The Mating Ritual

Today I wanted to talk about the mating ritual that male and female BSF adult flies participate in. The female will sit on the underside of a leaf, while the male will fly over and land on top of the same leaf. The males drum their antenna on the leaf, and eventually walk over to the side of the leaf, and peak over (presumably to see if there are any predators or dangers on the underside). Then the male and female fly up together, and (if they do mate), mate midair in bright sunshine.
One reason females have a green abdomen may be for camouflauge when they sit on the underside of the leaf. Also, yesterday, when I took the two adults (+ the one hitchhiker) for samples, I noticed that they became much more active when under a light. BSF need sunlight in order to mate.

Today, I opened the 'puparium' and was greeted by 14 beautiful, healthy adult flies! Four of them flew out immediately, and the rest were sitting on the side of the black 'puparium' (I have pictures!). It really seems like regulating the temperature (~25C) and humidity (~65%) has made a huge difference, as we have approximately 50 healthy adult flies alive at this time. Rylo and I hope to get to a point (soon, within the next couple of days even) when we open the 'puparium' and our count is 'lots' (as in, we have so many that we can't even count as they're-hopefully- flying out and mating).
We have so many adults now that I was able to take one male and one female as samples. I was also able to have a very close look at a live adult for the first time. Females are slightly larger, and have a noticeably green section to their abdomen. Their male counterparts have a grayish-green abdomen. I plan on making the samples (by freezing the male and female) and will take photos, hopefully next week.
Like I've said, I took one male and one female as samples (in a clear yogurt-sized container). But when I was busing back to campus from UBC Farm, I noticed a companion- a female fly was sitting on my backpack. She must have been there the entire time during my 20 min. walk to the bus stop! BSF flies are very docile and friendly- they are weak fliers and enjoy sitting as much as possible. They will sit on your hand for a very long time, making it much much easier to get a closer look at them. (I will post pictures when I get home!)

Today the minimum temperature of the 'puparium' was 26C, while the maximum was 31C. A bit warm, but still well within the happy zone.

We had 3 adults emerge- one was a beautiful, healthy female and the other two looked like males. The maybe-males had very very recently emerged- their wings had not even fully formed yet.

I counted an amazing, record-setting 278 crawl-off today. It seems like we really can hope for a saturation of BSF, and a much greater likelihood of a return!

The pupa bucket only had 1 adult fly, but it looks healthy, with fully-formed and functional wings.

15-crawl off in the last 24-hours.

We moved the pod to an open field, further away from distractions (esp. the large green dumpster and compost piles).

We again saw a female adult fly checking out the pod, so it looks like our idea to add more compost to the pod is in fact attracting females.

What is a Distraction?

A distraction is anything that would make a female (adult) decide to lay her eggs anywhere except for the pod.

Because maggots live on food scraps, females will choose a place with the largest amount of food to increase the chance that her offspring will survive.

Therefore, any area with a large amount of food scraps such as a compost pile of a large dumpster would distract the female from laying her eggs in the pod.

When eggs are laid outside fo the pod, they are not a part of our BSF colony, and the maggots are not in the pod to create the synonome. Nor can we increase the size of our colony or conduct experiments to determine the number of maggots needed to reduce a pound of food scraps in one hour (for example).

Because of this, when we first did a survey of UBC Farm, we looked for distractions. Although there was a large green dumpster as well as a compost bin nearby (about 50 meters away), we did not consider them to be worrisome since BSF are weak fliers and we thought they would prefer to stay close to the pod and would be attracted by the synonome.

However, because we have seen 2 gravid (pregnant) females but no eggs in the pod (yet!), we now consider the dumpster and compost pile to be worrisome distractions especially since we now only have about half of our maggots left, creating only half of the synonome.

Therefore we have decided to move the pod further from the dumpster and compost pile and hopefully will see the desired result- eggs.

23

When we took the lid off of the black pupa bucket ('puparium') and TWENTY-THREE adults flew out! Very exciting. This is by far the largest number of adults that we have had alive at one time; with this great, hot and sunny weather we are in a greatest position yet to see some eggs.

One female adult was checking out the pod for about a half hour. Very good sign.

On top of this, we have a record amount of crawl-off: 113! A very happy day in the land of BSF, overall.

Looks like our contraption is working- the black bucket, which Rylo and I refer to as the "puparium" had a minumum temperature of 24.4C. That's definitely in the 'happy' range.

