Mealworm farming

[SigningChickens]

Mine keep coming up to the top and drying out. Are they dying? Molting? Pupating?
Help!!!

 

[Hypertay]

I have been farming mealworms for over a year, and find that I am always scared of sifting excrement for fear of tossing eggs. Can you please share with me how large the eggs are in comparison to the excrement?

I can't tell the difference because my eyesight is poor. But this is the reason you sift out the 3 other stages into other bins and then allow the "empty" bin to sit for a few weeks. There will be plenty of eggs hatching out of that and if you check it every day you can get the young worms as they hatch and grow big enough to see and sift and before they turn into bugs and start laying more eggs.

My own colonies I have not sifted but have allowed to grow and turn over at least two generations, maybe more in the last 7 months. I have a 10 gallon aquarium, 2 3-drawer bins and a larger single drawer bin. I just leave them be and set in a carrot when the last one disappears, and pour in a few handfuls of wheat bran when it looks low. I haven't decided when I am going to clean them out and get some frass for my plants, because I am lazy. I like picking up the newspapers in the bins and scooping out a cup of worms from the thick layer hiding there. They aren't eating each other or other life stages and they don't smell bad, and they aren't drawing roaches, so I don't mess with them.

Mine keep coming up to the top and drying out. Are they dying? Molting? Pupating?
Help!!!

Are you seeing the shed skins from the worms molting, perhaps? They look like dried up mealworms. I see a layer of it on top of my bins every day or so and just push it to the side when I am hunting worms to feed out. It won't hurt anything. Dying worms turn black. Dying bugs stop trying to bury themselves when they are disturbed. The freshly pupated worm and bug are white for a few hours and then turn dark. What exactly are you seeing?


This side has the shed skins.

Under the newspaper are many of the worms.

I have other pictures in this thread if you care to search for them.

 

[StephieSky]

In a mealworm bin it is " survival of the fittest " when the moisture level drops.
You need to increase the amount of moisture foods you are feeding your worms or they will get their moisture through cannibalising each other. This is what you are seeing. Dead worms that have been sucked dry by the other worms in the bin. Right after they shed and are soft and white is when they are most vulnerable and the other worms will latch on and suck the moisture right out of their bin mates.

The best method I've found over time for keeping predation on each other to almost nil is by putting in a piece of tulle fabric in a small embroidery hoop, setting it on top of the bedding and tossing all of our extra garden greens in on top of this. My hoop fits snug up against the sides of the bin and I can raise it up or down slightly through tension alone. I keep about a pint of greens in the bin always. Everything from lettuces to beet tops. Sticking with greens is always best. They don't rot or mold.

In the fall and winter I feed carrots & apples if we've eaten all the greens ourselves. I just refuse to feed anything that stinks anymore. I don't miss the musty/yeasty/rotten smell. Mine smells like warm oatmeal which is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better than it used to smell when I first started and was told to use chunks of veggies and fruit! No more chunks! Thin slice everything like carrots and apples and use only leafy greens in small piles.

 

[SigningChickens]

I just added lettuce. The carrot I had in there dried out over night! I am definitely taking your advice!! Thank you!

 

[Mwilliams32931]

How long are they in pupae form?

 

[EddieJ]

In a mealworm bin it is " survival of the fittest " when the moisture level drops.
You need to increase the amount of moisture foods you are feeding your worms or they will get their moisture through cannibalising each other. This is what you are seeing. Dead worms that have been sucked dry by the other worms in the bin. Right after they shed and are soft and white is when they are most vulnerable and the other worms will latch on and suck the moisture right out of their bin mates.

The best method I've found over time for keeping predation on each other to almost nil is by putting in a piece of tulle fabric in a small embroidery hoop, setting it on top of the bedding and tossing all of our extra garden greens in on top of this. My hoop fits snug up against the sides of the bin and I can raise it up or down slightly through tension alone. I keep about a pint of greens in the bin always. Everything from lettuces to beet tops. Sticking with greens is always best. They don't rot or mold.

In the fall and winter I feed carrots & apples if we've eaten all the greens ourselves. I just refuse to feed anything that stinks anymore. I don't miss the musty/yeasty/rotten smell. Mine smells like warm oatmeal which is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better than it used to smell when I first started and was told to use chunks of veggies and fruit! No more chunks! Thin slice everything like carrots and apples and use only leafy greens in small piles.

So do they have any issues "crawling" to the top of the embroidery hoop to eat? Is the "tulle" fabric something special so they don't attempt to eat it as they do paper bags?

I sure I learning a lot here....this is sweet!!

Thanks
Eddie

 

[SigningChickens]

My guess is that they can eat the food from beneath the tulle.
Eddie- it is the same material they make little girl's tutus out of and bride's veils. You can get a spool very cheap in the wedding section at Walmart.

 

[EddieJ]

My guess is that they can eat the food from beneath the tulle.
Eddie- it is the same material they make little girl's tutus out of and bride's veils. You can get a spool very cheap in the wedding section at Walmart.

I'm having a hard time visualizing this... lol The hoop with the fabric is sitting on the substrate and the veggies are on top of it, correct?

 

[StephieSky]

This is the hoop with the tulle fabric. The worms will even eat the hoop wood over time. Don't use a metal hoop! It will rust. Just figure on replacing the hoop for 99 cents in a couple of years.


