Feeling repulsed by flies and maggots is natural, but usually people loose that feeling about black soldier fly larvae as they work with them. There are over 100,000 species of flies and while many spread human diseases BSF do not. The reason BSF aren’t vectors of human diseases is due to their life cycle and habits which are different from pest flies. Black soldier fly adults (winged stage) don’t feed, they only live a few days to mate and lay eggs. Since the adults have such short lives and don’t eat it’s relatively rare to see one. The flies that you see so quickly on the chicken manure are probably another species. The good news for people who have BSF in their area is that when waste is inhabited by harmless BSF they typically limit or completely eliminate pest fly reproduction in that particular waste. In other words, the more BSF larvae there are on your property, the less pest fly species you will have to contend with.

Since you keep chickens you have a very good reason to encourage BSF larvae production; the chooks love to eat them and the larvae are very nutritious.

Thanks for commenting and I wish you well with your birds and bugs.

Yes, black soldier fly larvae (Hermetia illucens) are marketed as “Phoenix worms”.

Phoenix worm nutritional comparison

Neat story. No, I don’t think you’re looking at an invasion of 500 BSF. I takes a lot of food to grow a BSF larvae and doubt that they developed in the dishwasher, but I agree that the pupae probably came in that way. After maturing on a food source BSF grubs can crawl up to 300 feet in search of a dry, protected pupation site. I think the dishwasher which had been stored in your friends garage served that purpose for the BSF you’re seeing. If by chance a male and a female BSF emerge from pupation in your house I doubt they would mate inside, and if they did I doubt the female would lay eggs in your house (no decomposing food or feces). It’s more likely that the adult BSF would spend their short lives against a window pane trying to get out unless you catch them and release them.

It’s good to know that BSF are present in your area if you do decide to culture them. I should point out that “composting” isn’t a completely accurate term for processing waste with BSF. Traditionally, composting refers to allowing vegetable matter to decompose with bacteria as the main agent in the process. I use the term “biocomposting” to signify the difference when using BSF, but an even better term is “bioconversion”. When you use BSF to consume waste you’re actually converting food waste into BSF larvae (which I often refer to as grubs).

I’m glad you learned about BSF and I hope you try working with these beautiful bugs.

I can’t pinpoint an environment that would be conducive to the eggs & larvae except possibly one location. We just brought a new dishwasher into our home. It was sitting in a friends garage for a few months. Could it be that the BSF laid eggs under it or within the disposal components of it? We do not keep decomposing food or feces in our home, so…where could the larvae have survived? Should I expect 500 mature BSF to fill my house within the next few days and then have more eggs laid in my home?! Any knowledge on this topic would be helpful! Thank You.

Very enthusiastic about composting after reading through the posts! Thanks.