We only had two adults emerge today, and both had issues with wing formation. For some reason, about 10% of our adults have wing issues, a fact which we attribute to a lower humidity. Hopefully the new environment we have created is more regulated and we will not see too many more of these gimpy adults.

We will expect a large emergence soon, as today is day 13 after 84 larvae pupated (on 2 August).

"Puparium" Assembly

Today we assembled a bucket to store our pupa to maintain a constant temperature of 24/25C and humidity of ~60%. We hope that this will reduce the amount it takes for the pupa to mature and for the adult to emerge.

Our contraption consists of a large cardboard box with our black bucket (that we place our pupa in), a heater, a thermometer and an air lift that we took from the chamber. We placed it inside of the classroom (in the Admin building) at UBC Farm.

We now keep a spray bottle with apple cider vinegar next to the pod. We think it's working because we've seen female adults check out the pod every day. By checking out the pod, I mean the female fly sits on the outside of the pod for an extended period of time, usually more than ten or fifteen minutes.

We also added more compost to the pod, hoping that it will attract more females and we will get some EGGS!

Today I checked the pod at 12 noon. The maximum temperature in the last 24 hours was 20.5C and the minimum was 15.1C; the current temperature is 18.4C.

The black pupa bucket has a current temperature of 21.6C and 80% humidity. We'd like to get it up to a constant temperature of 25C and lower the humidity to close to 60%. I'll have to think up a way to get our numbers up/down.

We had 87 crawl-off today, with about 80% crawling around, indicating they have not quite reached pupation and are still just mature larvae. I noticed that when we placed the mature larvae in the sunlight, they became significantly more active.

Right now we are looking for a place to overwinter our larvae (of course, IF we get eggs, and right now it seems that this is a big if). Likely, we'll settle on a large fridge or freezer.

Apple Cider Vinegar?!

Back at the farm for the 2nd time today after reading a thread on which people were discussing options on attracting BSF females back to the pod (to lay eggs). Fermented corn is a common tool used to attract them, but a much more user-friendly option is apple cider vinegar, likely due to its similar sour smell.
Although we've had 2 gravid females, we have yet to see any eggs in the pod, so we will give this apple cider vinegar idea a shot. I hope to have an exciting update soon!

Pupa and Adults Yes, But Still No Eggs

Today, I found 4 adults in the pod- one was female, the others were male. They seem to like to sit on the insulation.
Today was very cloudy and somewhat chilly- the current temp is 15.4C.
We had another huge crawl-off, this time it was 93. 12 were very large (and we are assuming female) while the other 81 were small or medium-sized. Of the 81, 8 were moving and likely very mature larvae on the verge of pupation.
We've had about 250 larvae crawl-off in the past few days likely because we have started to feed them more. We have started to feed them more, so that the maggots continue to create a synonome to attract the female BSFs back to the pod, and also, at this point, we wish to speed up the maturation process so that we can get as many adults as possible before the summer is out.
In the pupa bucket, there was also 1 female and 3 males.
I've noticed the adults are quite laid-back, they seem to enjoy crouching on top of the sawdust and don't move around too much. However, when I poked a female with my pen, she immediately flew away (unfortunately in the opposite direction of the pod however).
I have yet to find any dead BSF adults in the pod- I'm hoping to find one almost as much as I'm hoping to find eggs because adults are very neat looking and I wish to take samples of each gender so that I can preserve them to use in potential future presentations.

A Near Escape

Well, the maggots have once again demonstrated that they are adept at escaping. Rylo put together a large black bucket and drilled holes in the top of the sides for ventilation. Then he put 3 layers of thick tape around the bucket, to cover the holes. However, the maggots were not to be thwarted. If we had not gone to check on them a few hours later, we would definitely have had escapees- one was working its way through the tape and would have soon seen the outside world.
This was especially an issue, as this particular black bucket was in the kitchen of UBC Farm. The unfortunate soul who opened up the next morning could very well have been greeted by hundreds of maggots crawling all around the kitchen. If this were the case, I'm pretty sure we would not be invited back . .
In other news, the power was once again off in the growth chamber (for no apparent reason). This has now occurred 3 times (when we randomly check) in the past week and a half. There was a strange smell in our growth chamber #4 because the air pump in our aquarium was not functioning (as it needs electricity), so we ran an extension chord from the aquarium to a plug outside of the growth chamber room.

