I'm absolutely not a seasoned composter, but just had a run in with the BSFL recently. I stopped feeding my pile any greens for a couple weeks, and picked them out as often as I could. They're gone now, as far as I can tell.

A search here will tell you way more than I could in one post. Some will come along and tell you you're pile is too wet. I'm w/ the group that just leaves 'em be. I turn the pile weekly, and add from the kitchen almost daily. I'm not worried about BSFL they are part of natures composting crew.

I've heard they're okay in a good gravy! I wonder what they'd be like in a nice garlic butter? Sorta like escargot I bet!

Lloyd

P.S. Seriously? I've never seen 'em, I think I'm too far north.

Yeah, my pile was most definitely not too wet when they showed up, and while I do think they have their place sometimes, I need my greens to stick around long enough for my pile to heat up, and the BSFL don't really allow for that with their rate of consumption. If I were just using it as a means to reduce household waste, I'd leave them be.

I am just guessing here and I am inviting the more expert composters t comment.
If you add more brown (shredded newspaper, cardboard, wood chipsshavings and that kind of stuff), with the amount of green and the yuck the BSFL left, and making sure the pile is not dry, shouldn't the pile heat up in a few days and kill the maggots in there? BSFL will not eat paper.

I do have BSFL in my worm bin that I picked out everyday and feed to the birds coming to my yard,, but not in my CP.

They eat up the greens really quickly, so adding more browns to the pile once greens have been mostly depleted, doesn't do anything. At least, it didn't in my pile. It's kind of like having browns, on top of browns, on top of browns and hoping that it'll heat up on its own. They are voracious green consumers. If I ever find any again, I think I'll do as some others have done and put them in a dish for the birds. There's a pair of bluejays that live in a tree in my yard, which happens to be right next to the pile, so maybe they'll enjoy a snack.

I'm a seasoned composter, and I've tried every "management" extreme I could think of to avoid BSFL. As far as I can tell, if conditions are right for compost then conditions are right for BSFL.

That said, I'm sure they are more attracted to wet green piles than drier browner piles. For me here in Tennessee, it just doesn't make a difference in the end. I guess mine might be the only compost pile in my subdivision (deplorable state of affairs!) so when I've kept it dry and brown heavy it hasn't stopped them. Once BSFL are in your compost, they own it. They will eat anything green whenever it comes, however long it takes, to mature and pupate.

The first summer I really had them I didn't know much about them, and I just overwhelmed them with enough coffee grounds, grass clippings, and urine that my pile heated up. I was SHOCKED at the amounts required, but it did heat up.

The BSFL were undisturbed. Temps of 145 -150 did not bother them in the LEAST. The pile cooled quickly, relative to what one usually sees, and never 'finished.' It was churned and liquified to muck glue, and got stinky. There's a particular barnyard aroma to BSFL piles. Their waste isn't a finished product, and it tends to follow gravity (in the classic manner of such things rolling downhill) so that the bottom few inches can't get air.

The pile I have now is very much like a pasta dish--intact weed seedhead stalks, twigs, spent daylily scapes, strips of newpaper, bits of sawdust, all covered in a brown coating of...well, you know.

I put a fly swatter out there this summer, and I kill any adult I see, on the 'no egg, no larva' plan. I suppose I've bred up a local overpopulation of BSF's, with larva and pupae going dormant each winter until the next spring. My pile is an open pile on the ground, and without realizing the whole lifecycle of the things, I 'made' it into a reliable summer breeding habitat.

I'm thinking about starting off next year with a garbage can--sounds grim, but at least then the mature larvae can't crawl off to pupate. If they 'all' lay 'all' the eggs in a solid plastic garbage can, I can put said can in my truck and take the whole business two hours away to my mother's farm--Mom has chickens, and Mom is tough. Mom once shook Japanese beetles off her fruit trees onto a sheet and saved a five gallon bucket of them in her freezer to feed her pet chickens over winter.

The beetles didn't die, BTW, they'd warm up in the winter sun and when they started crawling they were chicken food.

