I no longer recommend building this unit. I have released a new version which is far superior to this design. To see the BSF Bucket Bio-Composter version 2.0 please navigate to that page by clicking HERE. Please note that there are several very good and informative comments at the bottom of this post.
A no-frills approach
Introducing the Black Soldier Fly Bucket Bio-composter v1.1, a minimalistic approach to black soldier fly composting. Despite it’s limitations I hope this simple DIY composter will inspire people to try their hand at attracting and culturing BSF grubs.
Each bucket will vary but the basic concept is the same.
Vent Holes
I used a 1/2 inch flat drill bit for the vents, but a larger hole is acceptable. Smaller might work but the vent holes are the primary entrance for the adult BSF and they might have difficulty with less than that. The pilot holes were drilled level with the bottom of the raised band that is near the top of the bucket. I put the vents there for two reasons. 1) By placing them close to this “overhang” there is some protection from rain entering the bucket 2) The female BSF will be attracted to the scent coming from the vents and the protected spaces created by the reinforced rim will present them with a good egg laying site. I expect most of the eggs to be laid in these protected spaces.
Go slowly when drilling or you may tear up the overhang. I drilled very slowly and still chewed it up a little. 
On my particular bucket the reinforced rim was 3 to 4 inches below the top of the bucket, but it’s higher up on some buckets. Higher is better if you have a choice because as we all know, hot air rises. To exhaust the dead space above my vents I drilled the singe hole that you can see in the photo of the finished composter.
Drainage
This composter doesn’t utilize a continuous drain system. There is a drain hole on the side of the bucket and periodically you’ll need to tilt the bucket and let the accumulated liquids drain out. I plugged mine with a cork.
I picked a place about 3-4 inches from the bottom so that when tilted all but a small amount of liquid will drain out. The bucket biocomposter can be placed at an angle in the opening of another 5 gallon bucket for draining. Handle this liquid or “tea” carefully and sanitize your hands afterward. The tea can be used as fertilizer, but I don’t have experience with that so you’ll need to do your own research and testing.
Coconut Coir Liner
(The photos above are from version 1.0. In the newer version the drain hole is placed lower.)
Coir is made from the outer husks of coconuts and is commonly used for lining wire planters and hanging baskets. I bought a flat piece at a garden shop about 1 inch thick and cut 3 disc shapes to fit the bucket. Coir is also available in loose form. I don’t think it matters which type you use, and I’m guessing that about 3 inches of total material should work. Be careful if you cut it because it’s pretty tough. I set mine on a thick piece of Styrofoam and “sawed” through it with a utility knife. I feel fortunate to have completed the task with all ten digits still intact.
The purpose of the coir liner is to provide a space for liquid to accumulate without flooding the food scraps that you’re composting. The BSF grubs cannot process the scraps well if they’re submerged, and the liquid creates an anaerobic environment (no air) that encourages the growth of bad bacteria. BSF grubs create an aerobic environment (with air) through the churning action that happens when they feed. By maintaining aerobic conditions you will avoid imbalances that are easily recognized by offensive odors. A balanced BSF colony smells like wet straw plus whatever food you’ve added recently.
The Lid
You can snap the lid into place on your bucket composter but I don’t want to go through that process every time I open and close the unit. A simple solution is to just set the lid on top without pressing down and then secure it with small bungee cords as you can see in the photo. My dog keeps raccoons and other scavengers away so usually I don’t even use the bungees. Of course if you have a dog it might be the worst scavenger of all.
The knob serves a more important function than the obvious one. I’ve observed BSF females laying eggs on the top of the lid on several occasions and by using the knob you can avoid crushing the fragile eggs. It won’t be the primary area for egg laying but there’s no good reason to crush good BSF eggs and the knob is easier to handle anyway.
Avoiding Ants
In the photo above I’m using a barrier created by setting the composter in a pan of water to prevent ants from invading the contents. You can also set the bucket on a stand like a stool and treat the legs to repel ants. Similarly you could suspend the bucket on a chain or rope.
