Fly parasites for Fly Control (7,500/ 10,000/ 15,000/ 25,000)

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Product Description

These fly parasites are a blend of tiny beneficial wasps — Muscidifurax raptorellus, Muscidifurax zaraptor, and Spalangia cameroni — used to prevent, control, and manage filth-breeding flies. The wasps are harmless to people and animals; they attack flies at the pupal stage, before they ever become buzzing adults. Use them anywhere flies breed in manure: stables, farms, dairies, kennels, racetracks, composting areas, and similar sites.

What it targets

• Filth-breeding flies, including the common house fly (Musca domestica) and other manure-breeding flies

Where to use it

Stables, farms, dairies, kennels, dumps, racetracks, composting areas, and anywhere filth-breeding flies are a problem.

How the wasps control flies

The wasps lay up to five eggs in each fly pupa. The eggs hatch and the larvae consume the developing fly from the inside (endoparasitism), so a new parasite emerges from the pupa instead of a new fly — and the cycle continues, building suppression over the season.

Release Rates

Release Instructions

Release timing: Start early in the year — early to mid-spring — before fly populations build, and continue on the schedule above through the season.

Release method: The parasites ship as pre-parasitized fly pupae mixed with pine shavings. You can mix in more shavings to spread them over a larger area, then sprinkle the contents in and around stalls, feeding areas, and manure storage sites (or compost piles, refuse sites, and landfills in non-livestock settings). Put them in protected locations, away from hooves and rain, or deposit them into a Fly Parasite Hatching Station to shield them from ants and birds.

Storage: The package may be stored at room temperature until release. Try to release within 48 hours of receiving the shipment.

Meet the Beneficial Insects

The "fly parasites" in this pouch are parasitoid wasps in the family Pteromalidae — a few millimetres long, dark brown with transparent wings, and easy to miss entirely. They have no interest in people, animals, feed, or water, and they do not sting or bite. Their whole life is spent hunting one thing: fly pupae. Females are noticeably larger than males, and the adults do most of their searching at night.

This product is a blend of three species, each of which works a different part of the manure pack.

Muscidifurax raptorellus

The workhorse of the blend. A female deposits several eggs inside a single fly puparium, so more than one wasp emerges from each fly she finds, and she may lay up to 150 eggs over her lifetime. She hunts the surface of the pack and its edges, and attacks house fly, stable fly, horn fly, and black dump fly pupae.

Muscidifurax zaraptor

A second surface-and-edge hunter that holds up well across the range of conditions found in bedded stalls, poultry litter, and feedlot pack. Running two Muscidifurax species together widens the window of conditions in which the surface layer stays under pressure.

Spalangia cameroni

The digger. Spalangia burrows down into the manure pack to reach pupae that are buried out of reach of the two Muscidifurax species — the pupae that would otherwise survive a surface-only program and re-seed the population.

Why a blend instead of one species

Fly pupae are not all in one place. Some sit at the surface and along the edges of the pack; others are buried inches down. Stacking surface-active wasps with a burrowing one hits pupae at several substrate levels at once, which suppresses far more of the emerging generation than any single species can on its own.

Life cycle inside the fly pupa

What a parasitized pupa looks like

The entire egg-to-adult development happens inside the host puparium. From the outside you see a darkened, hardened pupal case, and once the wasps have emerged, a clean round exit hole. Those cases are the clearest field evidence that the program is working.

Monitoring

Track the fly population so you can tell whether the program is keeping up, and tighten your release interval before you fall behind. Useful methods:

• Sticky fly tape, spot cards, and bait traps placed in stall corners and around feed bunks
• Manure sampling for fly pupae and parasitized pupae — parasitized pupae are darker and often show a small round exit hole where the wasps emerged
• Adult fly counts in the morning and at dusk, the two peak activity windows
• Everyday signs: fewer maggots in fresh manure, less buzz around the water troughs, calmer animals at the bunk

What counts as an acceptable level is your call. Set it against your own tolerance for flies and against whatever else you already have in the program — cultural, mechanical, and chemical controls included.

Advisories & Disclosures

Advisories

• This product contains living organisms that require special handling and application procedures.
• Release within 48 hours of receipt, and do not refrigerate.
• Wet conditions kill emergence — do not release where rain or wash-down water pools.
• Broad-spectrum insecticides will kill emerging wasps. Check compatibility before you spray.
• Birds and ants both eat the pupae. Use a Fly Parasite Hatching Station where either is a problem.
• Biological control is one layer of a fly program, not the whole program.

Live-product guarantee

Beneficial Insectary strives to guarantee the live delivery of the freshest organisms to our customers. We offer replacements or credits for any compromised shipments to customers who report issues or concerns within 24 hours. These issues or concerns must be relayed before releasing any organisms suspected of having viability issues. Please do not discard the product — you may be asked to return the shipment for further analysis.

Regulatory notice

Local regulations may impose restrictions on the use of these products. Read the label and product information before use, and apply in accordance with the specified directions for use.