Black soldier fly for compost processing and chicken feed

[EarthWays]

This is a fantastic design! Does anyone know if thblack soldier fly is naturalised in Britain or if there is an equivalent native fly that would behave the same?

See design of automated chicken feeder here:

http://gardenpool.org/?p=704

[Pumpy]

I doubt it's in the UK, they're talking about heat Zone 7, I think we're zone 2 over here

It would be interesting to know if there is an equivalent here, I think it would have to be something that is not a carrion feeder as the house fly is, as I heard feeding housefly larvae (maggots) to chickens taints the eggs.

Very interesting all the same, great design solution!

I found a similar use for those otherwise useless ceramic trinkets idiot people bring back from holidays, you know the sort, a little ceramic cottage, or "ducks on a wall" type things, little hollow ceramic trinkets. Anyhow my wife put a few of these silly things around the garden in the crook of trees etc. turns out they are the perfect shelter for earwigs, we find hundreds of them in some, the chickens love it when I shake one out for them

Pumpy.

[WhichDoctor]

Actually according to wikipedia the uk is hardiness zones 7-10. I had a very quick search but couldn't find any reference to these soldier flys in the uk though. The nearest was reports of them found on a corpse in Spain, so I guess they are carrion feeders too.

I have found little grub like things in compost occasionally but normally only when its got pretty wet and anaerobic. Not the kind of thing I would wont to feed my chickens with.

Its a shame, those feeders look really interesting and I bet the chooks love them.

[EarthWays]

Hi Whichdocter,

Pumpy was referring to heat zones rather than hardy zones. If I remember correctly, it is a scale to determine how many hot days above 30C we have a year on average. In Scotland, on average, we have none
I wish we had a link to his info, but it sounds like the fly needs more hot days a year than there is here so it won't be naturalised. MAybe that is a good thing so that if one escapes it won't establish itself in the wild and disrupt the ecosystem?

[WhichDoctor]

Ah ok, I haven't come across heat zones before.

I've done a bit more searching though and have found quite a few people breeding them for live reptile and fish food.
http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/feeder/258312-phoenix-worm-breeding-caresheet.html

You can buy the grubs live online.
http://www.butterworms.co.uk/soldierworms/13-100-medium-nutri-grubs.html

I also found a forum post with some really good links on it. The first reply is also by a guy who claims to have them living wild in his compost heap in Sussex.
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12024&sid=ea18ce52af405b5cca6a43f55534a0d9

They look like they mite be really worth looking into.

[Pumpy]

I just did a bit more of a trawl on't net and found a couple of relevant threads.

One on powerswitch A guy in Sussex says "The adults are around between March and October"

and another thread on reptileforums uk where a guy in West Cumbria says "i have bought a couple of boxes of calci worms" which presumably they use for lizard food or something.

Then there's this site offering them for sale too, the news on the site is that they have more in stock as of 16/7/11

could be doable, might have to house the breeder in the greenhouse over winter, but sounds doable

edit: cross posted WD, great minds and all that

[JohnB]

One on powerswitch A guy in Sussex says "The adults are around between March and October"

I've put a link to this topic on PowerSwitch in case anyone involved in that old discussion can help.

[Pumpy]

One on powerswitch A guy in Sussex says "The adults are around between March and October"

I've put a link to this topic on PowerSwitch in case anyone involved in that old discussion can help.

Nice one John, I sent half a dozen emails/web contacts out this morning to anyone uk based showing an interest I could contact.

There's some good references on this page for successful breeding in a controlled environment.

I'd like to find concrete evidence they are naturalised over here before I start ordering larvae and making anything though.

[JohnB]

This is a video (posted on PowerSwitch) showing the larvae eating their dinner!

Link

[EarthWays]

I'd like to find concrete evidence they are naturalised over here before I start ordering larvae and making anything though.

I assume it would it be ok if we find evidence that there is no danger that they will get naturalised? Example: if the winters are to cold for it to survive?

[WhichDoctor]

I've seen references to them in Spain, France and Turkey. I still haven't found any kind of distribution map but I would assume that if they haven't made it over here its only because as EarthWays said the winters are too cold/wet or something.

But I too would like some real info on them before introducing them.

As a little experiment I have knocked up a ruff version of the BSF bins I've seen on the web. Basically just a bucket with soil in the bottom with a layer of kitchen wast on top, some corrugated cardboard on the inside of the lid for the adults to lay there eggs on and enough of a gap for them to get in and out.
Just on the off chance that there are any around here and if there are that it isn't too late in the season. But it only took me 5mins, nothing ventured and all that.

[Pumpy]

I assume it would it be ok if we find evidence that there is no danger that they will get naturalised? Example: if the winters are to cold for it to survive?

I think that "can o worms" ( ) is way over my knowledge level. Although ideal temp is around 27C (at 60-70% RH) for breeding, the larvae survive for months at certain temps "Phoenix Worms will have the longest shelf life at 50-60° F"(10C)
If they got into a commercial poultry farm, commercial greenhouse, or other unforeseen mild niche, they could survive and it could have knock on effects. Not necessarily bad effects on face value, out competing the house fly sounds good for e.g. but what else could they be pushing out of it's environment?