One issue I didn’t consider with the water pan is that the black soldier fly grubs that migrate out of the bucket may drown. A possible solution is to put the bucket in a dry pan that in turn sits in a larger pan with water.
The process of composting
I’ll go into detail about using the bucket composter on a separate page and I will add a link here when it’s ready. The basic concepts will be the same as using a BioPod, just on a smaller scale and with a few addtional steps. During hot weather keep the bucket in full shade, don’t overfeed, and if it begins to smell bad you’re doing something wrong. I expect I’ll be able to process about a half pound (.25kg) of food scraps with this unit each day, or maybe a little more. This composter isn’t designed for high effeciency or high volume, it’s designed as an introduction to bio-composting with black soldier fly grubs (Hermetia illucens). If you enjoy this you’ll probably want to graduate to a BioPod or a more elaborate DIY system. On the other hand you might find that this bucket design is all you need…
Harvesting Grubs
To harvest the mature BSF grubs you will need to periodically leave the bucket in a tilted position. Alternatively you could mist the inside walls of the bucket and set the unit in a larger container with a layer of sawdust (not pressure treated), peat, or some other dry bedding material. The moisture on the walls will allow the grubs to climb vertically, exit via the vent holes, and onto the bedding material. Assuming the bedding remains dry the grubs will not be able to escape the catch pan.
Coming soon: “how to” page for the BSF bucket biocomposter v1.0\
solider
I understand exactly where you are coming from, I was simply stating that there probable is not much chance of people selling the grubs into the reptile industry if they are not a 200% trusted source, I would not feel comfortable feeding my bearded dragons for instance on grubs raised on some-one else’s waste. If the grubs are raised in a controlled environment on clean scraps and come into no contact with other animals, just like all other live foods in the reptile industry the grubs would be fine as in the case of phoenix worms.
P.S. I said the fruit flies were for the praying mantis not the reptiles, the mantis are fine on the diseases and will not be affected and if they are it is not a incredible valuable animal. I also never said I would not feed bsfl that I had raised, I would have an issue with what others had raised them on e.g feces
The issue here is that I think you are only looking at the side of the grub rearers and not the owners of reptiles that in some cases are worth literally thousands.
All good points Ryan. For the purpose of this discussion I’m not considering buying BSF from unknown producers. While I don’t think the risk is great, I can understand that level of caution. My perspective mostly relates to pet owners who don’t believe they can raise relatively safe BSF themselves because of the fact that the adults mate in the outdoors. I also tend to be skeptical that commercial insect producers maintain the high levels of sanitation that their customers seem to assume they do.
I am doing my best to consider the owners of expensive exotic pets, but I’m trying to put it into perspective that meets real-world conditions. I know very little about exotic herps but I have to wonder how fragile they are. I wonder how often they would fall ill or die in the wild due to eating insects. I’m comparing this diet of wild insects to one that includes BSF raised on fresh food. It seems to me that most animals are fairly hardy and if they can avoid being eaten by another animal and if they find an adequate amount of food and water they will remain healthy. Even humans can ingest pathogens on a regular basis without falling ill. As I mentioned previously we still can’t say that it isn’t even better if these pets are exposed to local pathogens to build up the appropriate immunities. Unless you’re maintaining a perfectly sterile environment for the pet, “protecting” it from exposure to pathogens might ultimately lead to severe illness due to an inadequate immune system.
I’ve had discussions with exotic pet owners where I’ve suggested that eggs could be collected from BSF that mate outdoors, which could be then be raised in a controlled indoor environment. I often collect BSF eggs from my BioPod which are only hours old, which could easily be moved to such a controlled environment. Still, I find that most exotic reptile and amphibian owners are fearful that even the larvae from these eggs will eventually transmit disease to their pets. That level of caution just seems misplaced to me considering the less than sterile environment that I assume most pets live in, and the fact that commercially produced insects could also be less than sterile.
