Meal Worm Colony

My Meal Worm Colony is up and running.

I went to Home Depot, Target, Wal-mart, K-Mart, ACE Hardware until I finally found the containers with the profile I wanted to use at Freidman Brothers. I bought three of the 24.9” X 17.2” X 6”, 27 quart storage bins manufactured by HOMZ.

What I was looking for specifically was a way for the top and bottom of the containers to “nest” together when stacked on top of one another. I know most of them are designed to do this but these were molded in a way that they would stack even after I cut and removed the nesting profile from the lids.

Using a razor knife, I cut the recessed area out on all three of the lids (this shape is on the bottom of the container). Using the same method I cut the bottom out of the middle bin, only the middle bin has the bottom removed. I used a hot glue gun to adhere aluminum window screening to the inside, bottom edge of the container.

The top bin contains my starter meal worms and will be the bin I feed from. The middle bin will house the beetles as soon as my worms go through their pupae stage; I’ll use the larger oats & powdered milk in this bin. The bottom bin will capture and house the beetles eggs and baby worms as they develop.

I’m using wheat bran that I bought from TSC as the substrate for the top and bottom bin. First I heated it up in the oven at 300 degrees for 15 minutes to kill any bugs/eggs that may be inhabiting the bran already. For their moisture requirements I’m using sliced potato, carrots and sliced apples. They really seem to enjoy the apple and potato so far. UPDATE: April 5, 2012 I am no longer using potatoes as they started to mold before the worms or beetles could finish them. I still use apple on occasion. I use carrots and celery sticks... they devour the entire celery stick.. absolutely no remnants to remove.

Considering the fact that it is still pretty cold outside… and knowing there is no way my wife would let me keep the colony inside the house. I decided to use the closet in my garage. It houses the Eternal hot water heater and eight pumps for the radiant heat in our house; it stays very warm in that closet.
Along with all the research I’ve done here on byc and on YouTube to learn about the housing, substrate, moisture and heating requirements. I did a ton of research on vendors for the worms themselves. I decided on a company located in Visalia California that I found on ebay. They have a decent rating and a fair price. Coupled with the fact they are located about 5 hours from my house they would have a higher probability of surviving the shipping process.

Thank you to those that have shared their knowledge and experiences. And a very special thanks to “hannakat” for keeping the information on her Meal Worm thread organized and updated.