Comments on: Raising Black Soldier Flies in Cold Regions

By: Oscar

Oscar — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:47:36 +0000

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

By: Union Glashutte

Union Glashutte — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:37:39 +0000

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

By: MikeB

MikeB — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 21:42:09 +0000

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/

By: Mike B

Mike B — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:32:07 +0000

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

By: Mike B

Mike B — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:29:54 +0000

An insulated outdoor BSFL bin

By: Mike B

Mike B — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:35:58 +0000

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.

By: Mike B

Mike B — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 16:21:04 +0000

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/

By: Mike B

Mike B — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 16:15:19 +0000

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.

By: Bentley

Bentley — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:02:26 +0000

Fantastic!
Please keep us posted.

By: allochthon

allochthon — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:59:18 +0000

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…