What is the BioHive?
The BioHive is a brick-circle BSF unit — designed from scratch for the small farmer with no access to molded plastic or reliable supply chains. Conceived in December 2024 at the Yachana Foundation in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
The principle is simple: you don't manufacture anything. You stack bricks in a circle. The gaps between bricks allow Black Soldier Flies to enter and lay eggs, and for mature larvae to exit on their own. A wooden dome on top creates the dark, humid environment flies need. Chickens standing outside harvest automatically.
The BioHive: brick ring with wooden dome. Flies enter through the gaps, larvae exit on their own.
Watch it in action — Yachana Foundation, Ecuador
Filmed in the Amazon jungle, December 2024. Tens of thousands of views.
GrubTubs — Fill A Need, Not a Landfill
The original GrubTubs film explaining the same philosophy: table to farm.
The oviposition dome — the heart of the system
The female BSF looks for dark, confined spaces with access to decomposing organic material. The wooden slats with 3–4mm slots mimic exactly the natural oviposition sites she prefers: the right aperture, humidity from condensation, and the odor trail of organic waste rising from below.
Cross-section of the dome: wooden slats with 3–4mm gaps. Newly hatched larvae crawl down through the center hole into the substrate.
How it works — the full cycle
Yachana Foundation, Ecuador — December 2024.
The fully assembled ring. Any local fired clay brick works.
Open source — no patents, no licenses
The BioHive design is in the public domain. No patent. No license fee. If you build one, it's yours. If you improve it, share the results.
The BioHive is the open-source answer to the BioPod — the commercial unit invented 20 years ago. The BioPod was designed for scale and shipping. The BioHive is designed for the small farmer with local bricks and chickens.
The BioHive in the NutriTicos model
In the NutriTicos farm model, the BioHive connects pigs and chickens. Pigs eat NutriTicos meal → manure goes into the BioHive → larvae feed the chickens. Result: zero imported corn, zero soy, zero dollar exposure in the feed budget.