I appreciate your input about this controversial subject.
to comment #54 by Jerry,
I would like to report that I have had excellent results from a 7 gallon nursery pot and a 10 gal nursery pot sitting in a 24″ tray inside of my “butterflly” cage. There was absolute no loss of mature grubs that dropped out. I also had a 1oo% survival rate with a 5 gal nursery pot sitting upon a brick in an aluminum turkey tray full of water from a local supermarket. The only drawback is that every couple of days I had to run the water through a fish net to gather all the mature maggots. There was a period of several days at one point…I panicked and put them immediately upon a paper towel in a warm place. They all looked very dead. Then to my surprise one by one the started to move, slowly at first then almost in concert they were doing their squirmy stuff all over the place. Some how they either achieved some kind of state of torpor or are quite capable of absorbing oxygen through their skins for long periods. I found some in the compost tea that also appeared dead only to revive in a very short period.
Without the butterfly cage using nursery pots is a difficult proposition in that you must pay almost daily attention to it. All in all before I even knew what BSF were I was already on the right track. I appreciate the info from this blog and other web sites.
I must say that the whole smell thing as I presented it is certainly a valid one at least for me. This season has proved me right. I feel kind of put off because there are sure to be others out there who relate to smells in the way that I do! Now if you want to make rules that put everybody into the same slot for dealing with anything…not only smells; you are going to narrow your followers to more and more “yes” persons and less and less people who may offer some constructive criticism to furthur stimulate dialogue. If your ultimate aim is to sell Bio-Pods then why do this fool’s dance?
Michael
Michael,
Thanks for sharing your successful set up. I hope to hear about your progress in the future.
Concerning the odor issue; It’s not my intention to invalidate your experience, but as the administrator of this blog I wish to minimize confusion as much as possible. Few people reading or posting here will have more than one or two seasons of experience with culturing BSF and I want to be clear to my readers that foul odors are not a given in BSF culturing. There is no doubt that a BSF colony can emit foul odors, but that is not the normal smell of a balanced colony. The odor issue is a very important one because odor is one of the easiest ways to evaluate a BSF colony. I think you and I ran into trouble with your use of the word “stink”. I maintain that the word “stink” implies a foul odor and that a BSF colony that “stinks” is not a healthy balanced colony. If anyone makes a comment on this blog that might cause the casual reader to think that foul odors are a necessary part of BSF culturing I will correct them. A BSF colony can smell delicious, and that is my experience. I have added food waste to my BSF colony that created truly attractive smells. Cinnamon bread was one that made my unit smell great and another was some type of breakfast cereal that was given to me. You and I seem to be caught up in semantics. While I want to encourage you to post your experiences here I can’t let people use the term “stink” in any way that might confuse.
“If your ultimate aim is to sell Bio-Pods then why do this fool’s dance?”
First; my ultimate goal is to share my hobby and help people. I have spent countless hours answering questions for people who have made it clear they would not buy a BioPod, and I’ve given many people advice about how to construct DIY units. If I can ever make a living from BioPod sales that would be great, but that day is a long way off, if it ever comes. If by “fool’s dance” you mean the semantics concerning the word “stink” I don’t consider it foolish at all. Good communication is based on defining terms and on this blog the word “stink” will have a negative connotation.
My bsf “soup” has come to an end. Oddly enough, they really did not seem to mind the anaerobic bad smelling conditions (you could smell it 1-2 feet away) that had been generated by rain getting in the container. I was trying to thicken it up with cornmeal. I was only adding a little bit of other food maybe once every other weekend for the last 2 months although it probably did not need it. I never was able to get it back to anything normal. The BSF were very active in the “soup/pudding”. It all came to an end once the cold fronts moved in and the weather got too cold for them. I looked in it one day and everything had come to a complete halt. They weren’t hiding at the bottom, nor were they all at the top, they were all over it just as they were when still alive except they weren’t moving at all. They are tough little critters who apparently don’t mind wetness, just not the cold.
If your unit should get too wet, I suggest trying to relocate them to a drier unit and then clean the wet one, but it isn’t a deal breaker. FYI, before rain got in my container, there was no smell, even up close.
