Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Black Soldier Fly project

oops :P

Not so much about falling asleep and forgetting the four pounds of chicken breasts defrosting, as putting the worm bin on top of the compost heap after adding the chicken, a cup of milk, coffee grounds and a little compost to cover.

This pile is turned often and insulated with bags of leaves, it now runs HOT to within 2" of the edge.

7 hrs later I was wondering why the BSF were barely under the cover litter...then noticed the bottom of the worm bin was hot enough that some of the chicken inside was cooked through.

On exposing a breast and sniffing from less than a foot away there was eno off odor to pull away, but two feet away it wasnt detectable. Pretty much the same for the chicken and I decided I needed a shower.

In fact, at 2 ft. from the uncovered bin (reburied the chicken) there was more odor from the leeks and onions from last week, apparently leeks are tough and/or the sulfur compounds in onions/garlic etc aren't preferred and the tops fermented a bit. My SOP is to add that stuff to the bottom (if at all, I keep poking around in there and the leek leaves are like a bad penny.), and coffee grounds on top. I think I'll start chopping the onion and banana peel debris before adding it. Don't even bother adding grape stems, pick off the grapes or pull the stems out the next week, they just get in the way of burying the next ripening batch of goodies.

The larvae Loooove bananas and squash. I still have an amazingly still-solid pumpkin from last year on my porch, when it's time to get those seeds the BSF will have a good day. Too bad I didnt have the bin around for the other 6.

BTW, this bin is more tightly shaded/loosely covered by the bedliner on top then actually lidded, so a few other flies are around. I see 2-3 individuals with housefly-type airframes and a zillion Drosophila. Misc beetles and earwigs are having a good time too, but while their presence is noted their numbers are minor compared to BSF and drosophila. No big deal and a lid that limits airflow will reduce dilution of the BSF warning scent. Given whats been added, the low odor levels are amazing.

I'm deciding whether to move the dogs to the scrounged foot-high plastic drum cutoff then add a fitted lid with dedicated vent/adult access holes and corro cardboard egg laying spots, or sacrifice a whole drum set obliquely or sideways for surface area with a similar lid. Either way CCF legs gooped with Vaseline are in order, the local ants are a PITA. Oddly, they go mostly for the cookies and blueberry bread and if I move the bin after a day or two are no longer attracted, even with wet cookie still on top. Maybe some wheels...

One of the owners of the local cafe I get my coffee grounds from seems interested, so I dropped off probably a thousand or so to try as chicken feed or a starter bin (5 gal bucket, shovel of compost and chunk of cucumber included @ no extra charge!) Unfortunately they had left so anyone that looks in the bucket set way back under the junk table out back will be unpleasantly surprised. Unless they fish or have a worm fetish and randomly haunt local bait shops.

I nearly tossed the whole bin into the pickup and hauled it over to show them :P Then I decided it was too heavy to carry 85 yards to the truck.


So, a summary of lessons learned:

If you insist on playing with your new pets, chop and bury the oniony stuff and banana peels. (dont worry about any thing else) Well, the grapes from last week are just now being broken down too. Lightly bury the sweet pastries to avoid ants.

Add all the coffee grounds you can scrounge to the top, the larvae will mix them in for you

Dont set the bin on a hot compost heap in the summer. ( I probably would've dried the whole thing out in 2-3 more days if I hadn't been compelled to play in it.)

A gallon of liquid at once is a bit much, a pint or two over a week with added dry stuff is fine.

Covered, but not open or sealed.

The bins rapidly get heavy if you cant manage to shut the fridge door and keep track of defrosting food. Plan for scalability.

Have fun and Happy Monday!

Bob

bobdog, I'm not sure what to say about the chicken... I wouldn't hesitate to give it to a BSF colony that was operating under good conditions because it would be consumed in few hours. On the other hand if the chicken is in an environment that's too hot for BSF to consume then you may be inviting some nasty bacteria to the party. Maybe your pile got hot enough to sterilize the chicken, but I don't know.

