There are more than 100,000 species of flies, but in most people’s minds a fly is a fly, period. The species most people automatically think of are the house flies, blow flies, and bottle flies. Our disdain for these pests is understandable because they are known transmitters of human diseases, but non-pest black soldier flies are different in several ways. The most important difference is that BSF are not vectors of human pathogens. Black soldier flies rarely go into human habitats or land on people, and the adult black soldier fly doesn’t even eat during it’s short lifespan. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, on to the mythbusting. 
Swarms of black soldier flies = myth
I’m convinced that most people imagine a swarm of black soldier flies hovering around a BSF composting unit such as a BioPod. They would be wrong. I’ve been culturing black soldier fly larvae for one and a half years and the greatest number of winged adults I’ve seen at any one time is less than 10. Most of the time when I check my BioPod there are no flies near it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before noon (apparently they sleep in), and you don’t see them when the sun is low or at night.
In case I haven’t made my point, BSF adults (winged stage) are relatively rare. One reason is that the adults only live a few days, just long enough to breed and lay eggs, and then they die. Contrast this with house flies that live 30 days or more. In the short period that BSF spend as adult flies there just isn’t enough time for big social gatherings such as swarms.
Black soldier flies pester people = myth
Black soldier flies can’t bite or sting and they don’t eat so they have no interest in people. As mentioned above you probably won’t see many BSF adults and if you do they will usually ignore you. On the rare occasions when a BSF adult lands on me it’s most often when I’ve been handling larvae and I have their scent on my hands. They land then because the subtle scent of BSF larvae is a powerful attractant to BSF females and if one lands on me I always pause to admire this beautiful beneficial insect. To be honest, I usually refer to any BSF adults I see around the BioPod as “the girls”, because males are not attracted to the unit. All of the BSF near the BioPod will be females looking for a good site to lay eggs.
To be continued… larvae, biopod, composting, black soldier fly, flies, composter
Comments 9
As the distributor for the BioPod in Australia (we will also ship regionally) I am happy to say that BSF are alive and well in Australia. Murray’s utube clip shows a unit in operation.
Did you know that a residential BioPod will convert 1 tonne of food wast peryear, and that a commercial unit will convert 5 tonnes of waste a year into usable protein?
Contact us to get your units up and producing. We encourage commercial growers of larvae and are happy to work with you to get to a tonnage output stage.
Posted 06 Dec 2008 at 8:37 pm ¶hi,
Posted 18 Dec 2008 at 10:45 pm ¶do you sell biopods in australia, how much are they and do you also send the seeding kit
regards
ben
Hi ben,
I don’t personally sell BioPods in Australia but David Watson of Circle Three Group does. You can find him at http://www.circle3.com or phone him at 1300-76-77-78 or 61733744188. I don’t know about the availability of starter kits, but if you have BSF in your area they aren’t essential.
Posted 18 Dec 2008 at 10:59 pm ¶Hello Jerry!
Wow! I have spent all day, and I mean ALL day, reading every possible thing I could find about BSFL. The majority of it was from you!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
We are currently in the process of purchasing a farm and are looking at sustainable, environmentally sustainable practices, with as little work from us as possible. I worried most about feeding the pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese through the winter as I’m in Canada.
We obviously need to develope some type of breeding enclosure and keep the habitat indoors to produce the amount of BSFL we will need but I’m thinking! For now we are going to try it in our very large bearded dragon habitat. I haven’t read of anyone trying this particular set up before so I’ll keep you posted.
You can read a bit about us on our brand new plog at http://thebrockingtonsjourney.blogspot.com/
Thanks again, Carol-Anne
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 4:08 am ¶Your project sounds very interesting Carol-Anne. I’m sure BSF can be beneficial in some way, but I don’t think you’ll be able to use them as feed through the winter.
There have been several attempts to breed BSF indoors and to my knowledge no one has succeeded. BSF require natural sunlight to mate, and the length of the day is important. Simply giving them a warm environment with natural light hasn’t led to successful indoor breeding in the winter months. I did hear a rumor that someone had found a type of artificial light that the BSF accept, but so far there’s no documentation of it.
Good luck and keep us posted if you work with BSF.
Posted 06 Jan 2009 at 11:10 am ¶Thanks Jerry. I did do a bit more research and came across the studies relating to this. There seems to be limited research. The successful indoor operations seem to be in rather large greenhouses because of the mating habits of the BSF. If I could get some BSF larvae I would be happy to experiment in the environment I do have.
The habitat isn’t simply a warm environment. We also have a full spectrum light (replicates full natural sunlight). It’s not the average light that people have for lizards. It’s actually one used for indoor growing operations. Not a necessary thing for our beardies but one we felt they had a right to.
However, it’s significantly more expensive, requires more electricity and is a little more fragile (will break if water is splashed on it). So, I would imagine most that are just looking to have a few BSFL as feeders would not go to the trouble, or expense. But, since we are already doing both ;}, I thought I would like to give it a try. It’s not like the BSFL would really cost me that much so why not?
Alas, finding them seems to be the problem now so we may well need to wait until spring.
Posted 06 Jan 2009 at 12:34 pm ¶I’ve often wondered about the supply of “Phoenix worms” in the winter. I know that Dr. Sheppard of phoenixworm.com is in the southeastern US and even here the BSF just don’t breed this time of year. I suppose it’s possible he builds up a surplus in the summer and slows their development by keeping them cool.
Posted 06 Jan 2009 at 2:40 pm ¶Hi Jerry & Carol-Anne,
I can’t speak for SE USA, but in Australia, at least from Brisbane (Nimbin for Aussies
) north, we have year round breeding of wild BSF. They do slow down but continue to fly and lay eggs, even on the shortest day of the year.
While there have been green house trials (see http://www.circle3.com ~ PDF Links ~ Green House mating - factors ) that speak to captive breeding, the eggs have been sterile. They used small cages to breed the flies. Control groups outside the green house had fertile eggs, while ones inside did not.
I understand a breeder outside the USA has created a successful artificial light in a controlled indoor environment. I would be interested to hear if you have luck with grow lights. What model and brand, intensity do you use?
Posted 06 Jan 2009 at 7:54 pm ¶David, I’m very far south in the US, just a few miles north of Florida, and I haven’t observed any egg laying in my BioPod for several months. One exception was a single female that I saw on November 11. Naturally I may have missed a few, but I also haven’t observed any small larva. We just had a few days with relatively warm temperatures so I’ll check for new larvae in 5 or 6 days.
I’ve read that people have successfully bred BSF in enclosures that measure approximately 3m square. I’ll see if I can find a source.
Posted 06 Jan 2009 at 8:47 pm ¶Post a Comment