My DIY bucket composter has nearly emptied of grubs. A couple of days ago I went to see if many had crawled out overnight, and the collection bucket underneath the main unit contained maybe a 1000 mature pre-pupae, a very large size. They’ve been eating well.
But what now? The female flies aren’t laying any more eggs, and haven’t done so since October. I live in Portugal, which I believe is Zone 10. They days are still around 20C/70-75F, but the nights are getting cooler. The only thing that’s showing much interest in the composter bucket any more is fruit flies, 1000′s of the things.
The ‘pudding’ is rich and black, but starting to go a bit mouldy where the grubs didn’t finish eating it all. I gave it a stir to see what else was in there, but couldn’t find any immature grubs, unlike the mass that was in there a couple of weeks ago.
Since Jerry wrote about keeping the pre-pupae to start next year’s colony, and not feeding them to my chickens, I’ve been saving all those I can find, and putting them into a dark bucket with a lid set ajar on top. I put 2-3 inches of sawdust in, and there’s a pretty solid mass of pre-pupae in there now. I can put my hand to the bottom of the sawdust and pull out a solid fist of grubs, they’re jammed in tight. Occasionally a grub hatches, and a fly emerges, but I don’t where they going. There’s not much activity apart from that.
So do I just store this bucket somewhere dry and frost-free, or what?
@toober
Good drainage is important in a BSF composter if you want easy management. If I had a lot of water to soak up I would probably use a combination of cornmeal and sawdust. Both can absorb a lot of moisture and the cornmeal will encourage the larvae to churn through the material therefore aerating it and helping to discourage anaerobic bacteria that cause bad odors. At my local feed store I can buy a 50 pound bag of cornmeal for $8.
Unless your colony froze they are still alive, but dormant or semi dormant. If you wanted to you could “restart” their feeding activity and maintain it through winter. My intention was to operate my BioPod through this winter but I’m afraid my schedule is interfering with the regular attention winter BSF culturing requires. It looks like I’ll have to wait until spring to get back into processing waste.
Jerry,
How do I post a picture? I have several pictures I want to post of my diybiopod.
Thanks!
Lee, first you need to publish the image on the web. I use Photobucket but there are others that are also free. Once you upload the image to your photo hosting account it will be assigned a unique web address. When you post a comment here click the button labeled “img” which opens a small window where you paste the address of the photo. Give it a try and if it doesn’t work we’ll figure it out.
Here is my DIY BIO POD for the BSFL. The bottom large container is a gardening container from a nursury that was delivering some trees in the large one. I filled it with compost material and set my 5 gallon biopod with the larve and my current amount of pudding on top of the compost.
Then, I got a (I guess) 10 gallon gardening bucket and put it upside down over the composter. This serves several purposes. First, it keeps the light out. Second, I am hoping it helps keep the pod warm in the winter. It still has holes for the females to enter into the bucket.
I don’t really worry to much about a ramp out of the five gallon bucket. There are numerous holes in the side of the five gallon container that they can climb out of. Usually there is enough moisture in the bucket for them to climb around and up.
The mature larve can immediately drop down into the drier compost material and turn in to flies.
The tea can drip out into the compost, without me worrying about trying to collect the tea and staining my hands with its terrible smell.
I keep ants out of it by wetting the compost material. Also, when ever I deliver food to the 5 gallon, I get a stick and poke it in the bottom compost. This stirs up the compost and drives any ants crazy. Both the wetness and disturbance makes the ants not stay. The little bait traps you see in the pictures are not really effective that I can tell.
I like to use these large garden contaners, like the one on the bottom, for my gardening. I fill it 3/4 way with material that I want to decompose. Basically, the core compost material-leaves, grass, etc. Then I add the top 1/4 with top soil or well composted material. This way, when I water the plants, the bottom compost material gets wet. Also, I don’t have to dig up the ground, roots, and weeds to plant. Also, it saves alot of space for composting.
My ultimate goal is to have an aquaponics system and have the bsfl help feed the fish.
Thanks for all of the ideas guys!
Thanks Lee!
