Black soldier fly larvae

[Julieschicks]

I was turning my compost pile today and found tons of these weird worm things. A google search told me they were black soldier fly larvae. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed them before now. What are these black soldier flys and how will they affect my compost pile and yard??

 

[lazy gardener]

Black soldier flies are wonderful additions to your yard. Many folks actually raise them as a high protein, high calcium feed for their poultry. In addition to being a good feed supplement, BSF will cut down the fly population in your yard, help create compost much faster, and will go to work turning any yard debris into feed. You could build a BSFL bin so the larvae could self harvest directly into the chicken's run.

 

[oregonkat]

Black soldier flies are wonderful additions to your yard. Many folks actually raise them as a high protein, high calcium feed for their poultry. In addition to being a good feed supplement, BSF will cut down the fly population in your yard, help create compost much faster, and will go to work turning any yard debris into feed. You could build a BSFL bin so the larvae could self harvest directly into the chicken's run.

Can you get BSFL live to start a colony? Maybe colony is the wrong word but you know what I mean

 

[lazy gardener]

I'm not the person to ask, since they would not do well in my winter wonder land! Do a google search and you will find lots of information to get you started. I'd love to have a colony here, but am convinced that keeping them alive over the winter would be a pain in the neck.

 

[oregonkat]

I'm not the person to ask, since they would not do well in my winter wonder land! Do a google search and you will find lots of information to get you started. I'd love to have a colony here, but am convinced that keeping them alive over the winter would be a pain in the neck.

Good grief! There is a video on youtube of BSFL eating an uncooked trout and a cooked trout in speeded up time, yikes!! Thank you, I will see about them for my location. I raised mealworms for a while but it got to be a PITA also.

 

[lazy gardener]

Yeah, I tried the meal worms. Stinky. Not fast enough. My style is to keep some sheet composting and some BTE mulch going in the yard, and let them find their own grubs! I do have a worm bin in the basement, but that's mostly for winter entertainment.

 

[Nuchi]

*They only eat decaying matter.
*They eat like crazy and will consume just about anything you can give them from raw meat to cardboard(helps if something they like more soaks into it)
*The flies don't eat at all so they don't get into anything.
*They don't even like laying there eggs directly on food.
*They produce pheromones that repel other flies.
*From what I have been told they are not common vectors of anything harmful.
*There behavior makes it easy to make a self harvesting system.
*They are even easy to keep.

They have been a fascination of mine in my ecosystem research, that and mealworms ability to consume Styrofoam plastic, also types of mushrooms that consume and purify toxic oil and heavy even radioactive metals. Etc etc could go on forever and I dont want to make this about me/ hijack this.

 

[lazy gardener]

There is research being done towards using them as a sewer disposal system. Red worms are also being used in that capacity.

 

[Emmaxx]

Please tell me more about this self harvesting system!

 

[Nuchi]

Please tell me more about this self harvesting system!

Its pretty simple they like to climb to high ground when they go to pupate. You can either put the bin at an angle so they can climb out when they are ready or loop something around the inside walls and they will use it like a spiral staircase to exit. Just put a container at the exit with straw or something of the sort for them to bury themselves in and you can just empty the tray daily or whatever you like.

For breeding I would cut some cardboard into some discs or squares and stick them how ever you like to the inside lid then put a hole in the lid for the flies to come and go(if your worried about rain use a PVC T shelter it leaving it open for the flies).

A system like this only requires you to put scraps in and empty the whole bin once full, which might take longer then expected to fill with how much they compact everything down into soil. Almost all of them will collect themselves for you but there should also be enough pupating in the bin that you should not need to mess with setting some aside for breeding especially with them living naturally in the area. I see you live in the UK they are good with snow too in large enough numbers in a sheltered bin they produce plenty of heat more so then composting worms, so much so they can kill composting worms in duel systems though they cooperate with each other if the heat is managed.

Hope this was helpful.