Blue bottle fly question

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Colorcham427

Colorcham427

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So I've decided to go a head and buy lots of maggots. What should I feed them? Do I need to feed them before letting them pupate?

Could I simply put lots of maggots inside of a 1 foot cube livemonarch butterfly net cage? I should keep it completely dry and warm? They will pupate then or what? Please, some info. Sorry if there is already a thread on this, can't find...

 
Brian Aschenbach said:
So I've decided to go a head and buy lots of maggots. What should I feed them? Do I need to feed them before letting them pupate?

Could I simply put lots of maggots inside of a 1 foot cube livemonarch butterfly net cage? I should keep it completely dry and warm? They will pupate then or what? Please, some info. Sorry if there is already a thread on this, can't find...
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This is probably a better idea than trying to get retail batches of pupae at wholesale prices or trying to get the flies to lay in a medium (they like stinkies). Our house fly breeder in Mexico is managing with just ground dogfood with enough water to make it the consistency of oatmeal. I just got in 5 lbs of brewer's yeast and I add 1/2 cup of that and 1/2 cup of casein plus 2 tsps of paraben, to prevent mold, to 4 cups of powdered dog food. This involves a moderately large initial outlay though (5lbs casein and 5lbs brewers yeast to make it financially viable), so you might want to try the ground dog/cat food first to see how it works. If it works, please post on this thread and drop me a line, and I'll send you a sample package of the other stuff for you to try. Please keep a few dead BB flies so that you can compare them with those grown in Phil's Phamous Phly Phormula. :D

If you don't have an electric coffee or spice grinder, just put x amount of dog/cat food into a saucepan with 11/2x of water and mash it when it heats up. Yech!

Let us know how you make out!

 
You don't need to feed them. Keep them in the fridge and take out however many you need. Leave them alone and they will pupate.

 
Blue bottle spikes are sold ready to pupate. You dont have have to feed the maggots anything. Just place them in a nice warm dry place, and they will pupate.

 
Oops! That's right! I remember getting a whole bunch that didn't survive too well, but that was probably just my bad luck. It might be fun to try to breed them, though, but you'd need something nasty like liver to get them to lay, I think.

Hmm, how about Phil's Best Blue Bottle Breeding Breakfast? Needs some work, I think.

 
PhilinYuma said:
Oops! That's right! I remember getting a whole bunch that didn't survive too well, but that was probably just my bad luck. It might be fun to try to breed them, though, but you'd need something nasty like liver to get them to lay, I think.

Hmm, how about Phil's Best Blue Bottle Breeding Breakfast? Needs some work, I think.
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thanks all for the replies! :)

I ordered 10,000 maggots and 4 cups of pupae, 1700 pupae in each cup? I'm keeping the pupae unless some people on here are interested in buying some, I will sell some cheapppppp. :)

But anyways, for the maggots... how long is the process?

How long do they stay "good" before dying in the fridge? My fridge is 39-40 degrees.

How long does it take them to pupate?

Can they be over crowded when left in a dry warm area? Or do they need their own space in order to successfully pupate?

For my house flies, I feed the flies for 3-4 days with a 50/50 mix of sugar and buttermilk powder. And I give them a cup of water with some honey in it with aspen fiber over it so they won't drown as easy.

Same for bb flies?

I always dust my flies with bee pollen, although I'm thinking of buying some from an actual bee breeder because I read that bee pollen pellets aren't nearly as nutritional as natural bee polle is, lack of enzymes? or something.. lol i cant remember! ;)

 
Brian Aschenbach said:
thanks all for the replies! :)

I ordered 10,000 maggots and 4 cups of pupae, 1700 pupae in each cup? I'm keeping the pupae unless some people on here are interested in buying some, I will sell some cheapppppp. :)

But anyways, for the maggots... how long is the process?

How long do they stay "good" before dying in the fridge? My fridge is 39-40 degrees.

How long does it take them to pupate?

Can they be over crowded when left in a dry warm area? Or do they need their own space in order to successfully pupate?