Ants – the Grant’s ant baits in your picture only seem effective (around here – central Cal. coast) in the springtime when the ant colonies are building up. However, I have found some liquid baits at the hardware store that are VERY effective, year around.
- Pete
When the weather warms up I hope to raise some BSFL. From my reading, I see that a favorite time for BSF like to lay their eggs is on the shortest day of the year, if it’s a sunny day.
The shortest day is coming up soon, so I’ve set up several five-gallon buckets with coir and rotting food scraps.
Does anyone have any experience in intentionally mixing high fiber things (leaves, grass, napkinse) with the food waste?
I decided to dump out my four month trial diybiopod. It was in a five gallon bucket and will filled to a solid four gallons. It was no longer a pudding but a wet smelly mass of decaying peat. As I dug through it, it seemed as if the bottom parts just got to the point that the larve had moved on and allowed the bottom gallon to settle and get compacted.
Thus, I was wondering about getting a larger, wider bucket and mixing more leaves, or wasted napkins in the mix. That way, more bulk would be per gallon of food that was deposited. And since this is all going to compost anyway the leaves would get a head start on breaking down.
Any thoughts or ideas?
Good question Lee.
It does make sense that a wider shape might work better with more surface area and shallower depth allowing for better aeration.
My first thought when I read your question is that I routinely add sawdust (not pressure treated) to my BioPod. I do this mainly to help maintain the proper moisture content, but there could be other benefits. I’m not aware of any problems that leaves, paper, ect would cause for the BSF. One issue is that the container would fill more quickly, but I don’t see that as a big problem. It seems that traditional compost piles are the more common way people discover BSF larvae, so obviously the BSF aren’t avoiding these types of materials.
Thanks again for the great question Lee.
how important is it for the larve to crawl out? Do they have to be far away from the food in order propogate?
How interested is the immature larve in crawling out?
If I try a wider bottom containter, (eg. 2 foot wide bottom) do you think that I could just put a pile of dry leaves on one side and the food to digest on the other and keep them all in the same container?
Or heck, just get a kiddie pool, start the food processing on one side, and perhaps a few inches a way (Like an island in the middle) have the dry pile. Everytime I have something new to add, put it right next to yesterday’s pile, and day by day circle around the island/edge of the pool.
If there was a constant food source, would the immature larve wonder off if they were not strictly contained like we have so often assumed in the diybsflbiopod?
Thanks
Lee,
The conditions in a BSF unit are not ideal for pupation so it’s best to find a way to allow the mature larvae to migrate away from the waste. The larvae CAN pupate in the unit, but it would become a problem if it happened in large numbers, in my opinion.
The immature larvae are very interested in crawling out of a BSF unit, at least at certain times. If the food supply diminishes at any point the larvae will try to leave. If the moisture level drops below optimum level they will try to leave. If the density of the colony is high, as we try to accomplish, many of the larvae will try to leave. A well designed BSF unit will be efficient at containing the juvenile larvae so that they will be there to receive the next meal when we are able to provide it.
I’ve never tried to contain the larvae in one section of a container but to do so you will need to use some sort of divider I think because the constant churning of the larvae will eventually mix the contents.
Any type of design is worth trying in the end because regardless of the results you’ll learn more about BSF. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Lee, BSFL “in the wild” are clearly free to roam. The BioPod and DIY units try to optimize the environment for processing food waste. Often the mature grubs are used for animal feed, so the concentrated harvesting is important for those folks. For those like me who are trying to build up a local colony, it’s important to protect the mature pupae so they can hatch as flies.
I’ve read of people who have large BSFL colonies in open compost heaps. I’ve found many empty pupal casings in my enclosed compost bin. I’m guessing the larvae fed on whatever was in the bin and then crawled away to a drier part of the bin to pupate.
I did try to build in a partly segregated area for pupation, but like Jerry said, the churning action eventually spread that area out. I eventually converted my bin into a bin-within-a-bin system where the smaller bin was the active feeding area and the larger outer bin held dry coir for the self-harvesting mature grubs. Condensation on the walls of the smaller bin was sufficient to allow the mature grubs to crawl up the vertical walls. It’s similar in concept to the photos you posted here in Dec.