. . but no eggs

We checked the pod today, at 9:45am. The maximum temperature in the last 24 hours (within the pod) was 35.9C and the minimum was 15.2C. The max temp outside was 34.3C, and the min was 15.5C.

We found 1 adult male in the pod.

The maggots were quite active, especially with the current temperature of 15.4C. They ate all of the char that we put in the pod late last week, except for the stalk. Also, all of the chicken feed in the cat dish was eaten.

There was no smell in the pod, which was great.

Still no eggs though.

Today was quite rainy.

1 adult male in the crawl-off bucket.

2 adult males in the bucket with the pupa.

An astonishing 98 pupa were in the crawl off bucket. This is the most crawl-off that we have ever had; it may be b/c we fed them the most that we have ever fed them- an entire, full bowl of chicken feed (on Wednesday). Plus the seed was soaked for 2.5 days. It definitely didn't hurt that the max temp was 35.9C- definitely hot enough for them to have crawled off.
We need to figure out how to heat and control the temperature of the pupa bucket- perhaps using infrared light and a thermostat?
Also, to end with an interesting note, apparently the density of a population makes a difference in the size of the larvae. The greater the density of the population, the smaller the larvae will be, on average.

A Warmer Day, A Happy Update

Today started off well; we found 2 adult males in the pod. Also, we have seen 2 gravid females (with swollen abdomens). Very good news!

So, we have 5-6 adults total now.

There are about 5 rather large fungus maggots in the pod, but the BSF shouldn't be adversely affected by them.

There were 15 crawl-off today. We have noticed that BSF tend to crawl off in the evening, likely because they are very dark-coloured and to limit predation.

We are finding at least 1 adult male in the crawl-off bucket each day.

At 11am today, after placing the pod in the sun, the temperature quickly climbed from 28.9C to 33.9C. The maggots were very active and feeding.

Last night, the minimum temperature was 17.2C which is low, but we still had quite a bit of crawl-off.

Rylo and I spent about 3.5 hours maggot-sitting and were able to discuss quite a few things as well as design the signs. I hope to have them produced very very soon.

Maggot-Sitting

Spent a few hours today maggot-sitting. And for those of you who have never done this before, for BSF, this consists of placing the pod within a wheelbarrow and moving it in to direct sunlight and observing the BSF adults' interaction with the pod.

Doing this is especially important since temperatures lately have been especially low (below 22C), and the maggots have not been feeding. And when they're feeding, they are likely not making synonome. However, we have had 3 more adults in the pod emerge: 2 males and one pod (since yesterday). Hopefully they'll be able to find their way back to the pod w/o much synonome!

Rylo and I plan on putting together two signs to place by our pod on UBC Farm, as many visitors seem interested in our project and have been quite inquisitive. We also want people to know that they should not be scared of BSF, and preferably, to let us know if they have seen any adults (esp. females!) flying around.

The goal will be to have 2 signs. One will be large and rectangular with basic information about BSF. The other will be softball-sized and will solely contain a picture of an adult female and a maggot.

Some good news is that in Australia, BSF seem to have adapted to the higher temperatures; Aussie BSF's optimal temperatures are 45C, while our Vancouverite BSF are happy at a much lower 27C. This is great since it seems BSF are most content in tropical (v hot/humid) temperatures, but if they have this ability to adapt then it looks like Vancouver could be the home to many BSF and we can go on with our composting venture.

Pheremone vs. Synonome

So I've decided to put together a little science lesson. This is a differentiation that I have just recently learned about myself.

Pheremones are used in intraspecific communication, that is, when a member of a species wishes to communicate with another member. An example of this would be an alarm pheremone that an ant would release when his or her colony was being invaded, to warn the other members of his/her species within the colony.

On the other hand, a synonome is a chemical that allows interspecific communication, between two species. When actively feeding, BSF maggots produce a synonome that only attracts adult BSF females back to the pod, but tells pest flies to stay away.

Therefore, at this point in the project, where we have adults emerging every day, it is quite important that we don't forget about making the maggots happy and active, because without them, we would have a pod full of pest flies, and no adult females coming back to lay eggs.

A Small Step Backwards

Today felt like a small step backwards- it was overall pretty disappointing. We didn't see the large female adult return, neither did we see any eggs in the pod. We had seen her every day since her emergence, so to not see her today was especially worrisome, and made us think that predation may have unfortunately played a role.

