I am pretty sure that the lavae star out being lighter. I saw some that were close to white marching around inside the lid of my compost bin looking for a way out.

The BioPod Forums have a thread with confirmed BSF sightings. Unfortunately their forums have been down for the last week.

Here is a link that might be useful: The BioPod Forums

You might want to ask over at the Black Soldier Fly Blog.

Here is a link that might be useful: Black Soldier Fly Blog

Do those BSFL people look like they are having a better time than us? I see they love their BSFL as much as we love our worms. I hope the BSFL sites come back up soon. I need more variety in my diet.

I can't remember ever seeing them there, and bugguide has no images of them yet, but that's not to say you don't have any! The very young ones are pale cream, darkening as they near maturity or if fed exclusively dark foods. Fatter than filth fly larvae, with what looks like stripes or segments visible pretty much as soon as they're large enough to see at all, and photophobic--if you disturb them and they climb _toward_ you, they're probably not BSFL.

If they are BSFL, are you trying to suppress or cultivate them?

DSF

Here is a link that might be useful: Bug Guide

thanks for the responses. i haven't seen the grubs for about a week - when i did see them, they were very active and extremely photophobic.

i think they'd be a nice addition to my RM. . .

The photo-phobia is consistent with BSF but not conclusive. I think the segmented appearance is the most reliable way to identify them. I would think the climate in NY is too cold for BSF but I've heard of them in zone 6 before.

If you can post a decent close-up photo I might be able to ID them. You can also keep some in a container with a little food and see what emerges. I believe most pest species pass through the larval stage in days, but BSF take weeks. For the record there are fly larvae of other species that are the same dimensions as BSF larvae.

Amazing. I watched those videos and I have that happening in my outdoor compost pile day in and day out. I would prefer they not be there, but they are. My pile is definitely not too wet.

We have NO rain here and the only liquid my pile gets is fresh grass sweat and old coffee.

Maybe, if it's cool enough, on some weekend evening, when I have nothing else to do, I'll take a bucket out of the pile, sift through it and pull some out and throw them to my koi and goldfish.

Koi and goldfish unless they are huge might like the tender little white ones as opposed to the tougher old dark ones. To collect the littler ones put an old plastic pound size deli container with some holes in it with delectible goodies inside. Maybe ground corn. They will pile in and not leave as quickly as they maybe should. Check periodically, every couple hours. Your fish should love them. I did read one place where a person saw one come out of the fish in about the same shape it went into the fish. So I wonder if fish are making good use of whole BSFL. I would love to go out to the garden shed on a Monday and grab an edible fish out of the garden pond, gut and filet it for supper, tossing the skeleton remains into the BSFL bin for chickens. Then go out to the garden shed on a Tuesday and get a chicken for supper tossing the remains into a different BSFL bin for feeding the fish. That way there is no cross species contamination of feeding chickens to chickens and fish to fish. Enjoy feeding the fish. By the end of the summer they are going to be looking for you each evening. I bet they lay lots of eggs.

When I took my nephew fishing the other day we took along several handfuls of BSFL. I simply laid a couple slices of bread on top of the bin. After about 30 min, the underside of the bread was teeming with larvae.I just scooped handfuls and dropped them into a margarine tub with a little compost.

You can see photos of what equinoxequinox is describing here:
blacksoldierflyblog.com/2008/07/25/collecting-immature-larvae

I've also used the moist bread idea that pjames used. I have a pond and fish with BSF a lot. A simple technique is to use a small hook like a number 10 and just pierce the larvae once, through the thick end so they hang straight down off of the hook. Fish can't resist a dangling larvae so you don't need to hide the hook. I usually set the hook quickly because the fish tend to swallow this if you give them more than a few seconds.

I've seen BSF larvae come out of fish whole before, but I don't think it's constant. One factor may be how long it's been since a larva shed its "skin", which they do between growth stages. If they've just shed then it's probably more likely that they will be digested fully. I agree that fish prefer the softer juvenile larvae over the tougher dark mature larvae.