I hope this photo shows up. I don’t put a lid on the smaller bin, only on the larger one.
Thanks for the great post Andrew.
My blog uses html code for links and images. I’ll have to check for WordPress plugins to automate it I think.
One of the reasons that I used the large bin under the diybiopod was for liquid management. I tried the jar under the bucket idea but there was so much liquid that I had to change it every day, then it would spill on my hand and it smelled really bad. (Just imagine changing a soiled diaper from a sweaty child that hasn’t showered in three days.) But I didn’t want to waste it in case it was good soil additive.
Other than adding saw dust, does anyone have any other liquid mangement ideas?
I have a small flock of chickens and am today building a bucket composter per the info here. I appreciate all the time you folks have put into this blog.
I’m planning on using a short piece of polypropylene rope, screwed to the inside of the bucket, positioned as to make a larvae “highway” similar in shape to the ramp in the biopod – heading around the sides of the bucket and up to a hole that will have a PVC elbow, leading to a downspout and into a catch-device that can be unscrewed from the pipe. I’m curious if there are any downsides to this, to the use of PVC, or if anyone has tried similar ideas?
Dave,
The rope should work, but I expect you will see a lot of larvae wedging themselves between it and the bucket where ever they’re able. For a minimal set up like the bucket I wouldn’t worry about a few lingering larvae. The pvc is fine and it gives a lot of options for directing the larvae.
For what it’s worth I’m considering a two bucket set up to improve the drainage system. The bottom bucket would catch the runoff and the top bucket would house the colony and have numerous holes drilled in the bottom. You would still need a layer of filter medium like coir and something to keep the filter from expanding as the larvae tunnel through it.
Please keep us posted!
Jerry, I like your two bucket idea for drainage management! I have a suggestion for a further modification to make it modular so you can manage pudding accumulation as well as liquid: Try three nested buckets, with a 4th on standby. The bottom one is a liquid catch, the second has a layer of choir and holes drilled in the bottom for drainage. This second bucket is a semi-premanent coir buffer. The third (top) also has drainage holes to allow drainage into the coir and catch buckets. The second bucket should have sufficient coir that the bottom of bucket #3 rests on the surface of the coir. As the third bucket (feeding and grub bucket) fills to a level where a 4th bucket bottom would just rest on the surface, add the 4th bucket and commence all feeding into that bucket. In a short period of time, all the larvae would migrate up thru the holes into the feeding bucket at which time it would be placed in the third position and the third bucket removed – full of pudding for compost use and absent MOST of the live larvae. As that 4th bucket fills, you still have a spare feeding bucket to use to repeat the process. This could eliminate the hassle of trying to separate live larvae from pudding when the diy system becomes full – which is the only complaint I have about the BioPod. (An issue I am facing now as my BioPod over-wintered chock full of mature grubs and full to the top of the exit rap.)
regards,
Brian Travis
Brian, I think your idea has a lot of merit and I will probably try it this summer. Thanks!
I wanted to report to everybody that my larvae over-wintered just fine in my set up. I have a fifty gallon water drum turned on its side with an access door cut into one side. This is sitting on cement blocks and has a drain tube in the bottom. I have two 2 inch PVC pies for ramps that go into buckets slotted over the pipes on the outside. Well when temperatures got kind of low I spread a layer of food over the top and then spread about 5 inched of shredded paper over that. Thats all I did. Well this week was pretty warm and I noticed activity in the barrel. The larvae are eating and some mature larvae have even begun to crawl up the exit tubes again.
Thanks Garbly, please keep us updated on your progress this year.
So I built the bucket version of a BSF pod at the end of Feb as I posted above.
