This is my Black Soldier Fly (BSF) bin set up. A 55 gallon water barrel with a hatch cut into one side. My father made this for using as a rolling composter. I inherited two of these, and when I found quite a few BSF Larvae in one of them I switched it over to just raising the larvae. The other one is still doing duty as a composter. It gets less food scraps and has less larvae in it.
The bin is about 1/4 full of substrate and larvae. I have quite a big colony now as my family of four eats a lot of vegetables and we always have plenty of scraps. My self-harvesting system is a ramp made of a piece of 2" PVC pipe and a plastic container with a screw on lid. This works ok, but I need to get Garry to cut the pipe in half for more of its length as it tends to get clogged as it is. As it is the larvae can just climb up the round top of it and exit the bung hole in the side of the barrel, which is a little too big for the pipe.
The pipe goes into a hole cut in the side of the plastic container. This is a tight fit and the larvae fall into the container, which has a tight fitting screw on lid. So far I only have one pipe, but I have plans for two. Again waiting on Garry the power tool man. I have not concentrated a lot on the harvesting part as I have not gotten chickens yet. I fully realize though that harvesting is the whole point of raising the critters and hope to get a more perfect system worked out.
So far I have a lot of larvae and no real use for them, other than the fact that they are reducing my food scrapes and keeping them out of the garbage and landfill ( In addition to the fun I have had in raising them!) I plan on getting chickens and using the BSF as a feed supplement -they are supposed to be high in protein and fat. At the moment I save any BSF I do collect and give them to a friend that has chickens. I have also tried feeding them to our cats. As long as I mix them half-and-half with canned cat food the cats will eat them.
So far I have a lot of larvae and no real use for them, other than the fact that they are reducing my food scrapes and keeping them out of the garbage and landfill ( In addition to the fun I have had in raising them!) I plan on getting chickens and using the BSF as a feed supplement -they are supposed to be high in protein and fat. At the moment I save any BSF I do collect and give them to a friend that has chickens. I have also tried feeding them to our cats. As long as I mix them half-and-half with canned cat food the cats will eat them.
The barrel sits on bricks sunk in pans filled with water. This is to keep out ants. Not shown is a glass bottle with screw on lid attached to a length of garden hose, that collects "compost tea" from a hole drilled in the bottom of the bin.
The other two uses for the BSF larvae (other than chicken and fish feed) is the "compost" and the "compost tea" they produce. I have not done any experiments with this other than feed my red worms some of the "compost". They seemed to like it all right, but, despite what I have read, if you put any of the BSF compost in with your red worms you will get BSF in your worm bin. This isn't too much of a problem. I keep my worm bin pretty dry and do not over feed, but the bin is in the laundry room so maturing Black Soldier Flies find their way into my house.
Mature flies look like pretty black wasps, except since the adults only function is egg production, and they do not even eat in this stage, they have no mouth parts so they can not bite or sting you at all. Also, unlike house flies, they do not carry disease and are not attracted to your food or garbage. When we find one in the house we just catch it and let it go outside.
I have watered a few plants with diluted compost tea, but have nothing to report on the effectiveness since I have not made an experiment out of it.
A small section of the insides showing the larvae. I admit this looks gross, but there is no smell. Usually I save up the days worth of vegetable scraps and feed them to the BSF in the morning. One morning recently I took the scraps outside to the BSF. The BSF were all hidden under the substrate. After I sprinkled the food scraps on top of the substrate the BSF started making a noise like a million tiny bubbles popping, or like rice crispies! I dont know how they know I have just fed them, whether they feel the vibration or if they can somehow smell the food, but they always react. It didn't take them long to swarm all over the scraps.
A BSF studded apple. Clove oranges anyone?
This picture could look gross to you, or you could find it fascinating to watch the critters at work (me.) In the stage above when all is wet and dirty, yes its a little gross, but when the larvae mature they turn black, and climb out of the bin, somehow dry and clean. Even my twelve year old daughter will handle the mature larvae and flies, which says a lot if you know her.
I real like the fact that you have made your own bin for breeding the larvae. I want to start this for my chickens. We have over 30 and feed can get expensive. Thanks so much for posting this on your blog.
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome and let me know how it all works out for you! I still want to have chickens myself.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I am about to start a BSF bin in Ft. Worth.
ReplyDeleteWith chickens, it's even better. Give your scraps to the chickens first, then use their manure to colonize the BSF larvae. Toss in whatever scraps your finicky chickens won't eat in with it, along with soiled bedding materials. BSF make a great clean up crew for chickens, and as if that isn't enough, they provide a wonderful source of food for them afterwards.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. I cant wait tell we have chickens some day!
