http://www.hbindependent.com/news/opinion/tn-hbi-0722-natural-20100721,0,2758200.story

I have noted hatched BSF pupae on walls around my house for years without realizing what they were. It has only been in recent months that I’ve noticed live larvae in my compost pile, but that has been one or two here and there.

Then, about three weeks ago, I was showing my compost pile to a columnist for the HB Independent and I hit a pocket of maybe ten larvae. Plus we saw an adult BSF. She was interested and has written a column that will be published in tomorrow’s Independent (a Thursday weekly). I have not seen the column. Maybe it will provide some sources. Good luck.

Jerry,
also a question,like i had said i’m new and still trying to get my bsf going,but my adult larva that i had put in a bucket with saw dust,well thay all look sucked up and flat, could you tell me what i am doing wrong,
thank you.

Of course it does!! 8^)

Fermented grain is a BSF magnet. One of the names people use for BSF larvae in Georgia is “meal maggot” because they’re often found in damp and fermenting grain and animal feed. They don’t represent a serious problem because they don’t inhabit dry, properly stored feed/grain.

I live in Georgia, 20 miles north of Tallahassee Florida. I see BSF activity roughly half of the year so in terms of temperature you have twice the opportunity to increase your BSF population. Another way to look at it is that you have twice the opportunity to feed BSF larvae to animals. Yes, BSF survive the winter here, but the important part is that they don’t reproduce during that period and consequently they are not available as feed and the population is (mostly) static.

As important as temperature is to BSF reproduction it is far less a factor than predation. I’ve read that BSF females lay between 500 and 900 eggs and I’ll use the average of 700 for the purpose of this discussion. I’ve also been told that the ratio of females to males is approximately 1/1. If a BSF population is in equilibrium then a mating pair will ultimately produce one other successfully mating pair and so on. If the original pair of BSF are only survived by two successful adults then that means that 698 of their eggs/larvae had no effect on the reproduction rate, largely due to predation. In nature the vast majority of that 698 would have been eaten while in the larval stage by the wide range of animals that prey on them. We can effect the BSF population dramatically by increasing the survival rate of the larvae/pupae through adult from 2 to something near 700. On the other hand, if you protect the 700 BSF only to a point and then use them to feed animals you won’t have a noticeable effect on the size of the local population. In fact, if you are very careful about containing the developing larvae, and also very thorough in feeding them all to animals then you could theoretically be decreasing the local population. If my theory is correct protecting some BSF to maturity will have a far greater impact on the population than constant reproduction due to year round warmth.

If my math is correct the typical survival rate is around .3% or less. Since the equilibrium of the population depends on a high BSF mortality rate you can effect the population noticeably even if you preserve only a small percentage of them to maturity. I have sold a lot of my BSF to others in the form of starter kits, and I have also fed quite a few to my pond fish, the local toads, and to the feral peafowl around my place. I haven’t kept records but if I had to guess I would say that I’ve protected 10-15% of my BSF to the point where they emerge and fly away to mate.

I don’t know what the population curve will do if you protect higher and higher percentages of BSF to maturity, but my math challenged brain believes that the curve would be exponential. In other words; preserving 20% of the BSF versus 10% would result in many times more BSF than simply doubling it. It would be great if someone with better math/science skills would review my thinking on this, but that’s my best seat-of-the-pants effort.