Black Soldier Flies

For serious composters, Black Soldier Flies, hermetia illucensor, are a miracle insect. The BSF larvae (grubs) love putrid wastes, and are highly efficient at composting them. Grubs can reduce the mass of waste by 95%, leaving a fine compost behind, as well as a compost tea that, once diluted, is an excellent fertilizer for the garden. They don’t like competition, so they give off a distinctive odor to repel other flies. Adult BSF don't eat waste and so are not a pest in any way.

Once the grubs are ready to pupate, they climb out of the compost bin (as long as the ramp is 30-45 degrees), and drop themselves into a bucket, a meal fit for any number of small livestock, like chickens, fish, lizards, quail, and even pigs. They’ll convert 5 pounds of waste into 1 pound of high protein grubs, and they’ll do it faster than you would believe.

At the old place, we had tried repeatedly to raise BSF, but the lack of humidity had always made it very difficult. So, when we moved to the new place, we were delighted to find out that they were already present. We rigged up a small compost bin, and have been collecting BSF ever since.

 

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Black Soldier Flies

Grubage bin

A while back an online friend sent us some Black Soldier Fly Larvae. We put them in a bucket that Abe rigged up to meet their needs. However, their population has been growing, and so Abe has just finished making them a bigger home, out of a half barrel.

Black Soldier Flies (BSF) are the homesteader's new best friend, as useful as earthworms. The larvae eat all kinds of "putrid" or stinky waste (like rotting meat and manure of any kind) and they eat it FAST, before it even starts to smell. Then, as the grub gets ready to transform into an adult fly, it will walk up a ramp and drop itself conveniently into a collection vessel, which makes a great, high protein treat for pigs or guineas (or other omnivorous livestock).

You want to allow some of the larvae to make it to adult stage, so that your population will continue to increase. However, do not assume that "fly" is synonymous with a household pest. These flies exist only long enough to reproduce. They do not eat, and so are not interested in coming into your house. What's more, they see other flies, like the house fly and fruit flies, as competition and so secrete a chemical that deters them from laying eggs anywhere near them. So, once your BSF population is established, you will see a marked decrease in other competing flies.

We have not yet started to feed our pigs these grubs. We are trying to get our population well established before we harvest them. Once they have settled into their new home, and have converted rabbit, pig and guinea poop into more BSF, we will begin that process. Pigs, of course, eat anything, but it is protein that makes them grow faster and that represents the biggest cost in feed. Fresh BSF larvae have a protein content similar to soy meal (45%). Once the BSF are in full swing, we will empty the contents of the self-harvesting bucket into a solar oven and pasteurize them (to make sure any bad bugs contained in the poop are killed) and give it to the pigs. Apparently, they love them!

For more photos of the Grubage bin, click here. We will shortly post a full how-to on the website too.

Black Soldier Flies

A pretty exciting new addition to our household is some Black Soldier Flies.

There's a guy on Abe's favorite forum, permies.com, who got chatting to Abe and then sent us some of these incredible little creatures for free - (Thanks a lot ape99!).

They eat anything dead or rotting, and eat it very quickly. There are videos of people putting dead animals in a container of these BSF and in the morning the carcass is gone. Once we increase our population, we plan to use them to compost all manure, animal and human. Their waste can then go to worms. And there is one added bonus: the maggots harvest themselves and can fill all of a chicken's (or even pig's) protein needs. When the maggots are ready to change into adults, they climb up out of their container into whatever you put on the other end. For them to breed, you let some outside. They will turn into adults (a wasp-like fly) for just a day or two and their only job as an adult is to breed. They will lay their eggs in the same container you keep the maggots, which give off a hormone that attracts the female adult.

Wish I could have included a photo of the bucket home Abe made for them, but it's so cold outside I don't want to open them up! We'll keep you posted as our colony increases.