BSF will eat onions all day, but the leek tops may contain too much cellulose for them. They might be able to eat them after they begin to decompose a little. The BSF won't care if the leek tops are partially fermented, that's the type of food they're designed to eat.

I add banana peels to my colony most days. I also used to think the BSF wouldn't eat them, but eventually they disappear. The woody part of the banana bunch won't be eaten by the BSF, same as with the grape stems or any other high cellulose stuff.

If you make a dedicated BSF unit you don't need the cardboard for egg laying unless you just want to experiment. Even with the corrugated material available the BSF will lay their eggs all over the walls of the unit anyway. The cardboard is most useful for moving the eggs around if you need to.



I can relate.

Thanks for sharing your project bobdog.

My BSFL have myaisis! Apparently a predatory fly has found the bin. I spotted a few egg clusters and smaller larvae and assumed I was finally seeing new BSF lays. Then I noticed these larvae tended to stay grouped and weren't as tapered but wasnt sure. Well, 2 days ago the BSFL were working their way through a loaf of bread and a pile of yard mushrooms and getting started on the tomato prunings and things seemed fine, they were even working the surface since I put a tighter cover on. ( I think it kept the surface more humid) I didn't look in yesterday. Today the new maggots are about an inch long with little taper, and are actively killing the BSFL. They develop into a ovoid pupae with a reddish color. I wont have time to get in there tomorrow, but I think I'll either pick around and hit the new guys with the blowtorch or see if the bsfl can survive a lower pH and acidify those sections of the bin, the sides and the new litter. If that doesnt work then I'll likely do a boiling water kill, compost the whole mess and reboot with a new bunch of BSFL from the old compost heap.

I'm not sure all the heat was from the compost heap, I checked the next day and the worm bin was warmer than the compost. I'm also not sure the chicken was actually thermally cooked, the chicken proteins could also have been chemically denatured which would also render them opaque. This could be from high acidity (ever make ceviche?) or possibly the BSFL digestive enzymes (if I correctly remember reading they actually secrete them onto their food) (Or was that Jeff Goldblum?). I was poking around looking to see how many of a predatory larvae were in the bin and noticed the chicken was pretty much just a paste shaped like chicken breast. There may be oxygen level issues too, if I can clear up the predator issue I may add more compost to loosen things up, move it to the new bin and top it all off with coffee grounds to nuke the odor released by stirring the bottom up. I agree about the leek tops and that's good news about the banana peels as we go through a LOT of them. (Peanut butter, banana, raisin and bacon-bit sandwich, anyone? Use the REAL bacon bits!)

Happy no-longer-Monday

Bob

What, no marshmallows?

I bought some of the strawberry ones to try :-D

GW question.. If I am feeding chicken waste to the grubs. Can the harvested grubs be fed back to the chickens? or is that a no no.

Hi 267, I'm afraid it's a no no. According to a person that helped design the BioPod if you feed animal waste to BSF you must feed the resulting grubs to animals of another genus. If you feed chicken waste to your grubs you can in turn feed them to mammals, reptiles, or fish.

I think I've read studies that involve feeding BSF animal manure and then using the resulting grubs as feed for the same animals, but I believe the grubs were processed into a meal first. I think the main concern involves parasites/pathogens and that processing the grubs solves that problem.

I'm actually breaking that rule as I've described earlier in this thread. I'm feeding culled fish and fish scraps from my pond to my BSF colony and then feeding those grubs back to the fish in the same pond. This earlier post explains why I'm making this exception:



It's too bad that you can't feed those grubs back to your chickens. I wonder what it would take to process the grubs enough to make them safe. Pasteurizing them wouldn't make them sterile, but it might lower the risk to a reasonable level. The nice thing about Pasteurization is that it doesn't require very high temperatures.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/446003/pasteurization

ON the other hand, sterilization might be accomplished by dehydration which could even be more practical.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/212684/food-preservation

I'll consult some people that are more knowledgeable than I am and see it there isn't a simple solution to this.