Also, we noticed some very tiny crawl-off (pupa). We were worried that these tiny tiny pupa would not have enough physical resources in order to metamorphosize, but upon a literature review, this just means that from a small pupa will emerge a small BSF.

Today, what looked like a small (3-4 mm) female adult fly landed on the book that Rylo was reading. But we weren't able to get a good enough of a look at her so I have to keep the official count of female adults at 1.

Also, we saw some really interesting looking flies that looked remarkably like BSF (with waspish waists, etc), but they were irridescent blue/green, with heads that were entirely blue. Hopefully we'll be able to see them again and catch a closer glimpse.

And the bad news keeps coming. Today, we saw pest flies at the pod for the first time. We really hope that the synonome is working and that today is just a fluke. It is especially important that the synonome is working when we have adult females, because they need to clearly know where they need to come back to to lay eggs.

Let's hope next week will be more successful. Happy BC Day weekend!

The First Lady + more good news

Today, the crawl-off bucket had 20 pupa. The maggots also completely devoured the chicken feed, and hopefully the remainder of maggots will pupate within the next week or so. Strangely, there were also a few fungus maggots in the main part of the pod. This is the first time Rylo or myself have seen anything other than BSF within the pod (except, of course, for that one time a pest fly flew in, they buzzed right out again).

And on to the good stuff . . we have males! Four, to be exact. However, one isn't in such great shape- he has the same wing deformity that our previous two adult males had. Rylo and I hypothesize that this is due to low humidity but we'll have to fact check that one.

Not to end on a sour note or anything, but we do have one concern. Today, we clearly saw a large, healthy female maggot eating a pupa. The best that we can hope for is that BSF can tell sick from healthy pupa. Perhaps, the healthier pupa are the ones that crawl off (in to the bucket) when they are very mature larvae while the pupa that are in less than perfect health remain in the main part of the pod?

Day Camp + a Surprise

Today was overall a good day. Rylo and I gave an ~15 minute presentation to the 6/7-year olds attending Day Camp at UBC Farm. We started off by feeding a few maggots to the chickens, then took the kids over to the pod and explained how it worked. They were an inquisitive bunch and seemed most happy when they were allowed to hold the maggots themselves.

I had to leave right after the presentation to get to work so I wasn't able to be there for the wonderful surprise but . . . a few hours later, around 1pm, I received a phone call from Rylo telling me that we officially had our first adult female emerge! We're hoping that a few adult males will emerge so that she'll have some choices. Then, hopefully there's some attraction and egg-making. If we get some eggs in the next few days that would be absolutely amazing!

So yes, overall a good day. Giving the presentation to the kids was a growth experience- I still need to work on getting over my shyness in front of big groups. Baby steps . .

Temperature Update #3/Photos !!

Today, 27 July @ 10am, in the last 24 hours, max. temp was 22.4C, min was 19.6C. Not great, but we do have crawl-offs, which means the pod was warm enough for the maggots to mature, and crawl off to pupate. And the silver lining about this issue with temperature that we are attempting to remediate is that the lower temperatures will slow the rate of maturation, so that not all of the maggots will mature in to pupa and crawl off next week. Also, it does not look as though the maggots have fed at all- the feed dish (which used to be the prized possession of Rylo's cat) is completely full.

Today the crawl off count is 3 females and 6 males. Again, good odds- the ladies have some choices! Hope they make the right ones, and we get those coveted eggs in a few weeks.

Again, there were no pest flies around the bucket (we were very happy to see).

And . . here are the photos!!

Photo 1: The BioPod. Here I am holding the crawl-off bucket. The maggots are within the large grey container, and when they are ready to pupate, they crawl off (through the silver hose that you can see hanging down) in to the crawl-off bucket, that contains sawdust. The BSF instinctively knows that as a pupa, it prefers drier conditions and that the bucket is the place to be.

Photo 2: You can see the sawdust in the crawl-off bucket.

Photo 3: Some pupa! The dimorphism between the sexes during the pupal stage is quite apparent- contrary to what you may be thinking right now, the 3 large pupa on the left are female, and the 6 smaller pupa on the right are male.

Photo 4: Putting the crawl-off bucket back on the biopod after transferring the pupa to the larger bucket with all of the pupa. We have upgraded the bird cage that we were using before to a large 5-gallon bucket.

Again, these photos were taken at UBC Farm.

Wish me luck on my presentation to the kiddies tomorrow!!

