Insects of the Lutzomyia longipalpis species are urbanized, have a complete life cycle, soil rich in organic matter are their main environment for larval development. The insect female performs hematophagy on vertebrate hosts for the maturation of her eggs. These insects have vector capacity to transmit Leishmania infantum, the protozoan that causes visceral leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease of great importance in the Americas. In this sense, the study and laboratory cultivation of these insects is essential for the development of new technologies and control measures, in addition to understanding the relationship between the vector, parasite and host. Currently, in the state of Bahia, the Instituto Gonçalo Moniz (FIOCRUZ-BA) is the only facility that has a colony of sandflies for carrying out experiments. Our goal is to describe the maintenance and expansion of L. longipalpis colony. The maintenance of the colony was carried out following the natural life cycle of the insect. To favor the expansion of the colony, improvements were made to optimize breeding. White voile was replaced with a dark fabric, adult females were separated from the males for oviposition, the pots of larvae were placed in an incubator for better control of temperature and humidity, and the duration of blood feeding of adult females was extended to eight hours, among other adjustments. Insects in the larval stage were fed with special adapted ration prepared in the laboratory. The evolution of the larval stages of each pot were recorded daily to verify the effectiveness of these changes. After these breeding strategies were applied, there was an increase of 1168% in the number of females, ranging from 96 specimens to 1217 in five months. With the gradual increase in females, there was also an increase in the number of larval pots, making it possible from the initial 18 pots to double the colony until reaching 36 pots over seven months. The adopted strategies showed to be promising for the expansion of the colony, allowing a greater number of experiments using the insects.