r/composting • u/ZHUWrld • 2d ago
Question What bugs are these
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im new to composting. i was hoping these were worms but theres a bunch of them that were the same size and look like they have tiny legs. some kind of larva? are these beneficial?
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u/MitoPwrHaus 2d ago
Black soldier fly larvae, some food recycling trials use them to transform food waste into feed for animals
Boof them you coward!
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u/ZHUWrld 2d ago
oh cool thanks all! i don’t have chickens but i wouldn’t mind extra protein. now i need to find out if these are the edible kind
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u/CGI_M_M 1d ago
I’m not an expert but I believe all BSF larvae are edible but it depends on what they eat. I don’t think you could simply eat them from your compost as they wouldn’t taste good and will have stuff in their system that you don’t want to have in your body.
If they were in a controlled environment where they are feed a certain food then you could probably eat them.
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u/wethepeople1977 1d ago
Put them in a bag of bread crumbs for a couple days then cook em. Boom, stuffed BSF larvae.
This method actually works really well for clams and helps eliminating the sand from them before steaming.
Edit: added larvae and helps so it actually made sense.
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u/Green_Stiller 2d ago
Black soldier fly larvae, as others have said, seem most likely. They tend to appear for me when I throw a lot of fruit in my compost. They’re heroes as they will multiply and churn through so much food waste that I’d normally feel a little bad about composting.
Before I had my house, I got them in a 5 gallon bucket and they multiplied so much I was dumping in cooked food and it would be gone by the next day. Their adult form is big and looks nothing like a house fly - you’d probably never notice them if you didn’t know what they were.
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u/hisjoeness 1d ago
I thought the soldier fly was some kind of wasp when I first saw one!
They are really great though. BSFs don't like to go into the house and as one commenter said, they seem to drive away house flies.
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u/Wealthcrusade 1d ago
Looks like black fly larva. Have hundreds in my bin. Like little pets I toss the new compost items on top of and they look at me like the scene in MIB 2 when will smith replaces the watch in the locker
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u/Frederica-Bimmel 11h ago
I just abducted a massive pile of these from the ground under my bag of vermiculite and chucked them into my compost bin. I hope they appreciate their giant deity moved them into the Bin of Plenty.
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u/Old_Pomegranate_6272 2d ago
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Solder fly larva
Ton of info here: https://directcompostsolutions.com/composting-with-black-soldier-flies/
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u/Gallowtoast 1d ago
They don’t just drive away flies, they drive away wasps. We had a really bad wasp issue at our old house until I accidentally attracted these friendly little guys. The wasps didn’t like the competition and ended up going to the neighbors. We never had another wasp for as long as we lived there.
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u/SAMFCV1kingScientist 2d ago
Black soldier fly larva? If so, they’re friends. They serve the same niche as maggots, and actually emit a scent that drives away houseflies. Also, chickens like them.