Black Soldier Fly larva are used to consume animal manures and the only thing the adult flies do in their about 30 day life is look for another BSF to mate with, so except as a food source of predatory insects or birds they really serve no purpose. The larva need a fairly moist environment to hatch, live, and pupate and that can be an indication that a compost pile with BSF larva in it is a bit too wet. Some good sources of information about composting do not address the issue and some will tell you that the presence of the BSF larva is a sign of poor management of that compost pile. I have noticed often when these larva are present there is a putrid odor to the compost indicating too much moisture which displaces the necesary air which creates that putrid odor.

thank you everyone!! i have decided to get rid of what's in the pile now, wait a little bit and start anew. I definitly did not use enough brown, realizing that now, but i also remember that i saw the little buggers in the yard in a pile of yard clippings in a bin before i even started composting so they were here already somehow. I offered the maggots to a local chicken farmer but she was concerned about introducing them around her house, so i might put them out in a dish for birds or i guess they will feed birds at the local dump ultimately! really appreciate all your thoughtful responses. I'm new to garden web. it's great place!

YOu are getting rid of whats in the pile now? How are you going to do that? Certainly don't throw it out!

Just add more browns...

Its the green veggie material that attracts the BSFL and it has little to do with moisture.

IME, BSFL will make a dry pile moist...so if you see them you should add more browns...

When you add more browns the pile will heat up and the BSFL will die or you just wait and they will turn into flies and fly away.

Don't throw your compost away, just add more browns.

"I spread my crap pasta stuff out on a tarp"

Is this a new form of lasagna gardening?

Oh, don't "start over". I can't imagine having a compost goal of never having any soldier fly larvae, ever. It would be too much like looking at composting as requiring a recipe and a perfect rate of completion and outcome, like baking perfect bread that either comes out "right" or is tossed out if it goes a bit one way or the other. I mean, one piece of pumpkin or apple in a bit cooler area of a pile may harbor some larvae.

I find that it only takes a day to get it heated up and cooking. Weekly turning will keep it cooking, and I don't usually see them in the core. They might stick around on top if I don't have enough browns to cover it with. BSFL are just a normal part of composting if they live in your region.

DON"T throw it away! At least put it in a clear bag for the city "leaf pickup". As already mentioned, no need to start over, just get it cooking . IALBTC.

If you have maggots in your compost and do wish to eliminate them a dessicant, such as blood meal (alsto a Nitrogen source), will dry the buggers out killing them and could aid in getting that compost pile to heat up.

I have made quite a mess with my first compost attempt, and am hoping for a little advice.

My husband bought me an Aerobin for Christmas. It's nice and sturdy and doesn't need to be turned. Since we are in Florida with lots of heat and critters, I was comfortable with this composter.

I put in kitchen scraps and hay and some paper. Things went well, though during the cooler months it wasn't breaking down much. Then about a month or so ago we noticed that all the gnats were gone, the stuff was starting to break down, and the bin was full of what seemed to be Black Soldier Fly maggots. The smell was fine, and I read up on it and thought it was ok, so I let it go.

The Aerobin has a tea spout at the bottom along with a bottom drainage system. A couple weeks ago I noticed that the bottom of the Aerobin was seeping sludge. The tea spout produced a lot of liquid, but didn't stop the seeping sludge. I opened the side doors and it was just disgusting. Maggots fell out, sludge fell out, and it smelled like sewage.

I read the Aerobin website which did not mention maggots but did mention the smell. It said that if you had the sewage smell, you needed to pull all the compost out and remix it with paper balls. My husband did this totally disgusting job and found the drainage floor was blocked with both hay and maggots. We completely cleaned the Aerobin. We put the compost in a wheelbarrow to dry out, and covered it with a tarp. We also decided to use this time to level out the footing for the composter, so the compost stayed in the wheelbarrow a little longer than planned.

Unfortunately then it rained. A lot. We looked out tonight and there were maggots crawling all over the back patio and walls. So he went out and rinsed and swept and then dumped the "compost" from the wheelbarrow along a dirt strip far away from the house.

