Mealworm farming

[rides2far]

I can just hear the opening line to that conversation, "Honey, I have worms." LOL.

 

[Lynn Manes]

Congrats on the impending nuptials!   Is he/she (<--must remain PC in all things...  )  aware of your worm interests? Best O' luck!

My fiance is a he-Michael, and I, btw, am a she Thank you about our upcoming marriage. Not either of our first go rounds. We're both a couple of old f**ts-in our mid 60's. Yes,the mealworm farming along with the fowl and rabbit raising is a shared venture. Not only do the birds get great benefit in the mealworms but Michael and I love to fish, so why buy them when it's so easy to farm them, right?

 

[Kusanar]

Well, I think I just figured out how to get around the "no bugs in the house" rule that my BF made.... I think I have mealworms at the barn! I have one horse feed bucket that nearly always has what I'm pretty sure are darkling beetles under it, they quickly vanish within minutes of moving the bucket, but they are back the next day... I plan to catch a few and put them in a container in the barn and see what happens, if they fly out, they aren't meal worms, if they can't get out and have baby meal worms, then cool! I'll just turn them loose with the local population before it gets cold so they can do whatever it is that they do to overwinter since I can't put them anywhere heated.

 

[latenighter]

I disagree that darkling beatlea dont fly. I have watched mine fly. They dont generally fly, but if they realize they can they will.

 

[Kusanar]

Well, an update, i still have 5 beetles, that was all i managed to catch before they all vanished. They seem happy, it has been in the 80s here and i have them in a container with some horse feed (i figure that is the reason they are always under his feed tub), a handful of cornmeal to give them something to burrow in, and some crumpled paper. I gave them some water yesterday and they all came out to drink. It is it is humid, but water is vanishing so i just dripped some water on the horse feed to make it easier for them to eat it and to give them water.... ive caught them all piled up together a few times, so hopefully they are in the process of making baby worms!

 

[Sidhe13]

Good work and good luck!

 

[evemfoster]

An easier way to catch mealworms and the beetles is to remove the visible spilled food they are in ( don't through it away, there could be baby worms in it) then put some feed (a cup or two ) into a plastic mesh bag and drop it where you've see the beetles. The next day quickly but carefully pick up the bag and put it into a container. The bigger worms and beetles should have moved into the new feed source.

It would also help if the feed lure you put down is in the dark. Even just putting a box over the top would help keep them in the feed when the sun comes up.

 

[Sidhe13]

And some cut veges will attract them for the moisture.

 

[Kusanar]

4 weeks ago i caught 5 wild darkling beetles, today, i checked on them, 1 beetle died, down to 4 now, but i found some shed skins from baby worms on the surface, stirred up the bedding and saw a few of the little guys, maybe half as thick as a pencil lead and 1/16 of an inch long at this point. So, looks like my beetles really are darkling beetles and i'll have my first actual meal worms soon, i'll have to turn them loose at the end of summer though, i dont have anywhere heated to keep them over the winter.

 

[evemfoster]

You can keep them in their worm farm inside the house. Room temperatures will be fine.

I have had it so cold (power outage) that the beetles died on the surface of the bedding but the worms inside the bedding lived. I think that is how they make it through the winter.

I have read that if you have too many mealworms and you want to slow down their life cycle (some people who feed them to pet reptiles want smaller worms) you can put them in the fridge up to 2 weeks. That is in the 40's F. The worms will survive anything warmer than that but their movement and growth proceeds at a snails pace if its below 60F. In the mid 60's growth is so slow that i think it takes all winter to get the amount of growth you would see in one month in the summer.

Years ago in the late fall one of my nephews put his brand new shoebox worm farm on the top shelf in the garage, then promptly forgot all about it. The next spring he spotted the shoebox and expecting to find dead bugs checked out the farm. They were still alive having survived though a fairly mild winter. However the worms and beetles were all quite small. They had lived all winter long without any attention of any kind. After he added carrots they responded quite well and started growing normally.

So no need to toss them out. If they make it through the winter in their worm farm you will have a nice head start for next year.

Though if you have to put them on a top shelf i would recommend the top shelf in your closet. It would be a lot warmer up there.