you've posed, especially if they are objectively framed.

I never said that people shouldn't culture black soldier flies. I think they're great if they're already found in your part of the world.

If there isn't a black soldier fly population where you live it's probably that way for a reason. Maybe they can't survive the winters, maybe they're out competed, who knows what the reason is. But, say they are out competed by some other type of fly. Now you set up a nice soldier fly colony and you've got thousands and thousands of soldier fly maggots. Many of these will escape into the wild. You're creating a place for them to survive the winter. I believe Soldier Flies breed twice a year. Weather isn't always the same and you could get a decent sized wild colony going within a very short time (that is one of the reason we love them right?)

I dunno... they could out compete nich species in that area. It's not just soldier flies.. it's that people are doing this with thousands upon thousands of creatures all the time. It's bad news.

mrgrackle, there are several published research papers about BSF and not one of them suggests that BSF represent a risk to the environment. I don't take anyone's statements or lack of statements as proof, but I have a hard time believing that all of these scientists are ignoring or denying a noteworthy risk.

I've personally looked for the problem you warn about and have found no evidence to support those fears concerning BSF. If you can find any indication of a possible problem that BSF might cause in any part of the world please share that information with me.

Thank you.

Black Soldier Fly: Compiled Research On Best Cultivation Practices

Manure Solids Conversion to Insect Biomass
(Black Soldier Fly Project)

UTILIZING LOWER LIFE FORMS FOR THE BIOCONVERSION OF PUTRESCENT WASTE
…and how this could dramatically reduce carbon emissions

Integrated pest management of flies in Texas dairies

Bio-Conversion of Putrescent Waste

Beneficials in the Garden

A Proposal for the Elimination of Landfill in Vietnam

USING THE BLACK SOLDIER FLY, Hermetia illucens, AS A VALUE-ADDED TOOL FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF SWINE MANURE

Hermetia illucens (Linnaeus),
Stratiomyidae, DIPTERA

LEKKING BEHAVIOR OF THE BLACK SOLDIER FLY

Research Summary: Black Soldier Fly Prepupae - A Compelling Alternative to Fish Meal and Fish Oil

Large-scale Feed Production from Animal Manures
with a Non-Pest Native Fly

Good to hear.

How sloppy or dry the BSF castings are depends on the type of waste you put in.

Hey Randy, how is your BSF population? I'm seeing more females laying eggs now than what I saw all summer.

I case you're curious, one cup equals around 600 large larvae.

GDub, mine is going great. I haven't feed as regularly as I should, but every time
I feed more than usual I have about 50% more the next day. I've been saving the "tea"
and might try it on some the grass now that the weather is cooler at nights etc.
I've got some great "muck" at the bottom that I'll find a home for. I put a little in my
worm bucket and they seemed to like it - I also found some full ground BSFL in there the other day. Some tiny ones got in and fully developed w/o near the food that they get in the Biopod. Interesting.......

Sounds good rm.

I often skip several days of feeding with my BSF units. Since they can't easily escape they just have to wait for the next batch of food.

From what I read BSF can adapt to a wide range of conditions. If you're worm bin is outside you might also get BSF laying eggs on it. Even a tiny gap will allow the newly hatched larvae to enter the bin. People who raise worms often find BSF in with them.

I wonder how late in the year our Georgia BSF will lay eggs.

Hi GW, I'm thinking that it might be time to close down the BSF for the year. It's cold in the mornings, and there are not many new BSFL. I have a lot of "stuff" in the bottom of the BioPod that contains 1000s of BSFL in various stages. If I dump it on a big black plastic sheet on the dock, I think the heat will force most of them to crawl away and fall into the water. The fish will love it, and I should be left with some good soil for next year. Does this make since? I will do nothing until I hear from the MAN (you)!

Hi Randy.

I think your idea with the black plastic would work fine. You also have the option of keeping the colony going through the winter, but you wouldn't get any larvae to harvest. The larvae you have now will stall their development until spring and they will keep eating if you feed them regularly and insult the unit. This option let's you continue to process waste which will create even more compost. It also will make restarting your colony in the spring easier/quicker.

I have a post about cold weather BSF composting here: http://blacksoldierflyblog.com/bsf-composting-in-the-frigid-north/

Thanks for everything.

Start off by shouting at the unit "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberrys".

Okay, now that was funny! I'm not going to edit my post because I enjoyed that so much.

Good one DJT.

PS. Just for the record I meant to type "insulate". What would Freud think?

Well, thanks a lot, GW. Now, the whole unit is very angry with me.

Randy, just take the most rebellious larvae for a swim with the fishes...

You betcha! I'm taking a shovel full of them from the bottom of the BioPod down to the dock, and see how they like a little sun!!!!