On the news tonight they mentioned that Florida is having some sort of infestation of a biting yellow fly, so that didn't make us feel any better.

Last week before this turned into a total disaster, I drained the compost tea and sprayed it on my veggies, mixed with water. My green beans, which were beautiful and healthy, now have all sorts of bugs on them, and holes in the leaves, and the beans aren't growing any more. Coincidence? Or did I poison them with nasty compost gloop?

Help. Do I start over? How do I keep this from happening again? Did I kill my beans?

Liz

"like baking perfect bread that either comes out "right" or is tossed out if it goes a bit one way or the other. "

just don't toss out the bread into the compost bin ;)

The 'putrid' smell people describe when they have alot of BSFL is NOT mismanagement of their compost piles. It's the maggot crap. It tends to be wet no matter what you do. My only objection is that BSF tend to eat more of the material and leaves less as compost but what you do get is still good to use.

Last year I pulled a couple coffee filters filled with maggots and put them into a kitty litter bucket of paper, coffee grounds and kitchen scraps. It had holes for ventilation. I was amazed at just how fast the material was broken down into a sludge. Kinda interesting to watch actually.

Randy, what's wrong with tossing the bread in the compost bin?

After reading more about them, they are efficient little biodegraders. They may solve some of the nations landfill problems. I almost want to buy some and start using them for things like meat and cheese that I dont compost.

They said that someday a man named berry would come and cause me a world of heartache, and I remember laughing...

:^ (

Usual disclaimers: not an expert, just a practitioner, yadda, yadda. But I maintain a grubbery, wormeries, and composters, and the BSFL are only welcome in the first. So I've learned a bit about managing the things.

If your goal in composting is to produce a balanced compost from a relatively large volume of browns to greens, no, you don't want them in there. But if you've got a ton of kitchen waste, you might consider a grubbery. Won't keep them out of a nitro-heavy pile, but it'd reduce your labor: you could skip all the piling.

If you're building a new pile and want to discourage them, you need to get it hot _quickly_--I've never yet found them in the hot-composts, but they'll invade one that has the right mixture to heat up if they can get to it in time, and they eat so quickly, changing the pile's make-up as they do so (increased moisture ratio, less nitro) that the pile doesn't heat.

If you want to limit an existing population, cover the pile with soil. LOTS of soil. Two inches at least, and more is better. Cheap soil is fine; it's not the microbes you need but the barrier. This won't kill them instantly, but few manage to mature and flies won't lay there.

Or, if you've the patience, you could simply wait them out. Don't add any greens to the pile, and they will eventually mature and fly away. Populations dwindle over time as fewer flies return to a less attractive foodsource, but it can take a while! Also, if you have possums or large birds, they can find the bin...and they're much harder to get rid of!

DSF

berry,

I mistyped. I should have said "just don't tell anyone you tossed the bread out into the compost bin". Some guilty pleasures are best kept secret.

Getting a liquid from any compost, except vermicompost, means the material is too wet. The presence of Black Soldier Fly larva means the mixture is too wet. Since the adult BSF does nothing except mate to produce more larva, and may be among those flies that are known to spread disease pathogens around, there is no good reason to be thrilled about having these critters in your compost. It does indicate poor management of your compost.

Why do you keep repeating that, kimmsr? It's not true. They are attracted to nitrogen rich materials, many of which happen to be damp---like your pear peelings, your rotten orange rinds, manure. They do not indicate poor management. Please do some googling like the rest of us do.

dsfoxx, thanks for the helpful info. We are getting ready to restart and my plan is to put in a lot more browns (and not hay, which didn't seem to break down well). If I see it getting a little wet or buggy, I'll put in the soil and see if that helps.

If the material is too wet and we know that the liquid is largely coming from the maggots, is the liquid bad to use? I am worried that I just sprayed nothing but bugs on my beans and totally destroyed them.

dsfoxx, it sure is refreshing to read someone posting factual statements about black soldier fly larvae. Have you blogged or posted much about your experiences with them?