ReplyDeletedo you have any problems with smell coming from your BSF Bin?
ReplyDeleteDaniel - No the bin does not smell as long as you only put vegetable matter in - no meat or dairy. Somehow the BSF larvae keep the smell down, maybe because they eat everything up so fast.
ReplyDeleteI found your neat blog while searching for info on home made BSFL bins...plan on starting a colony to feed our chickens. I like your set up! A quick question: Is there any reason I couldn't use wood as a "migration ramp" instead of PVC?
ReplyDeleteThank you Callie! You could use wood, but the substrate is pretty wet. Wood would rot eventually, but you could just replace it then. Also the PVC pipe has a nice curve to it that keeps the larvae from falling off. My bin is going on its third year now and still going strong.
ReplyDeletethx 4 for sharing ur info. i am wanting to star a backyard aquaponics system and read that BSFL are a good food source for the fish. You definitely gave me some ideas.
ReplyDeleteThx,
Robert in Corpus Christi, TX.
Yesterday, in the early evening around dinner time (I'm in Texas too) I was preparing a few leftovers from the fridge. In my kitchen, I happened to look up for some reason and on my florescent oblong lighting, I happened to notice 3 black soldier flies. Well, house flies really, but not the great big "cow" flies as I used to call them. But they're the ones which are a bit more robust than the smaller ones. Anyway, I'm wondering.. how did they get inside my house? They were up there on the light, appeared to be feeding. They would make a few buzzes down and around, and then go straight back up to that light fixture. Then, I got rid of them, and later there were 2 more flying aroundn at different times. It's "bugging" me how they came in, and from where? And why? I did have a bag of apples out, and I got freaked out that they were larvae or something in those apples and came in this way. I admit that I put peelings from veggies I may have in the sink in my flower beds, etc. but I didn't have anything in my kitchen sink at the moment, just a few dirty dishes still there. I try to remove the peelings from the kitchen as I prepare dinner or at least AFTER dinner. This might be a silly comment to leave, but I'd appreciate any advice, as I couldn't find any info on these critters, only how to raise them. I'm so concerned how they were in my kitchen, so many of them too. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteIf they are regular house flies then they actually wait by doors and get in when you open them. The color white attracts flies. We have a green front door and a white side door, and we see flies by the white door but not the green one. Flies also can sense temperature differences between the inside of your house and the outside - a tiny hole to the outside with air of a more desirable temperature coming from it will attract flies, who can crawl into the house.
ReplyDeleteGetting rid of the flies is a problem. I have seen stuff on the internet for making fly traps, but they just don't seem to work for me. The best solution we have found is a child or husband with a fly swatter! or fly paper (which is gross).
If it really is a Black Soldier fly I would just catch them and throw them outside. BSF may look like small wasps, but they do not have stingers (they are a flies) so they wont hurt you. BSF do not have mouth parts and do not feed, so they do not get on spoiled food or poop and do not subsequently spread disease.
Black soldier Flies get in our house all the time because I am raising them on a porch and the larvae can crawl right under a door we have that needs the weather stripping fixed! They don't hurt anything, so I just enlist a willing child to throw them out.
I have a vermicomposting bin with red wiggler worms. It gets full of these larvae. I have been trying to pick the BSF larvae out. The worms seem to want to be away from the BSFs and climb out of the bin. Do you know if the worms and BSFs can work together?
ReplyDeleteI have only tried raising worms once and all mine crawled out too, I think because I let them get too dry. I have never had any problems with raising my BSF though, maybe you should give that a try instead. Sorry I have no real help.
DeleteI have a semi large scale compost project in Savannah with worms and bsfl working together to make an extraordinary finished product. On one end of the pile veggie scraps, coffee grinds and brown matter are shrunk down to one third the original size within a week. This side is prominently bsfl at work. As you move down the line, worm concentration becomes higher and higher until the finished product- black gold with about 10-20 earthworms per handful. All this is just a pile on the ground that filled itself up with hard working bugs.
ReplyDeleteIn another project of mine, a tripple bin composter has tirned into bsfl sanctuary. I'm looking for ways to convert the bins to fit that role. For example: a fine mesh screen about half way up with bins underneath to catch the sludge and pipes coming out every so many feet for self harvesting. Any ideas?
Have you seen my post about the new and improved set up?
Deletehttp://texasurbanhomestead.blogspot.com/2013/05/my-new-and-improved-black-soldier-fly.html
I have found that I catch a lot more of my larvae with the new set up. You are always going to lose a lot with ramps, but if you are catching enough to meet your needs than that does not matter. All you can do is try your idea. Just know that the larvae can squeeze through the smallest crack and the sludge pretty much clogs any mesh up pretty fast.