How to Keep the Maggots Warm and Happy?

Rylo has proposed a solution to keep the maggots warmer, and thus happier and more active. When they are more active, they eat more, and mature faster which is what we want at this stage in the game.

He suggests what I think is a very solid idea: Put the chicken feed in an insulated cup, which will keep the feeding maggots warmer than the surrounding culture. We may even drill small holes in to the insulated cup so that only small maggots can enter. And just to be clear, by insulated cup, we mean (for example) the lid to a thermos.

I'll keep you updated on whether this works or out- we just introduced the thermos lid today.

Temperature Update #2

The pod was checked at 1pm today.

The temperature of the pod during the last 24 hours had a maximum of 22.5C and a minimum of 19.4C. Not great. And the maggots were clearly more dormant. Looks like Rylo and I will have to bust out our thinking caps and scheme up a way to make sure the temperature stays much higher.

But there is better news from today. In the pupa or 'crawl-off' bucket, we found 16 females and 49 males. Pretty good odds for the ladies. They'll be able to choose which guy suits their fancy. And hopefully this means we'll be seeing some eggs in the next few weeks! And hopefully these eggs will be laid in the pod, as the female adults will be attracted back to the pod by the synonome created by the maggots. (But as I've said before, I plan on doing an entire post on what exactly a synonome is, and how if differs from a pheremone).

With a couple thousand maggots, we can expect a steady supply of pupa/crawl-offs.

Hopefully I'll have more good news to report in the next few days to come . .

More Have Arrived

Today, we were happy to have received another shipment of 1700 maggots. They went straight to the Farm, to make a grand total of about 2500 BSF currently in the biopod.

Another 10 pupa were in the crawl-off bucket, and were transferred to the bird cage, the home of all of our BSF pupa.

In other good news, it does look as if our maggots are producing a synonome that is keeping pest flies away. Even though our biopod is a mere 50 meters from the big, smelly compost pile, Rylo and I have seen only one pest fly buzz around our culture (when we lifted the lid on the pod), and even this guy left quite quickly.

I know the terms 'crawl-off bucket' and 'lid' on the pod probably don't make a ton of sense to you; I plan on taking pictures early next week, and it will all become clear- that's a promise!!

Also, just received word that Rylo and I will be giving a presentation about our precious BSF the morning of next Wednesday. Our audience will be the 6- and 7-year olds that attend Day Camp at UBC Farm, and our presentation will be part of the ever anticipated Critter Week.

Temperature Update #1

The bugs look good! Likely due to the fact that the max. temperature (inside the pod) was 28.9C while the min. was a solid 22.4C. BSF tend to be very happy at this temperature range.

All of the chicken feed was consumed; it badly needed a refill. More updates to come in the next few days.

Pod - > Farm*

So the pod is officially at the Farm (the UBC Farm). But all is not well in BSF world- today the maximum temperature inside the Pod was 20.6C, which is far too low; BSF go dormant at 21C. Rylo had the idea of putting high tech insulation on top of the pod to keep the heat in. Also, when we transfer more BSF in to the pod (right now there are only ~ 600 while the pod can hold 100,000) they will generate more heat themselves. I think we should be okay, but we'll have a look tomorrow and see.

After a meeting with Dr. A, it was determined that I will write a ~10 page report about what I have accomplished during Phase 1 of our BSF project, and will include my thoughts, my understanding of BSF, any problems faced (this could probably be 10 pages in itself . .), and what we hope to accomplish in the future with this project.

Expect Pod/Farm photos next week!

Bad News About the Growth Chamber . .

Today we put a wireless transmitter in the growth chamber and were getting pretty good humidity readings in the high fifties and low sixties. But when we put 8 incandescent light bulbs in the chamber, the heat went up to 36C . . and the fan came on to chill the chamber, which dropped the humidity down to 33%. So this time we were actually there to see what happened last time, when we had the 100% mortality. Luckily we were there to prevent catastrophe #2; we scooped them up and brought them back to the insect chamber, which tends to have a steady humidity in the low fifties.

We must not be doing something right, because there's another growth chamber in the room that's running at a steady humidity of 90%. Peter, the guy who runs the growth chambers, can expect an email from me very soon. Because right now, the growth chambers are defeating us . .

Playing dead?

I was talking to Dr. A today about our little experiment, where we poked each pupa to see if they would respond to touch. Not a single one of our pupa responded to touch, but when we left them alone, they began moving (hence, we were able to determine that they were in fact, very mature larva, not pupa).