Hi GW - an update. The eggs you sent are developing. I have a worm box which I put bananas etc into. Evidently some adult BSFs got into it and laid some eggs because as I was digging around in it yesterday I found 100+ black larva. I was surprised and happy & moved them over to the BioPod and will let them do their thing and then feed to the fish when they self-harvest. I found 4 dead fish in my pond yesterday and put them in the B'Pod too. The grubs are about 1/2 way finished with them, and the number of flies that were everywhere when I put the fish in have been greatly reduced (50%). Amazing little critters!!!

Randy, be careful how much fish you add to your BioPod before the colony get's completely established. If a few houseflies get inside of a fully functional BSF unit they probably won't lay eggs and if they do then the eggs probably won't develop into adult flies. But, since your colony is still small you'll probably see some housefly larvae surviving and passing through into the collection bucket. It's not a big deal, just be extra careful with sanitation while the houseflies are present.

I'm starting to think it's not wise to add fish, or maybe any animal product, to a BSF colony if there is a significant amount of vegetable matter being processed.

BSF seem to prefer fruit, vegetables and grains over animal products. If there is a large amount of vegetable matter available I've seen the fish/meat sit uneaten until the more preferred scraps are eaten. If the BSF don't begin eating the animal products immediately this can lead to attracting undesirable fly species into the colony. As I said earlier, a few pest flies won't crash the colony, but I recommend refrigerating the fish/meat and saving it until the colony has limited amounts of other items to eat.

I'm glad the eggs developed Randy, I'm sure you'll see some adult BSF from the wild population visiting your unit soon. They love this hot weather.

thanks for the advice on the chickens. I figured it was a no no. but just wanted to check to make sure. These these little guys are amazing!

I though they didnt like heat

267, BSF are tropical/semitropical and 95ºF is perfect weather for them assuming their habitat is shaded and properly vented.

BioSystems Design has done a nice job of categorizing BSF data which you might find interesting:
http://biosystemsblog.com/2008/07/09/bla...tion-practices/

do you ever have to clean out the stuff left in the pod? If only 3/4 of the food is turned in to grubs the rest keeps building up. Do we clean it out or just leave it alone?

Some researchers have claimed that typical household food scraps are reduced up to 95% in volume. Manure is closer to 50% I believe. Using the 95% figure, every gallon of food scraps you add only results in a little over 3/4 cup of compost. At that rate it wouldn't be surprising to see a small family only needing to empty the compost from a 2 foot diameter unit every few years, but to be conservative I would say annual emptying is likely.

I am having a large amount of regular house flies in the bin. I only put veggie and fruit scraps in there, but I am still getting a lot of house flies. Is this something I should try to stop? If so what can I do to remedy this?

267, I haven't heard of anyone having a robust colony of BSF that had a housefly problem. From what I've read this is even true in open waste like outhouses and under chicken coops. Can you give me an idea of the density of your colony?

Other species of flies are always present whenever you start a new colony. BSF are a little slower at reproducing than houseflies. BSF eggs take 4 days to hatch while housefly eggs hatch in a day or even less. Once the BSF find your unit and lay eggs they begin to dominate the food scraps within a week or two and normally you stop seeing pest fly reproduction at that point.

267, GW is right. I had many house flies present until the BSF got started. Once they did, I have no house flies.

GW, I have a little worm farm too - started before the BSFs in the BioPod. Evidently some BSFs got in there and laid eggs. I now have red wigglers and BSF larvae - they are both doing very well. I don't have a ramp for BSF self-harvest so do you have any suggestion for removal of BSF larvae after they turn black? I guess I could always rig up a little ramp and see if it works.....

Randy, it's very common for BSF to mix with worms and I don't think it bothers the worms. They actually do very well on the residue left behind by the BSF.

