Dears,

Does the female BSF prefer to lay her eggs in a shade environment or under sunlight. Where should I put my cardboar? Shade or sun?

My guess is that shade/sun is not very important if at all. I think the key factor is the waste used as an attractant.

Pisa, you cardboard strips will work well. I suggest you attach them along the periphery of your bin about 1 to 2 inches below the lid. Your bin itself is the most powerful attractant. The food and grubs will bring the adults in. I notice perhaps a slight increase in egglaying in my shaded bins as opposed to my sunny bins.

You might consider tacking your strips to the inside of the bin with little 1 inch long pieces of velcro tape. You want to leave both edges of the corrugations in your cardboard strips open for egglaying. I see fully 90 percent of egg clusters laid on the underneath side of the strips, but I do get a few in the top side as well. The adult females like to crawl underneath the strip and squirt their eggs into the corrugations in the "butt up" posture from below.

Most egglaying in my area seems to begin in late morning and it peaks in late afternoon. Even my sunny bins are shaded by late afternoon, so perhaps the shade plays a bit of a factor.

By the way, I've become somewhat of an expert in collecting egg clusters. I've collected 2,105 egg clusters since 10/13/2010. I found 81 clusters yesterday alone, and totalled 375 last week!

I don't see any reason that your device wouldn't work. I've seen females laying in full sun and in total shade. The sun may be helpful if heating the attractant creates a stronger scent trail for the BSF to follow. Perhaps it would be best to angle the voids in the cardboard so that they are not penetrated by direct sunlight.