Dr. A said that while most pupa will respond to touch, many have a defense mechanism- when prodded, they will 'play dead'. Who knew?

How can you tell if a pupa is alive or dead?

With most of our larvae turning dark brown and becoming much more still as they mature, it became quite difficult to tell the difference between a mature larva and a pupa. Really the only way to tell the difference is keep your eye on them for an extended period of time and look for movement- larvae move, and pupa do not.

But even more difficult to tell the difference between are pupa that are alive vs. pupa that are dead. As you can see from my last post, pupa are dark brown and shriveled and do not move whether they are alive or dead. I wanted to do a count of how many pupa we had that were still alive, so I took the 96 total pupa to Dr. A and asked her what to do.

Dr. A said that pupa respond to touch. So, you can place a pupa under a microscope and lightly touch it (for example, with the end of a small paint brush). If it is alive, it will wiggle for a second. If not, it will obviously remain still.

However, an interesting note is that when Dr. A and I performed the above procedure, absolutely none of the pupa responded to touch. But they didn't look dead either. Dr. A and I chatted for a few minutes and I happened to glance over at the container of pupa and almost all (~90%) were moving! I even had to ask Dr. A to confirm if they were moving for a moment because I thought I was going crazy. The most likely explanation for this is that these BSF were very mature larvae, on the verge of entering the pupa stage within about 24 hours.

In an attempt to keep this larva/pupa as happy as possible, I constructed a new container. On one side, I placed moistened coffee grounds and wet paper towels, and on the other, I placed dry bran with a slightly moistened paper towel on top. This would allow the mature larva to have their preferred conditions and feed until they reached the non-feeding pupal stage.

Professional Photos

Here are some professional photos of the three life stages of BSF. I'd like to give major props to Duncan, who helped me greatly in the Learning Centre.

This is the larval or "maggot" stage. Notice the lighter, beige colour and large size of the life stage.

The pupa is the nonmoving stage of the BSF life cycle. Pupa are a dark brown colour and are significantly smaller than larvae.

And lastly, the adult. Here, you can see the wings are not fully developed, which is perhaps due to the low humidity of the insect room, where our BSF are kept. BSF occur natural in tropical environments such as the South (US), which is generally quite humid and hot. Once we are able to have more adults emerge, we will take them to our set-up at UBC Farm, where they will hopefully be happier and fully develop (and more importantly, mate!). But more on this set-up later.

Success at last !!

Today was a great day to say the least. Rylo and I were finally able to pick up our pod on campus and transport it to the growth chamber. We have yet to transfer the BSF because we first want to make certain that the humidity and temperature settings will be reliable. We learned our lesson the first time . .

Even more exciting . . WE HAVE TWO ADULTS!! I found one in the container with the larvae, and the other in the pupa container. Perhaps this means that adults can still emerge under more humid conditions? They are both on the small end, and we believe they are males. I plan to go to the Learning Centre on Friday to take professional photos of the beauties.

Pod-gate

Tragically, our biopod is stuck at customs, and has been for over two weeks while I was at grandma's noshing on delicious southern barbeque. (Thank you Dr. A for looking after the little guys while I was away). This is an issue since larvae and pupa need such different conditions for survival; larvae love extremely humid and hot environments while pupa prefer drier conditions. And it takes only two weeks for a larval to pass through all five instars and become a pupa. This means that we most definitely have at least a few pupa, and these pupa are unhappy with their current humid/hot environment. We had hoped to have the biopod installed by now; with the biopod, the larvae would be able to crawl off, in to a separate part (with drier, more ideal conditions) of the pod when ready to pupate.

Rylo and I considered a few options and this is what we decided to do: I spread all of the BSF out on a tray and transferred all extremely dark/coffee bean brown pupa in to a separate container with drier conditions. We're reallly reallly hoping for an adult (fingers crossed!). Here's the current count- Pupa: 17, Larvae: 113 (alive), Adults: 0.

Photo #1: Here you can see the lighter coloured larvae and darker coffee bean coloured pupa.

Photo #2: Yogurt container: pre-separation of larvae and pupa. The large majority of light coloured larvae have crawled to the bottom

of the container to be in an environment with

maximal moisture.