Since this thread shows up frequently in search results I would like to comment on some of the previous statements. Culturing BSF is my hobby and I'm still learning about them, but I'm familiar with the basics of BSF behavior and life cycle. I don't have much experience with traditional composting so I'm not qualified to give advice about that specifically. My observations are based on working with dedicated BSF "composting" units.

From previous comments in this thread:

"The BSFL were undisturbed. Temps of 145 -150 did not bother them in the LEAST."

BSF larvae die at about 113F (45ºC)

"There's a particular barnyard aroma to BSFL piles."

The only consistent aroma I've found with BSF colonies is the mild smell of wet straw. The typical smell generated is that of wet straw plus whatever waste you're processing. When I add cinnamon bread to my BSF composter it smells good, like a bakery. If you search you can find several references to the mild odors associated with BSF larvae. Foul odors are sign that the colony is out of balance which is usually simple to fix.

In a properly managed dedicated BSF unit anaerobic bacteria are limited by the constant churning of the larvae which aerates the waste. A well designed BSF unit will have good drainage to avoid flooding.

"I put a fly swatter out there this summer, and I kill any adult I see, on the 'no egg, no larva' plan."

You'll only be wasting your time and burning a few calories with that approach.

"I'm thinking about starting off next year with a garbage can--sounds grim, but at least then the mature larvae can't crawl off to pupate. If they 'all' lay 'all' the eggs in a solid plastic garbage can, I can put said can in my truck and take the whole business two hours away to my mother's farm--Mom has chickens, and Mom is tough. Mom once shook Japanese beetles off her fruit trees onto a sheet and saved a five gallon bucket of them in her freezer to feed her pet chickens over winter."

Your Mom sounds cool. However, it's possible for the larvae to escape a plastic garbage can under some circumstances. They can climb a smooth vertical surface if there is condensation present, and they can squeeze under any lid that isn't extremely tight fitting. Also there is little chance that "all" the BSF would lay on the garbage can anyway.

"Black Soldier Fly larva are used to consume animal manures and the only thing the adult flies do in their about 30 day life is look for another BSF to mate with,..."

BSF consume most food waste in addition to manure, and their lifespan is reportedly 5-8 days. You're right about their goal as adult flies.

"...so except as a food source of predatory insects or birds they really serve no purpose."

BSF larvae actually serve as a food source for an extremely wide variety of animals including birds, mammals, insects, reptiles and amphibians. But the idea that such a powerful detritivore serves no purpose other than as prey for other animals isn't logical.

"I have noticed often when these larva are present there is a putrid odor to the compost indicating too much moisture which displaces the necesary air which creates that putrid odor."

I agree with your statement because you qualified by saying "often". The point I want to stress is that putrid odors are not necessarily a part of BSF culturing and can be avoided with an understanding of their life cycle and behavior.

"I definitly did not use enough brown, realizing that now, but i also remember that i saw the little buggers in the yard in a pile of yard clippings in a bin before i even started composting so they were here already somehow."

Anything's possible but it would be unusual to find BSF larva in a pile of just yard clippings since they don't normally consume such high cellulose items. You're probably right that BSF where already there; they are very common in most of the United States and around the world in hot to mild climates.

"I offered the maggots to a local chicken farmer but she was concerned about introducing them around her house,"

The farmer's concerns were unfounded; if you had BSF then she would have had them also, especially with chickens present. The interesting thing about BSF is that they normally do their important work virtually unnoticed by people because the adults don't pester us. Typically a female BSF will lay eggs near a food source and then leave to finish out her short life without ever coming into contact with a human. Furthermore if your local farmer understood that BSF larvae limit reproduction of house flies and other pest species she would welcome their presence.

"I can't imagine having a compost goal of never having any soldier fly larvae, ever. It would be too much like looking at composting as requiring a recipe and a perfect rate of completion and outcome, like baking perfect bread that either comes out "right" or is tossed out if it goes a bit one way or the other. I mean, one piece of pumpkin or apple in a bit cooler area of a pile may harbor some larvae."