I used a 5-gal bucket, that coconut fiber in a cone, and a sheet-metal cone beneath that draining to a hole in the middle of the bottom that feeds into some clear fuel-line tubing out and into the ground to dispose of the liquid. I put thin cork on top of the poly rope I noted above as the highway for the grubs to crawl out. At the exit hole I have 3/4″ PVC going straight out, then a 90 deg down-angle to a drop into a screw-on piece of PVC about 3″ in diameter with some pine shavings at the bottom… From what I’ve read here and other places, this ought to work..
Problem: I’ve put in table scraps (potato, meat, bread, fruit, salad, etc.) for a month… and all I have are gnats and mold on the strawberries… NO BSF…
I live in the LA basin up against the mountains, about 2,000 ft elevation…
Ideas? Do I need to get a starter colony of BSF? I thought they were everywhere and if I built it, they would come…
Dave, it sounds like you made an effective BSF unit. One suggestion I’ll make is to find some way to prevent the future BSF larvae from shredding the coconut fiber. If there is nothing to hold it in place they will mix it into the waste and it will lose its effectiveness. Since you have a cone shape you might try filling it with rocks or a similar material.
BSF are not found everywhere, but I’m pretty sure they will be in your area. To begin with I don’t recommend using any meat to attract BSF. They can process flesh but they aren’t primarily carrion eaters. I wouldn’t add any animal protein until you have a dense colony established. Mold, gnats, fruit flies, house flies, etc. are just part of the process of establishing the BSF colony. The mold will be consumed once BSF show up and the other fly species will be repelled. If you don’t like the idea of having this particular waste in your unit you can transfer it to another container and continue using those scraps outside of the unit. One advantage to that method is that you can have several different containers in various locations at once. Whatever you do don’t give up on the waste you’ve been using, it may already contain BSF. Your unit may also have BSF eggs in it. It takes the eggs 4 days to hatch and after that it can be another week or more before the tiny larvae grow large enough to be easily seen. It’s a common mistake to throw out the initial waste because it looks bad or has other larvae in it, yet often it will contain BSF. (It may be too early in the season for you as I will discuss below). One thing you can do to lessen the presence of other fly species is to loosely cover the waste with shredded office paper. Fruit flies and house flies prefer to lay their eggs directly on the waste so covering it deters them. BSF prefer laying above or beside the waste so it has no effect on them.
You don’t need a starter kit to establish a colony. With enough patience you will attract BSF given that they are present in the wild where you are. A starter kit can speed up the process because the subtle scent of BSF larvae is a powerful attractant for BSF females.
Having said all of the above; it’s probably still too cool for BSF reproduction where you live. It’s possible that all the BSF are still pupating waiting for warmer weather before they emerge as adults to mate, especially since you’re at 2000 ft. I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t see adults around until the end of May or even early June. I only saw my first BSF adult of this season five days ago near Tallahassee, FL, and we’ve had a handful of sunny days in the 80′s.
Hang in there Dave, the hardest part of culturing BSF can often be the process of attracting them. Once you have them in a properly designed unit it gets pretty easy.
Dave, have you seen the new version of the bucket composter?
I wasted a lot of time looking at this website only to find out that it’s impossible to buy a container to raise BSF in. And that after spending a lot of time trying to find out why anyone would want to raise them. I’m disappointed. It sounds like something that would be fun, and good for my chickens, but I need a container.
Hi Dianne,
If you don’t have the skills to make the DIY composter maybe you can convince someone else to make it for you, or you could pay someone. Also, I’m not promoting the BioPod Plus but they are available.
My newest diy bucket assembly: 5 gallon bucket. Cut 2 inch hole in bottom middle and set the bucket on top of a 2-3 gallon smaller bucket to catch juice in. Set the smaller bucket on top of a 5 gallon lid so that vegetable oil surrounds the small bucket to keep ants out. In the 5 gallon bucket, run the thickest weather stripping you can find from the bottom to the top of the container. Now drill a hole near the top so they can exit out from the ramp. Experience has shown that the weather stripping will come off in weather. So secure it with silicone on top and underneath to the bucket. Place 5 gallon lid on top and only snap it on opposite sides so it isn’t a pain to take back off. Inside the 5 gallon bucket on the bottom, put an upside down colander that will allow it to drain. It is preferable to have this almost same width as the bucket so it won’t shift. I also put rocks in the small bucket to help anchor it from wind. Try to keep the bucket in a shaded spot. Noting that you don’t have to use the almost-adults as feed in my case, I use younger ones. My minnows never let the smaller white larvae hit the bottom of the tank when they get some!