Attempt #2

Today we received our second batch of (600) BSF larvae. We made a few changes to our experiment: we purchased only medium-sized BSF, we will turn off the light in the growth chamber (BSF are photophobic), and will dramatically increase the humidity setting to 75%+.
Right now, they are all together, hanging out in a large yogurt container and are quite happy (and active) on a diet of coffee grounds. We are working on getting a supplier for chicken feed and once we do, we will switch their diet to chicken feed (it's much more balanced than mere coffee grounds).
I'm off to grandma's for two weeks and I hope some cute little pupa will greet me when I come back : )

Getting ready for round 2

After our catastrophe, I cleaned out the growth chamber where our BSF were stored. It was difficult to clean due to several parallel thin grooves that even my abnormally small fingers could not fit in to. I was able to clean it out about ~80% but will come back with my car vacuum later to make sure it is 100% clean- in case this in any way affects our BSF.

There were many carcasses of insects in the growth chamber. I took samples of them, and we were able to identify them as rice weevils. The fact that the experiment before ours had a 100% mortality is not a good sign. Is this the curse of growth chamber #4?

But luckily rice weevils are benign and likely did not have an adverse effect on our BSF.

BSF are photophobic so I plan to cover the containers with a towel, once our second shipment arrives.

I also emptied out the containers that held the BSF, after of course making sure that not even a single little guy survived. I noticed a peculiar musky sort of odour as I opened the container.

Next time I will replace the coffee filters (that cover the ventilation square holes) with a very fine mesh. Perhaps this will allow more water vapour in to the container and since BSF prefer humidities that are quite high (> 75%), hopefully round 2 will prove more successful.

Tragedy has struck!

I opened the door to the growth chamber and was greeted by a tragic sight- it was virtually a graveyard. Apparently the entire growth chamber is broken and defunct; setting the temperature and humidity levels is superficial. While the gauge on the outside of the machine may read 27C with 75% humidity, the readings I took by placing a gauge within the machine gave me 24C with 33% humidity. Quite a difference. This is quite sad and a pretty big disappointment. With only (at most) 1/3 of our medium-sized larvae having survived the inferno, we will most definitely have to order another shipment of the little guys. The next step is to locate a better location for the larvae to mature, as I am unwilling to chance using the growth chamber again. Dr. A and I discussed potentially using the greenhouses at UBC. We will contact the greenhouse keeper, visit them and take our own gauge measurements to ensure the conditions are optimal for our BSF larvae to mature. Today has been a sad sad day.

Update #1

BSF larvae w/i growth chambers, w/i separate containers

taped coffee filters over ventilation holes

• Larvae were kept at 23C, 48% humidity but more ideal conditions are ~28C w/ 75% humidity.



• The medium sized larvae fared the best. They appear to be maturing well- approx. 1/4 have turned a darker brown colour, a sign that they are maturing.



• The xs larvae fared the worst; only ~1/3 survived and they are quite lethargic. I don't think they survived the transport/shipping process well. They seem to be more fragile than their s and m-sized brethren.



• Found out (from Rylo) that BSF are skilled escape artists so I taped coffee filters over the (5) drainage holes in each container. This will be a temporary measure; I plan to replace the coffee filters w/ a very fine mesh on my next visit.



• Moved BSF to a growth chamber set at 27C (with a range of 10C) and 75% humidity. Dr. A and I had trouble with the humidity setting- it appears to be broken. We placed 4 large pans of water in the growth chamber to increase humidity.

The babies have arrived!

Set-up in insect collection room w/ 23C, 48% humidity.

Today our highly anticipated shipment of BSF larvae arrived! We imported 300 larvae (each) of sizes extra small, small and medium, so 900 total. Via a very interesting and rather eventful dumpster diving excursion, I was able to procure three medium-sized plastic containers so we could keep the different sizes of larvae separate. The larvae were kept on food sent by the supplier (see pictures). I cut 5 1 cm x 1cm square holes in each container, and placed each container on 1.5 cm-tall blocks for ventilation purposes.
I did not transfer the larvae to the containers today (they were kept in the containers in which they were shipped). Larvae were placed in a room with a temperature of 23C and48% humidity. BSF larvae prefer temperatures closer to 28C and humidities of 75%+ so we will transfer them to a growth chamber very soon.
An interesting note: the medium-sized larvae are by far the most active!

Why are BSF so ideal for composting?

While we're waiting for our first shipment of BSF larvae to arrive, I thought I would take a few minutes to enlighten my readers about BSF. This is by no means a comprehensive explanation. It is meant to serve as a somewhat simplified, user-friendly guide to BSF basics: Why are BSF so good for composting?