What a reasonable person you are.

"I find that it only takes a day to get it heated up and cooking. Weekly turning will keep it cooking, and I don't usually see them in the core. They might stick around on top if I don't have enough browns to cover it with. BSFL are just a normal part of composting if they live in your region."

And another balanced perspective!

"I put in kitchen scraps and hay and some paper. Things went well, though during the cooler months it wasn't breaking down much. Then about a month or so ago we noticed that all the gnats were gone, the stuff was starting to break down, and the bin was full of what seemed to be Black Soldier Fly maggots. The smell was fine, and I read up on it and thought it was ok, so I let it go."

This is what I would expect in a properly draining system inhabited by BSF larvae. The reduction of gnats (and other flies), rapid breakdown of waste and mild odor are all typical of a balanced BSF unit.

"The Aerobin has a tea spout at the bottom along with a bottom drainage system. A couple weeks ago I noticed that the bottom of the Aerobin was seeping sludge. The tea spout produced a lot of liquid, but didn't stop the seeping sludge. I opened the side doors and it was just disgusting. Maggots fell out, sludge fell out, and it smelled like sewage."

And this is what to expect when there are BSF present but there is inadequate drainage. As someone mentioned above; standing liquids create a zone where anaerobic bacteria can thrive creating the sewer-like odor.

I realize that your Aerobin isn't designed for BSF composting, and that in the absence of BSF it's drain system would probably work fine. Without the BSF your waste would break down much more slowly giving the moisture contained in the waste time to evaporate gradually. When BSF larvae quickly devour high moisture waste like fruits and vegetables all of the liquids are released, overwhelming the drain. One possible solution to your problem might be to line the bottom of the unit with a filter material to keep the drain open. Coconut husk fiber (coir) works well for this and is readily available as welcome mats and wire planter liners. If you had been able to regularly drain the excess liquids I don't think you would have seen the smelly sludge develop. As mentioned above; it's not likely you'll be able to keep BSF out of your unit.

I wouldn't put hay in the unit again due to the clogging your husband noticed when he cleaned the unit, however you might have better results by adding wood shavings. Wood shavings help absorb excess liquids but don't tend to clog as much. A lining of coir with a few inches of shavings might result in very low maintenance and high volume waste processing. I often add wood shavings or sawdust to my BSF units if they become too wet.

"On the news tonight they mentioned that Florida is having some sort of infestation of a biting yellow fly, so that didn't make us feel any better."

What does that have to do with BSF which are neither yellow nor biting? In fact, depending on the breeding habits of the yellow pest flies, having BSF present in your waste may actually deter them. BSF are proven to reduce house fly development in waste 94-100%. - "The black soldier fly (BSF) is a southern native, non-pest fly that unlike the house fly, is not attracted to human habitation or foods (Furman et al. 1959). BSF reduce manure accumulations 42-56% and give 94-100% house fly control through larval competition and by repelling ovipositing house flies (Bradley and Sheppard 1984). Elimination of lesser mealworm has been noted, but not well documented. The digested residue is a friable compost-like material with about 24% less nitrogen (net loss of 60%). From Bradley and Sheppard 1984 (6), cited in Roeder Meyer (8)

"The 'putrid' smell people describe when they have alot of BSFL is NOT mismanagement of their compost piles. It's the maggot crap. It tends to be wet no matter what you do."

BSF crap does not smell other than the mild odor of wet straw I mentioned above. Again, the BSF don't manufacture liquids, they release the moisture contained in food waste.

"Getting a liquid from any compost, except vermicompost, means the material is too wet. The presence of Black Soldier Fly larva means the mixture is too wet."