For my house flies, I feed the flies for 3-4 days with a 50/50 mix of sugar and buttermilk powder. And I give them a cup of water with some honey in it with aspen fiber over it so they won't drown as easy.

Same for bb flies?

I always dust my flies with bee pollen, although I'm thinking of buying some from an actual bee breeder because I read that bee pollen pellets aren't nearly as nutritional as natural bee polle is, lack of enzymes? or something.. lol i cant remember! ;)
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10,000? :eek: I usually order 1,000 and always end up throwing some away. For maggots it of course takes longer. THey can take up to a few days to pupate and then another several days to eclose. You're looking at probably a week or so. They will stay good for a few weeks in the fridge. It gets kinda tricky with the pupa because it depends on their age when you get them. When you start to notice that fewer and fewer are eclosing you know they are starting to go bad.

BB flies are pollinators so that should be fine. I just feed all flies plain honey, no need to get fancy with it. I feed them with a syringe. I hatch them in 32 oz cups and just squirt a little honey in through the feeding hole. They don't drown in it.

 
Rick said:
10,000? :eek: I usually order 1,000 and always end up throwing some away. For maggots it of course takes longer. THey can take up to a few days to pupate and then another several days to eclose. You're looking at probably a week or so. They will stay good for a few weeks in the fridge. It gets kinda tricky with the pupa because it depends on their age when you get them. When you start to notice that fewer and fewer are eclosing you know they are starting to go bad.

BB flies are pollinators so that should be fine. I just feed all flies plain honey, no need to get fancy with it. I feed them with a syringe. I hatch them in 32 oz cups and just squirt a little honey in through the feeding hole. They don't drown in it.
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Well I got a bag of the 10,000 maggots, I dumped them all in a large plastic bin, same size bin I house 3,000-5,000 adult crickets for breeding purposes.

anyways, a lot of them are changing to a dark color, and some are a light brown. what does this color difference determine? anything?

this things have a weird smell, almost like a chemical/soap scent.. lol weird..

 
Brian Aschenbach said:
Well I got a bag of the 10,000 maggots, I dumped them all in a large plastic bin, same size bin I house 3,000-5,000 adult crickets for breeding purposes.

anyways, a lot of them are changing to a dark color, and some are a light brown. what does this color difference determine? anything?

this things have a weird smell, almost like a chemical/soap scent.. lol weird..
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They are starting to pupate. Unless you have hundreds of mantids you have WAY too many flies.

 
Well they do change from the cream color to dark brown. The lighter ones could just be the ones that are not as far along.

 
Brian Aschenbach said:
I will, thanks!

Also, how long does it take these newly pupated pupae to eclose if they're in 80 degrees?
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Could be up to a week. I never really keep track, but it seems to take a long time especially when you're out of food!

I am curious as to what you're going to do when you have a tub of 10,000 bb flies. Soon as you open the lid they are gone, hopefully not in your house.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
hummm, Rick outta know
laugh.gif
Oh bad Becky
hammer.gif
, but gee to be a FLY on his wall
whistling.gif


 
Rick said:
Could be up to a week. I never really keep track, but it seems to take a long time especially when you're out of food!

I am curious as to what you're going to do when you have a tub of 10,000 bb flies. Soon as you open the lid they are gone, hopefully not in your house.
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I bought 10,000 maggots to pupate and sell by the count of 250,500, and by the 1000's. I sold a lot, just not all of it which bothered me because my prices were killing it lol.

I am shocked how long these blue bottles have gone without food and water in the fridge. It's been over a month since they've hatched, and I still all the flies that I kept in the fridge to be a live.

When I take them out, I dust them with the bee pollen powder and toss them in the butterfly cages for the mantids. Only about 1 out of 5 of the flies fly. The other 4 or whatever the ratio may be just walk around.

I put a small amount of buttermilk powder mixed with sugar on the floor of the cages for the flies. The little mistings that the mantids get are good for the flies hydration.

It's been over a month! I'm glad I found out and realized how long these blue bottles stay a live for, these are way better than house flies, but unfortunately too big for many L2-L4 species.

Good thing my chameleons love them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) LOL

 

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