This is the first layer of brown paper bag over the hoop. It provides the darkeness the worms crave. This is after two days. They're already drilling it full of holes and munching it up.



This is the next layer of brown paper sacking. I just put this on yesterday because its getting super warm here. I don't want the bin to dry or get too warm. The more worms you have in the bin the more heat they will generate also. I don't want my bin to cycle too fast or I'l get too many worms in my bin and they'll be in danger of colony collapse from overpopulation. For example: In a 8" tall by 24" wide x 12" deep bin 5000 mature worms would soon generate enough heat I'd start getting defective pupae and malformed beetles. I know, I keep reading that everyone is heating their bins ... but I only want enough worms for my fish, my chickens and the wild birds. By keeping my bin in the garage where its cool'ish but never hot or freezing I get a steady year round supply of worms with zero percent of defective beetles or malformed pupae.

Tulle fabric is a netting that is 100% synthetic.
Mealworms will eat wood and paper as well as just about anything from organic origins.
The tulle has a spacing that allows all sizes of worms to crawl up out of the bedding and into the lettuce from the underside of the fabric. It also prevents the beetles from crawling down through the tulle and into the bedding to eat the microworms that will hang out just below the surface feeding on the lettuce through the tulle.
If you pick it up you'll see thousands of tiny worms attached to the lettuce drinking up the moisture. If you hold it up a few minutes they'll start to let go and drop off back into the bedding seeking the dark again.
I keep my hoop covered with brown paper. They do eat the brown paper bags over time. I never use egg cartons or paper towel rolls as they tend to stink to high heaven as they draw in moisture from the bin. And beetles like to lay their eggs inside of them. Then when you want to get rid of the stinky things you have to toss all those eggs that keep the bin in full cycle. Its a nasty mess is what it is.

With the brown paper sacking layers you never have to remove them as they are thin enough they don't have a constant dampness and if you pick up the layer of brown paper you'll see mealworms "stuck" to it chewing away. A flick of your finger with a hard tap on the bag knocks them off but there will still be eggs you can't see layering the surface. You can even start a new bin just by removing the old paper cover to a new bin and waiting a few months for the hatched micro worms to become visible to the human eye. I don't use anything but brown paper bags from the grocery store that eventually "compost" themselves into the bins substrate. I'm a big fan of less effort and no stink. lol

 

[StephieSky]

Some things to keep in mind:

The mealworm is NOT a worm. It is the larval stage (grub) of the yellow mealworm beetle, also called the darkling beetle (Tenebrio molitor). Although the grub looks a bit like a worm, the mealworm has six small, jointed legs. Both the larva and the beetle are nocturnal (active at night), but they are also active during the day.

Life Cycle: The mealworm undergoes complete metamorphosis. The female darkling beetle lays hundreds of tiny, white, oval eggs, which hatch into tiny mealworms (the larval stage) - it takes from 4 to 19 days to hatch. Each mealworm eats a tremendous amount and grows a lot, molting (shedding its exoskeleton) many times as it grows. It then enters the pupal stage (this stage lasts from 2-3 weeks up to 9 months, if the pupal stage over-winters). The pupa does not eat and seems inactive, but it is transforming itself into an adult. After pupating, a white adult darkwing beetle emerges from the pupa -- it soon turns brown and then almost black. The adult lives for a few months. The entire life cycle takes about a year.

Anatomy: The tiny, white, bean-shaped eggs are about 2 mm long by .9 mm wide. Larvae are dark yellow with brown bands; they are up to about 35 mm long, have a segmented body, six legs (towards the front of the body) and two antennae. The pupa is white/cream with a large head and a pointed tail (it darkens as it grows). Like all insects, this beetle has a hard exoskeleton, six jointed legs, two antennae, compound eyes, and a body divided into three parts (the head, thorax, and abdomen). The adult is from 12 to 25 mm long and is dark brown.

* 2mm long by .9 mm wide transparent white eggs: you would need 1,000 years, a microscope and severe OCD to pick the eggs out of a bin of mealworms lol Just give them something to lay their eggs on and in: like a whole egg carton with the top side down if you want to start a new bin. Or go with the three bin method. My preference is to use 1 bin and have all life stages constantly cycling in the one bin. I do get occasional surges in populations and I just freeze them for feeding the year round birds in the winter as life is hard for wild birds that don't migrate when they have to fight over food sources. I plant sunflowers and leave half of them standing through the winter months for the wild birds that are unlucky enough to get displaced by competition in the winter also.

Diet/Enemies: Both the adults and the larvae are scavengers that eat grains (hence the name mealworm) and some seedlings. Because of this, it is considered a pest. They also eat decaying material, like decomposing animals and dead plants. They get all the water they need from the food they eat. Mealworms are eaten by many animals, including many birds, rodents, spiders, lizards, and some other beetles.

* This is why I have baking soda on my garage shelf - it keeps all of these predatory pests out of my bin.

Range: This beetle is found in temperate and other regions around the world. They usually live in dark, cool, moist places, like under rocks and logs.

* This is why my garage seems to work so well, I guess. Its about the same as being under a rock and I add lots of moist greens.