Raising Black Soldier Flies in Cold Regions

Mike B
#1. January 18th, 2009, at 4:13 PM.

I had wondered about using them in Canada too. There are bound to be some concerns (government regulations?) about introducing a foreign species of insect. Those concerns aside it would require a habitat that would support their entire life cycle including the airborne phase. Perhaps inside a green house?

Jennifer S
#3. January 20th, 2009, at 6:19 PM.

I’m an unwilling expert on BSF, and I can tell you for sure that breeding them indoors is not a problem. My Can-O-Worms became infested with them last year, and I had them in a spare bedroom. After a month or so, hubby figured out that they were related to my worm bin and evicted the worms from the house. I had hundreds of those black pod things everywhere – stuck in the carpet, under the TV, under other stuff piled on the floor, just everywhere. I don’t think they need anything other than air to successfully mate, and a worm bin is just perfect for them.

Be careful, as they do fly around the entire house, and they are annoying. I also had some that were enormous, maybe a special Florida breed, but they upset hubby and the kids a lot. My explanations of what good decomposers they are, along with the information that they do not carry disease like regular houseflies was met with rolled eyes. Apparently being a worm nut has affected my credibility in all things bug related.

FYI, if you move them outside into a screened patio with a pool, on cool nights all of the larvae fall into the pool. I assume they were attracted to the heat, but they weren’t talking.

I think you can order them from pet supply companies, they are sold as lizard food under the name Phoenix Worms, I believe. I tried to convince hubby that we should figure out how to sell them, but he wasn’t interested.

allochthon
#4. January 21st, 2009, at 5:59 PM.

I’ll be putting up a (hopefully) 4-season aquaponics greenhouse in Minnesota this spring, and plan to try to raise BSF in it. I’ll report back, if someone reminds me. I’ll definitely have compost worms in there…

Mike B
#6. January 24th, 2009, at 4:15 PM.

I’m fascinated by the potential of BSF for waste handling.

The 4ft dia “Pod” has a stated Digestion Rate of 9.5 kg or 21 lbs / day (based on 1/2 full unit) or 3.5 tonnes/year. Quite a number of these could be fit into a heated warehouse to process food waste on an industrial scale. The site also mentions that the grubs generate while digesting waste which would reduce heating costs.

One drawback to the “Pods” is that they are not a flow through design but have to be dumped (like a worm bin) to harvest the castings. Their numbers indicate that each Pod’s 3.5 tonnes/year of waste would produce 174kg of castings.

Mike B
#7. January 24th, 2009, at 4:21 PM.

Bentley I screwed up with a link in my last post and couldn’t find a way to edit. Anyhow clicking on any of the underlined text will take you to http://www.thebiopod.com/

Mike B
#8. January 25th, 2009, at 6:35 PM.

I’ve been surfing the BSFL websites/blogs a bit more and it looks like http://www.bugorder.com in Alberta sell cups of 100-150 BSFL marketed as “phoenix worms” for $10 as pet food. There’s also an Ontario site http://www.recorp.ca which sell for about the same price but have a minimum order of $100.

Of course a 100 BSFL aren’t going to do much and I don’t know how much success you’d have in mating the adults. At least this seems to indicate that importing BSF into Canada is OK.

Mike B
#9. February 11th, 2009, at 10:29 PM.

An insulated outdoor BSFL bin

Mike B
#10. February 11th, 2009, at 10:32 PM.

An insulated outdoor BSFL bin
http://www.esrla.com/winter/frame.htm

MikeB
#11. March 27th, 2009, at 9:42 PM.

Indoor BSF breeding

After a few months of work, BioSystems Design nailed all the right conditions and had its first eggs of a contained reproductive cycle hatch this week.

http://biosystemsdesign.wordpress.com/

Union Glashutte
#12. February 1st, 2010, at 12:37 AM.

I like the idea of feeding the larvae to the fish… It seems like you could save a lot of money by reusing the larvae. We are moving to the north and I was wondering how I was going to keep my black flies alive.. great read.
-Sylvia

Oscar
#13. February 23rd, 2010, at 6:47 PM.

i been keeping mi pod on my green house in California i don’t see any soldier fly around this area but so far they are doing great on the greenhouse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t8PctZgcRw