THE BLACK SOLDIER FLY
In our fight for a cleaner and healthier future, the Black Soldier Fly stands out as a front-line solution for a significant number of issues we face today. These tough little guys transform organic waste into valuable feed products at an amazing rate.
BLACK SOLDIER FLY BLOG POSTS
Black Soldier Flies May Recycle Minerals Too
Black Soldier Flies May Recycle Minerals Too Black soldier flies are fairly well known for their ability to recover nutrients from many different types of organic waste and turn them into the ingredients of animal feeds and into soil-improving fertilizers. Another potential use is recovering minerals, including heavy metals, to use them to make something …Read More
Black Soldier Flies Go Well with Red Seaweed
Black Soldier Flies Go Well with Red Seaweed At least for tilapia. As search for materials that can replace fish meal in commercial aquafeeds continues, a recent study indicates that red seaweed in combination with insect meal can be used for its partial substitution in tilapia feed. Of course, tilapia seems to eat pretty much …Read More
Insect Farming and Saving the Planet
Insect Farming and Saving the Planet A recent article in the Time magazine entitled Insect Farming Isn’t Going to Save the Planet by Philip Lymbery made an argument that insect farming is just a variation of animal farming (albeit perhaps more efficient). As a result, it has all the same shortcomings and should not be …Read More
Black Soldier Fly Frass Can Replace Peat Moss
Black Soldier Fly Frass Can Replace Peat Moss Peat moss is a very common ingredient in soil mixes used for growing plants in pots in greenhouses. Unfortunately, it is not a very environmentally sustainable approach because a natural rate of peat moss growth in bogs is about 1 mm per year. As a result, literally …Read More
Black Soldier Flies Need Balanced Nutrition
Black Soldier Flies Need Balanced Nutrition One of the great benefits of soldier flies is that being omnivores, they can process a wide variety of different wastes. However, just as other omnivores, they still need balanced nutrition. Therefore, they seem to be doing better on mixed wastes when on single-item wastes. A recent unpublished study …Read More
Microbes Living in Black Soldier Fly Guts Help Degrading Antibiotics
Microbes in Black Soldier Fly Guts Help Degrading Antibiotics Discarded pharmaceutical products, including antibiotics, are serious environmental pollutants. Therefore, their successful decomposition is an important characteristic of an effective waste management. With the help of their rich gut microbiota, black soldier fly larvae have an impressive ability to degrade a number of commercially available antibiotics, …Read More
Domestication Has Its Costs
Domestication Has Its Costs Black soldier flies are increasingly becoming a truly domesticated species. While this shows the impressive progress of this industry, genetic changes connected to domestication may not always be beneficial. A recently published article out of the University of Yaoundé in Cameroon compared several traits between the flies from a laboratory colony …Read More
Light Is Very Important for Black Soldier Fly Rearing
Light Is Very Important for Black Soldier Fly Rearing Singh, A., Marathe, D. and Kumari, K., 2023. Small scale rearing of Black Soldier fly (Hermetia illucens L.) as a function of two different light sources. International Journal of Tropical Insect Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/s42690-023-01036-0 In this present study, different life-history attributes of Black Soldier fly (BSF) such …Read More
Black Soldier Fly News
New information on black soldier flies becomes available pretty much daily. Business deals are being struck, facilities are being built, original research publications appear in a wide variety of scientific journals, and news articles appear in popular mass media.
General Information on Black Soldier Flies
There's a reason that black soldier flies have created such a buzz recently. Everyone from big ag to backyard chicken farmers are realizing that black soldier flies are an innovative, inexpensive, green, and humane way to produce healthy, high-protein feed for livestock and even people. If your interest has been piqued, please explore.
Black Soldier Fly Myths and Misconceptions
As the idea of farming of black soldier flies gains track with agriculturalists, researchers, and general public, the amount of available information explodes. Much of it is valuable and contributes to further development of this technology. Some of it needs further verification. Some of it, however, is not entirely correct (or is entirely incorrect). We compiled a list of common misconceptions about this rather remarkable creature and its place in modern agriculture.
Feed Black Soldier Flies to Your Chickens
A chicken is not a penguin. Neither is it a pelican, nor a cormorant. It is not even a puffin. This does not seem like a particularly astute observation. Yet, fishmeal constitutes a considerable proportion of many commercially available chicken feeds. This creates a rather unnatural situation.
How About Green, Cruelty-Free, High Protein Food for Your Dogs and Cats?
Pets are family. There is little doubt about that. However, they belong to different biological species. Therefore, their physiology and, hence, nutritional requirements are different. They cannot have the same diet as humans do. At the same time, they should not eat garbage just because it is not fit for human consumption. Black soldier flies may help addressing this issue.
Black Soldier Flies are Reptilian Superfood
Not all pets are warm and fuzzy. Quite a few of them are on a cooler side and covered with scales. Among the insect species commonly used to feed pet reptiles, black soldier flies stand out because of their unique nutritional value. Making them a regular part of your scaly pets' diet will be highly beneficial for their health and well-being.
Black Soldier Fly Farming
So, you've decided to become a bug farmer. Friends and relatives are seriously concerned about your mental health, while the person you had been dating for a while left you for a financial industry executive. Still, this enterprise will be totally worth it in the end, as long as the right approach is taken.
No Small Potatoes. Part II
No Small Potatoes. Part II. Previous post on potato lessons for insectivores described a long road undertaken by indigenous people of South America towards making potatoes edible. Thanks to their efforts, the spuds could already be eaten without undergoing detoxification when the Europeans arrived in South America. Spaniards were the first Europeans who encountered potatoes …Read More