Rigging a ramp could be fun if you have the time and patience but I think you can round up the mature grubs without one pretty easily. I think you could use the same basic idea as the method I use for harvesting juvenile grubs. Here's the post where I explain that procedure: http://blacksoldierflyblog.com/2008/07/25/collecting-immature-larvae/

The mature grubs don't eat so you would need to attract them into the container with what they want which is a dry protected place to pupate. I would try using a similar container as in my post and I would fill it with shredded paper, dry leaves, sawdust, etc. To maximize the effect I would put the container right up against the inner wall of the bin because when the grubs try migrate out of the unit they circle the perimeter. You might want to find a square container or a round one with straight sides so you can snug it up to the wall. For that reason I would also have some of the holes as close to worm bin wall as possible.

Randy I remember discussing that our fish prefer to eat the juvenile grubs, but I've been having good results using the mature dark grubs as chum. They tend to float for a while and when I fish my pond I just throw out a few handfuls of the dark grubs and it really gets the fish's attention.

I caught another brown bullhead on a BSF grub recently and the brute weighed in at 1lb 15oz. It was fun hauling him in on my 10' brim buster. It was tasty too. I found some crawdad parts in it's stomach...

My worm bin also has BSF grubs in it. I counted 25 just on the surface tonight. My bin is a rubbermaid container about one foot by two and a half filled with paper, a little dirt and some kitchen waste. Its about one month old. If I had not read this topic I would have never known they were not just some nasty maggot. My wife has decided to let me keep my worm bin in the garage after I showed her this post after she saw them when dumping coffee grounds into the bin. Once again this site amazes me with knowledge on it. Thanks GW

Thanks, P. Buckley, enjoy your bugs.

GW I have thousands of grubs in my bin and it is doing very well. I have the Bio pod it is doing very well. Every time I add veggies to the pod I like to keep an eye on it for about 2 days. There are always a ton of house flies in it hanging around. I will take the lid off to take a peak in side and there would be about 30-50 house flies hanging out in there. there are some house fly larvae in the pod but I can only see about under 75. I am not too worried because my colony is huge and doing very good. I am just confused about why I have so many house flies.

267, if you have a new colony consisting of only a few thousand BSF grubs I wouldn't expect them to be able to repel houseflies yet, especially if you have a lot of food scraps in your unit. A BioPod can house 10's of thousands of grubs at full capacity. For the repellent effect you need to have waste that is dominated by the BSF.

EDIT: Your BSF unit doesn't need to be at the maximum capacity to repel other fly species. I believe it has more to do with the ratio of food scraps to BSF. There is a limit to how much waste I could add to my present colony and still have the pest fly repellent action. For example if I added 30 lbs of raw fish instead of a few pounds I would expect house flies or blow flies to invade the colony. Also, if I added stinky decomposed fish I would also expect pest flies. In fact I did once add rotten fish to my colony and it was overwhelmed by blow flies. I wrote a blog post about it here. Successfully operating a BSF colony is about balancing a few basic factors. What makes it relatively simple is that once you've established a colony, imbalances can be corrected in a matter of days.

If you have a wild population of BSF laying eggs in your BioPod you can achieve a full colony in a matter of weeks. Have you confirmed that you have BSF laying eggs in your unit? If you could upload a few photos I could give you better advice.

Yesterday I took a series of photos of my colony processing some fish scraps. Our temps are in the mid 90's and I had very few houseflies in my unit, even with raw fish present. My colony is probably at full capacity at the moment and you could certainly say they are dominating any scraps that I add.

Here's the colony in the morning (click to enlarge):


Here I added 2.5 lbs of raw fish (whole and scraps):


A few hours later:
(Notice there are 3 BSF females laying eggs and 1 housefly wishing it could get at those fish)


A few more hours:


When I checked on the colony through the day I would usually see some houseflies on the outside of the BioPod, and maybe a few inside, but I haven't seen housefly larvae in the colony or in the collection bucket for months. I doubt that houseflies would lay eggs in my BioPod now.

My experience is only one source and I'm not doubting what you say. There are exceptions to every rule and I'm still learning a lot about BSF.

Jerry, mine is going just fine now, and not at near full capacity,
but all of the house flies are gone.