I've not found a study that indicates mortality at specific temps yet.

This is an interesting paper (for breeding temps etc.) Selected Life-History Traits of Black Soldier Flies (Diptera: Stratiomyidae) Reared on Three Artificial Diets (pdf)

This paper: Factors influencing mating and oviposition of black soldier flies (Diptera: Stratiomyidae) in a colony (pdf) states "However the lower temperature limit for Black Soldier fly activity are not known, only that a colony can be maintained at 22C (it quotes unpublished data)

Still looking though, I'll edit in any links to papers on this post below:

This paper: USING THE BLACK SOLDIER FLY, Hermetia illucens, AS A VALUE-ADDED TOOL FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF SWINE MANURE (pdf) has a handy breakdown of nutritional values, assesses the quality of larvae as fish food, and has a table of nutrients in it's assessment of "POTENTIAL VALUE OF RESIDUE AS A SOIL AMENDMENT"

One possible bad effect of introducing them could be as a host for parasitic wasps according to this paper: Parasitism of the Black Soldier Fly by Trichopria sp. (Hymenoptera: Diapriidae) in Poultry Houses who knows what knock on effects increasing parasitic wasps might have on say butterflies?

Abstract (main paper paywalled) "To demonstrate how globalisation and climate changes are breaking the geographic barriers, we present some cases in which, during our entomoforensic investigations, performed mainly in North-eastern Italy, Neotropical, African and Asiatic necrophagous flies, beetles and wasp parasitoids have been collected, some of which rare or new for Italy or Paleartic Region. In particular, we report our studies on the american black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens (Diptera: Stratiomyidae), that is showing a heavy competition with the local saprophagous species and is reaching great importance in some man activities and in cattle health.

Biofuel from BSF larvae! "BSFL was grown on organic wastes for 10 days and used for crude fat extraction by petroleum ether. The extracted crude fat was then converted into biodiesel... resulting in 35.5 g, 57.8 g and 91.4 g of biodiesel being produced from 1000 BSFL growing on 1 kg of cattle manure, pig manure and chicken manure, respectively."

Abstract on European distribution (2003): Known data on the distribution of Hermetia illucens (L.) in Europe are summarized and updated. This species has been reliably recorded from Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Malta, Croatia and Albania. A new record from Turkey represents the easternmost finding in the West Palaearctic and a new species to the fauna of the whole of the Near East. It may be evidence of a recent extension of this species in the Mediterranean area.

Presumably with such a wide European distribution already, it can't be doing any harm or it would have come up in the search? I'm at a bit of a dead end, wonder if it's worth contacting The British Entomological and Natural History Society, it'd be good to hear from a Dipterist on other possible native species.

[WhichDoctor]

Those are some interesting links Pumpy.

With people starting to breed them in captivity for live food if they can survive here I shouldn't think it will be long before some escapees get established.

It would be interesting to find any native species that could do the same job. Its probably the wrong time of year for it though.

This BSF blog has some good tips on attracting them and also states that "The generally accepted range that BSFL can survive is between 33ºF and 115ºF (1-46C)". Although I'm not sure if that applies to the pupa as well or just the larvae.

I also found an interesting, if not hugely constructive, discussion on the potential for BSF to become invasive from the 13th post of this forum thread

[Pumpy]

I spent some time looking at British Soldier flies (I think you could spend years on it and still come up short), seems a lot of our species breed in wetland areas and around ponds, some are very rare, some are specialised only found in seeps from limestone. There are some with very similar habits to the target species too, there are some examples here one from that page a 'Soldier fly' Chloromyia formosa "They breed in damp soil, compost and leaf litter and the larvae feed on decaying vegetable matter."

However I don't think our native species have been studied to the same degree as our target species, especially in the context we'd like!

I like your simple bucket trap WD, seems something like that, placed around various composting facilities or similar (from May-Aug), might attract suitable examples for further studies. I'll certainly be paying much more attention to bugs around compost after this thread!

[WhichDoctor]

I spent some time looking at British Soldier flies (I think you could spend years on it and still come up short), seems a lot of our species breed in wetland areas and around ponds, some are very rare, some are specialised only found in seeps from limestone. There are some with very similar habits to the target species too, there are some examples here one from that page a 'Soldier fly' Chloromyia formosa "They breed in damp soil, compost and leaf litter and the larvae feed on decaying vegetable matter."

However I don't think our native species have been studied to the same degree as our target species, especially in the context we'd like!

I like your simple bucket trap WD, seems something like that, placed around various composting facilities or similar (from May-Aug), might attract suitable examples for further studies. I'll certainly be paying much more attention to bugs around compost after this thread!

Excellent stuff. Not only are those Chloromyia formosa compost feeders but the adults are pollinators too, double benefit. I have made a note in my calender to start looking for these again next year.

Also a native species potentially threatened by the introduction of the American variety though.