I would frame it that the sudden release of liquids due to breakdown by BSF may cause issues for composting. BSF larvae do require a moist environment, but they are not attracted to either anaerobic nor flooded conditions. - "Hoy (pers comm) suggests that adults avoid oviposition sites that are anaerobic." (1)"Wet substrates were less attractive to ovipositing Hermetia Illucens (aka black soldier fly) (Booth and Sheppard 1984). Therefore, water was added to medium used for an oviposition attractant to near the saturation point to encourage oviposition [in another location]." (10) "Based on observations made at Caboolture Sewage Treatment Plant, soldier flies do not lay their eggs in sewage sludge pilesÂ. Under experimental conditions indoors (described below), adults did not lay in open containers of sewage sludge." (3)"

"Since the adult BSF does nothing except mate to produce more larva, and may be among those flies that are known to spread disease pathogens around, there is no good reason to be thrilled about having these critters in your compost."

1.) It's an odd oversimplification to say that any creature only exits to reproduce.

2.) Research indicates that BSF are not vectors of human disease. BSF adults rarely contact waste directly and instead lay their eggs above or beside waste. Since the adults don't eat they don't land on food to be consumed by humans. House flies and other pest species do land directly on waste and then they target human food which is why they ARE vectors of human disease. In fact, BSF have been shown to reduce some pathogens in waste. - "Erickson, M.C., M. Islam, C. Sheppard, J. Liao, and M.P. Doyle. 2004. Reduction of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis in chicken manure by larvae of the black soldier fly. J. Food Protection. 67:685-690.

3.) Generalizing that "there is no good reason to be thrilled about having" BSF larvae in your compost doesn't take into consideration the growing number of people who are indeed thrilled about working with BSF. It usually starts with understanding the creature correctly.

"If the material is too wet and we know that the liquid is largely coming from the maggots, is the liquid bad to use? I am worried that I just sprayed nothing but bugs on my beans and totally destroyed them."

Some claim that the liquid effluent released by BSF metabolism can be used as a fertilizer. I haven't tested this but I don't promote the use of the liquid. I doubt it is what killed your beans though.

To all; I hope I didn't come across as too defensive in my efforts to correct what I perceive to be misinformation about BSF. I could be wrong about some of my positions and I'm willing to examine them. I spend so much of my time undoing misconceptions about BSF that it gets tiring. I look forward to the day when more time is spent helping people design systems and maximize performance.

I didn't post reference links but there is a great compilation of BSF data at BioSystemsBlog.com:

biosystemsblog.com/2008/07/09/black-soldier-fly-compiled-research-on-best-cultivation-practices

Note where this from North Carolina State University states that the presence of BSF larva in compost is from "poorly managed" compost piles. This is not the only place where this sentiment is prevelant.
Since all fly, House, Stable, Black Soldier, larva grow in pretty much the same environment how do you tell whether you have the right larva?

Liz: the leachate's content and quality depends on so many variables (original make-up, ambient moisture, population density, etc.) that I'm never sure what it might contain, so I tend not to use it on my food garden. But that's personal preference; so far as I've read, if you haven't put anything dangerous in your grubbery or pile-turned-grub-hatchery, the only concerns are strength and freshness, so if you harvest it and dilute it immediately, you shouldn't hurt your plants any, and might even help them. Having said that, even too-strong aerated compost tea has been known to kill plants and temporarily decrease soil fertility, so care would seem to be indicated. Always.

DSF

Jerry: I write a blog about my experiences as a soil-poor practitioner of bokashi--and about all the other critters that have moved into my container garden since I started fermenting, which does sometimes include the odd reference to BSFL. Those references are not altogether positive, though I've decided they're useful enough to maintain, mostly as a landfill-alternative for things I'd just as soon not add to my personal ecosystem (the scrapings from the cat food dish; spoiled foods; prickly pear peels with the spines; bones I'd be disturbed to dig up with the sweet potatoes; etc.). Also, they seem to do as well as acid-washes for hard to clean or recalcitrant seeds, though I'm still testing that.

The grubbery still gives me nightmares now and then. I call my composting worms Verne, the earthworms are all George, the goldfish is, well, Fish, but the name I use for the BSFL collection is Repulsive. Useful, for some things, but they still freak me out.

DSF