Insulation isn’t cutting it for my outdoor bins

Hello,

I’m looking to connect with folks in New Jersey who are into black soldier fly composting. I’m particularly interested in setups for processing food waste and learning about the best practices, challenges, and how it’s working out for you.

If you’re composting with BSF or know someone who does, I’d love to hear from you! Tips on getting started or scaling up are also super welcome.

I'm really keen to start a BSF farm - seems like it will solve my problems of having lots of food waste taking ages to breakdown in our mild climate, and making chicken food at the same time. All sounds great. Does anyone have any pictures or designs of their successful BSF farms in the UK? I'm planning on having the farm in an insulated farm shed, but will obviously still need additional heating. Also, does anyone have any sources of buying the BSF eggs to start the process in the UK? Cheers

Hello, I've been wondering what country has the cheapest dried BSF larvae. And I mean like 30 cents a kilo. I saw it somewhere that a company somewhere sold it at that price point but I can't seem to remember which one.

What is it for?

Just goes to show how hearty these things really are.

I had several hundred BSF larva that I hand raised early this summer. Unfortunately here in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, we have many more native Yellow Jackets and Horse Flies than BSF (they are apparently all imported and rare here). And the combination of those and some Earwigs mostly killed off my population.

Today I was out sorting my Mealworm pupa (who are really thriving) and I saw this little guy in the porch. I honestly thought they were all dead. So into a little container he went. I’ll be scouting out my yard for more and rebuild their habitat. Hopefully I can get them going again before the frost.

Many dedicated lighting systems are very expensive, which cheaper alternatives do you recommend? What characteristics do I have to respect in order to achieve mating?

BACKGROUND: I started my bin a summers ago and left it alone for a while since I started losing hope in it. But alias I recently checked my bin and it was thriving with thrice the amount of larvae I’ve put in.

My first question is, how do I keep them warm? Frost is starting to hit and I think I would like to try to keep them alive.

My second question is, will the BSF come back to my bin when it’s warm again?

1 will they eat moldy food or is that something to avoid

2 im curious if they’re any hood at cleaning flesh off skulls and bones like turkey skeleton or deer skull and if they’d eat feather or fur in small amount

A local neighbor was kind enough to give me about half a coffee can of bsfl, and although I’ve been doing okay with my mealworm colony (I need to ask for tips there too though tbh), I’ve noticed some things going on with my bsfl. Do I need to be turning/rotating their substrate/the compost they’re in? When I check on them daily I notice about 3-4 crawling out of the lid but when I open the lid to see how, there’s no others trying to climb or anything. I saw something online mentioning I should use window screen or some sort of mesh to help with ventilation and where they can’t escape but if they’re already coming out of the lid then… would that work…? Is it too wet in there? Is that how they’re climbing? Any advice or mistakes to be mindful of and avoid would be helpful and very appreciated. I take pride in my animal care, and that now includes my bugs. If there’s something I can do to make em happier and healthier I’ll do it. I want to get comfortable and build confidence with raising mealworms and bsfl, and eventually I’d love to start a butterfly apiary but that won’t be until I have these lil guys’ needs down pat.

They’re currently in one of those black plastic storage totes with the red lids. I filled it roughly 2/3-1/2 of the way full with a mixture of compost, shavings, and kitchen scraps. There’s holes up top for ventilation, a little less than 1/4” in diameter. It used to be a worm bin for nightcrawlers but unfortunately life got in the way and I wasn’t able to keep up with it but I’ve moved it to a more readily accessible spot since then. I have it outside in partial shade, on the ground. The person who gave them to me had them in one of those bbq-sized compost turner barrels that sit on a stand, with the lid wide open. The barrel itself was pretty close in size to the bin I have them in now.

I catch spotted lanturn flies regularly with the bottle method and throw in a rubbing alcohol pad to suffocate them. Sometimes I forget to open the bottle the next day and they start to smell so I let them breathe for a bit with the lid off before I dump them in my compost bin. (The eggs won't hatch unless they were actually laid.)

Yesterday, I found this in one of the bottles. I looked around and saw that there were other groupings in several other bottles, even some empty ones!

Are these Black Soldier Fly eggs? I had some last year, but they were being bitchy about actually laying. If this SLF trick works, I'm going to freeze a bunch to use as my egg laying sites.

I found a discount link for Black Soldier Fly on Amazon

Claim Code： 40PVPID7
Brand: BUCATSTATE
https://www.amazon.com/promocode/A5JY2B0RMFYJS

Welp my first round of breeding in my tent went great. I was out there at 9 AM dancing in my underwear with my butterfly catching net when I first saw them catching each other in air and landing butt to butt. But now, after the majority of that generation died off, I'm left with very active decent population of pretty darn large flies dancing about in the air - but no one ever manages a soft enough landing to stay connected. It seems like they're too heavy or something. I've tinkered with my light setup, my heat, and my humidity, the proximity of a surface for them to land upon more gently - but I cannot get back to where I was right at the start - with a bunch of flies sitting together for many minutes clearly doing the deed.

My only hope is that they don't actually NEED to stay butt to butt? That maybe the transfer is happening in the air? The density isn't where it was, but it's still clearly an active airspace. Any suggestions?

hello BSF community! i live in long beach, california in a condo with my boyfriend. three days ago, i noticed a bug flying around inside our unit. i didn't think much of it, caught the bug and set it free outside. strangely, every day since then i have found the same species of bug inside our unit. today, i found two more crawling on the inside of the window. i identified it as a black soldier fly (photo attached) and have been intrigued as to how or why they are finding their way inside. from my research, i understand that they are benign and highly sought after for vermicomposting.

would it be unwise to try creating a habitable space for the adult flys to lay eggs indoors? would you have recommendations on how to do this? otherwise, i will just keep catching them and setting them free outside... but they seem to enjoy the inside of our unit....

For those of you with outdoor bins, what are ways you ensure your bins stay in range for humidity and heat levels? I noticed about a week ago the larvae weren’t getting enough food, now I’ve over saturated them with produce and some spoiled meat. I expected them to devour it quickly but today I checked and the meat seems untouched, and unfortunately maggots have gotten in.