Hey toober,
I like this design, especially the oil moat.
Here’s a few things to consider:
-You may have problems with the lack of ventilation if you maintain a dense colony. If you keep the population low then shading it should be sufficient. Also, if you live in a cool climate overheating shouldn’t be a problem.
-Keeping anything attached to the bucket with adhesive will be a problem because BSF are always trying to dig into every little crack they can find. If silicone will allow you to get through a whole season then I’ll call that a success.
-You might run into drainage problems without a pre filter material over the colander. That all depends on what type of waste you process. Regular additions of wood shavings might keep the liquids draining.
Overall great design, I hope you keep us up to date as you use this.
Are the mature larve, those that crawl away, are they light adverse? Or do they crawl through light?
Because here is what I was brainstorming. Instead of building a ramp for them to exit on, just let them exit by holes in the side of your five gallon container. Since the young larve are light adverse, they would stay away from the light and not exit. But if the mature larve were not adverse to light, they would just crawl through the side in order to go away.
If you needed to harvest the mature larve (which I don’t), you could have the five gallon bucket in a larger bucket with leaves in the bottom.
What are other’s thoughts?
The mature larvae might be a little less photo-phobic, but it’s their nature to hide, probably because such a wide variety of animals prey on them. The mature larvae seem to migrate at night mostly which further indicates that they avoid light.
Exit holes in the side would work, but juvenile larvae would also use them, if not in the daytime then at night for sure.
I’ve used some primitive set ups that do collect larvae using your idea of setting the wet container in a dry container. The problem there goes back to the juveniles escaping. Btw, there’s nothing wrong with a system like that, it just depends on your goals.
I’m also always interested in others ideas.
Please post all pics of homemade BSFL bins! (black soldier fly larvae composters) I need a substitution for the expensive one but am still sold mostly on it’s design. Who can create the first one that is most like the biopod with other materials?
Jerry, quick update…. My colony is increasing, somehow. Some of the silicone is coming apart from the bucket and I did see some larvae trying to go between it and the bucket, they may have been the ones to tear it away too. Looks like larvae is falling through the bottom colander into the bottom white bucket. Maybe they think it is light and go that way instead of up the ramp? Maybe I should have painted it black. My lowes 5 gallon is gray and the bottom 2-3 gallon is white. It doesn’t look wet in the bottom yet but there is a good buildup that needs to be used elsewhere. I can see larvae in the otp and bottom buckets. Maybe I’ll drill a hole in the bottom bucket so they can get out of that one too (since I am not trying to harvest every one of them).
I currently have one big rock in the bottom bucket to weigh it down, this has worked well. The buckets have not tipped over and are next to the house on the porch. I’m sure they get morning/noonish sun. Heat should be escaping the exit/entrance hole near the top of the 5 gallon bucket.
The securing of the lid on only 2 opposites sides has worked well, easy to get off and snap back on without doing the entire 5 gallon lid hassle. Vegetable oil moat has worked well, no ants.
Yes! more pics! I don’t know the best way to do this … save my money or craft one from clay or plastic or something. thoughts?.. and indeed more pics of different ideas for bins!
I know that Jerry has kindly posted some of these pictures in another place, but I will provide the link to my blog of my BSFL Cannon and BSFL condo. They both work very well with the cannon being the simpliest to build and maintain.
http://ophomestead.wordpress.com/
Hi toober, good to hear from you again.
BSF larvae don’t normally crawl towards light but sometimes the mature ones will. Either way I wouldn’t say that they are ever attracted to light. I’d be cautious about any direct sunlight hitting your unit, especially if it’s a dark color. If it get too hot inside the unit the larvae will all try to escape, if they can’t and it reaches 113-115º (45C) they’ll die.