Actually, I have egg cartons in 1 of my drawers and they are all over it all the time. Both worm and beetles. I am sure some of the eggs will be laid on there (in my bin).
Drying is not a bad idea, if you want to mess with that.
Yes, the big reddish one is a darkling beetle, it may stay that color or turn almost black. The little beetle is something else, don't know what though, and I think the larva might be a mealworm, but I don't see segments, so not sure.Could one of you more experienced mealworm farmers help me figure out what I'm looking at here? I'm starting to see little beetles and grubs in my mealworm trays. I think the first beetle is a darkling beetle? What do you guys think? This is the only one of its kind that I've seen so far. I'm also seeing a bunch of much smaller black beetles. All of these were taken with the same magnification. In the second photo, there's a small dark speck that is one of those other beetles. It's on the wall in the middle of the photo, right by the grains. Do you guys think those are darkling beetles as well, or something different? And finally, it's been really dry here so I sprayed some water on the oats to keep it moist. I overdid it and ended up with some mold, third picture. I was picking out the chunks of mold and noticed that some of them have a bunch of little larvae, like the one pictured. Are those mealworms? Or something else? Just trying to figure out if the creatures I'm growing are actually the ones I want to be growing. Thanks for your help!
OK, thank you! So, at this point, given that I have something else in there, would it be a good idea to start a new tray with new grains and just manually move over any darkling beetles I see into the new tray? And eventually give the old tray and all of its inhabitants to the chickens to eat? Or should I just scrap it and order new mealworms and start over?