• BSF larvae can consume large amounts of compost straight away.

Their large, powerful mouthparts allow BSF larvae to shred and devour fresh organic material immediately (without a need for pre-decomposition). Thus odor is greatly reduced since there is no need to allow large amounts of waste material to sit around, ferment (and stink!) before BSF can get in to do their job. Experts have estimated that BSF larvae can reduce food and waste materials by ~75%. Other estimates range as high as 95%. BSF larvae target mainly the protein and fat (not cellulose) within the waste material, and even have the ability to improve the organic waste in to a rich fertilizer (which presumably could be sold or used on a farm). BSF larvae can also be easily and economically transported to wherever they are needed.

• Adult BSF are not associated with disease transmission.

Adults do not have functional mouthparts and therefore do not feed or bite. They dislike entering enclosed spaces and have a short life span of only 5-8 days. Therefore, even when raising hundreds of thousands of BSF, one need not worry about disease transmission (or them invading your house).

• The presence of BSF reduces the populations of pest flies in the area.

As BSF larvae consume manure, the manure becomes more liquified, and thus less suitable for pest flies to lay their eggs in. Therefore BSF naturally control pest fly (e.g. the house fly) populations which are vectors for diseases transmission. So while getting rid of your food and wastes, you get the added bonus of reducing the amount of pesky flies in your area, on top of lowering the chances of disease transmission!

• BSF larvae can extend their life stage under conditions of stress.

A typical BSF larval stage lasts approximately 2 weeks. But under conditions of stress, BSF larvae are able to extend this stage. This is significant because the larval stage is the only feeding stage in the life cycle, which means BSF larvae are the ones consuming the waste material. Their natural ability to extend this life stage means that a lesser number of BSF larvae can be used to consume a larger amount of compost.

• BSF larvae not only reduce the amount of compost present but also the amount of nitrogen within the compost.

It is estimated that BSF larvae can reduce the total [N] in the waste material by 62%. This is significant since excess, untreated Nitrogen is a common contaminant of water supplies. Also, by reducing the amount of manure present in an area, BSF larvae presumably also reduce methane formation (which is 23x more potent than carbon as a greenhouse gas) and off-gassing. Big industries may wish to use them to earn carbon sequestration credits. This would be something very interesting for someone to research that could potentially yield great economic benefits as well as (perhaps more importantly) benefit our planet Earth.

• BSF Larvae can also be used as pet food.

BSF larvae are quite nutritious; their bodies contain 42% protein and 35% fat, including essential amino acids and fatty acids. This makes them a great food source for birds, reptiles, fish and livestock.

The potential fot this Directed Studies project is huge and I feel very fortunate to be the sole student working on it (for now, at least). Thanks for bringing me on board, Dr. A and Rylo!

Hello There!

Allow me to introduce myself (and my bugs of interest!). My name is Lisa and I am entering my (undergraduate) senior year of study at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada. I am majoring in Biology and minoring in English literature (gotta work on those writing skills!). I am currently enrolled in a very interesting and special Directed Studies course concerning a species of fly- the Black Soldier Fly or Hermetia illucens. BSF (as I will be referring to them from here on out) have special attributes that enable them to be great at composting. Most people don't really think about it but waste management is a pretty integral part of the functioning of society. Cities and institutions (such as my university) spend millions of dollars on dealing with waste- first transporting it, often using some sort of composting machine, removing the waste, and often transporting it again. A major goal of this project would be to develop a solution (using BSF) that would allow us to deal with these issues at a fraction of the cost. BSF are also highly nutritious and can be used as a pet food. With no current supplier of BSF in Canada, this is another aspect that myself and my partners in this project- Dr. A and Rylo- are considering.
Our Directed Studies project is divided in to three phases. I started this blog to map my journey through (hopefully) accomplishing these objectives.
We first aim to establish a stable colony of BSF (in the lab). Next, we plan to measure the rate BSF larvae (the only feeding stage) can convert waste (simulataneously attempting to extend their larvae/feeding stage via manipulating their environmental conditions). Last, we hope to teach others about BSF, most likely by setting up signs by our pod at UBC Farm and potentially giving presentations to the young minds that attend summer camps at UBC Farm.
I thank you for visiting my blog and welcome you to leave comments and suggestions : )