Are you talking about the Black soldier fly larvae? I have a ton of them in my compost, they usually eat at the top of the pile

LOL! BSFL strikes again. You can scroll down to the "Maggots in my compost pile" thread to hop on the fly larva bandwagon!

Any "bug" you can easily see is not one that you really want in your compost since these are most often the larva of something and these larva need an environment that is wetter than is good for your compost. There are those that seem to believe that since maggots are used to help eliminate large manure piles (manure on the farm is most often quite wet) then these same maggots would be good for compost, but compost wet enough to support maggots is too wet for the bacteria you want working away in your compost pile.

And them there's me, trying to stay in the middle of the road!
I don't WANT black soldier fly larvae. As far as I can see so far in my brief compost career (12 years) it takes a highly managed, enclosed pile to avoid them. The whole issue of your pile is too wet is debatable. I believe other issues are more key.

I realized last night that I never had a BSFL problem until I started adding my saved urine to the pile to help heat it up. Old timers called BSFL 'latrine flies' because they were always at the outhouse, and I even got them inside under a rug the year of the Christmas puppy--so many housetraining accidents on a particular rug.

I can't give up the ease of an open pile, and I'm not willing to abandon the urine as a way to heat up a pile in a hurry. So, I've decided to continue as I am, and concentrate on physically working the pile every three days to pull in the BSF eggs.

Their eggs are laid on the dry edges of refuse and take over three days to hatch (100hrs.) I won't be turning my pile completely, just pulling the edges to the middle and forking a bit of the base out so it can settle down. I think maybe just stirring the top few inches may help...

Of course, I hope it's obvious that I don't know for sure this will work for everybody's circumstance, but it has for me-once-in the past, and it's the easiest thing I can try involving the least change in my habits.

I don't know about YOUR pile, but MY pile is a living, breathing, individual, a work of art that would put Frankenstein to shame. It could probably tap dance too, if I put it in a top hat. Puttin' on the Ritz!

(Didn't 'the creature' suffer decay at the end?)

Some people consider BSF larvae beneficial compost organisms.

There are advantages and disadvantages of having them in a pile. The gross out visual factor can make them undesirable in compost. But really they aren't harmful, just gross.

Usually mixing the pile and covering with a thick layer of browns is enough to keep them either in control or out of sight/out of mind.

IN my experience, they prefer a dry pile. So your mileage may vary on the moisture thing.

Yep! BSF Larvae they are! perfect match, even without a photo, I knew you could do it! With the weather we've had and the fact that I haven't added any water to the compost, I'd say that the dry pile probably helped them a bit. They do look creepy but they seem to be doing a worm's job for now. Thanks for the assist!