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Category Archives: Raising black soldier fly larvae

refreshing the colony

Starting my third year with the black soldier fly I’m going into this season with a small colony made up of grubs that were laid last fall. Where I live the winters are mild so it was fairly easy to maintain the colony through the cool months. At the end of last summer my BioPod [...]

Posted 03 May 2009 † Jerry § The BioPod § Vermiculture and BSF composting ‡ Comments (9) ° Tagged: , , , , , ,

Black solidier fly larvae-variation in growth rate

I recently collected a newly laid clutch of black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens)eggs for a photographic study of their development and I isolated three of them for the photos. I placed the three individuals and the remaining few hundred BSF from that clutch into identical containers. I didn’t keep detailed records, but there is an [...]

Posted 24 September 2008 † Jerry § My first year raising BSF § Understanding black soldier flies § Vermiculture and BSF composting ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

Black soldier fly composting in the frigid north

Actually, this post applies to any region that has seasonal temperatures below that which support BSF mating. This encompasses the entire continental U.S. except for a few extreme southern areas. Black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens) are common in tropical and subtropical regions, but their range extends into many northern states of the continental U.S. You [...]

Posted 16 August 2008 † Jerry § Understanding black soldier flies ‡ Comments (48) ° Tagged: , ,

Collecting the immature larvae

This method doesn’t involve the dark, prepupal larvae which are self-harvesting The coffee colored black soldier fly grubs (prepupae) are the final stage before pupation into adult BSF (Hermetia illucens). To our advantage they are programmed by nature to crawl away from the food source in search of a suitable pupation site. In a properly [...]

Posted 25 July 2008 † Jerry § Utilizing black soldier fly larvae ‡ Comments (22) ° Tagged: ,

My new BIOPOD™ by ProtaCulture™

After working with and blogging about black soldier fly larvae (Hermetia illucens) for over a year I finally have one of the first BioPods. For the past year I’ve been getting by with my homemade unit and I’m looking forward to testing this product. With that previous experience I’m pretty familiar with the shortcomings of [...]

Posted 11 July 2008 † Jerry § The BioPod § Vermiculture and BSF composting ‡ Comments (13) ° Tagged: ,