Mealworm farming

[Richard Pryor]

Link please?

 

[Richard Pryor]

Found it!

In that same video a fisherman says in the comments: "To separate mealworm from pupa you simply tip the whole lot into a container with wider mesh in the bottom and wriggle them off! The wriggly worms will crawl through the mesh and fall to the bottom leaving the pupa on the top, its how we anglers clean off maggots from maize or sawdust... let them do all the hard work "

It will be a while before I have worms and pupae again but I'll certainly try to implement these two ideas.

 

[azygous]

I love science projects. I have one of my own going.

A year ago, or maybe longer, I bought what I thought was wheat bran from the feed store. It was a wheat product at any rate, and I got a huge bag for around $10.

I started using it as bedding for my meal worms. They thrived. They grew large and healthy. The chickens adored the jumbo worms.

However, I noticed they were not pupating. The larvae turned two months old, then three months old, and not a single pupa. I began to get concerned. I posted a thread about it, and someone suggested the feed had some sort of growth hormone in it, either natural or added.

Below are some photos of these remarkable meal worms on steroids.

The first is two beetles. The lighter one on the left is from a larva removed from the super feed and allowed to pupate in regular wheat bran. It emerged much larger than a normal beetle.

The second photo is of three pupae, the one in the middle being a larva raised in the super feed allowed to pupate in wheat bran. It's much larger than the two on either side kept in regular wheat bran.

The third photo is two dishes of meal worms. The one one the left are the "super worms" raised on the super feed. You can see how much larger they all are from the normal ones on the right raised on wheat bran. The regular meal worms average an inch in length, the others haven't reached their potential yet.

The next one shows measurements of these big boppers. They average 3 1/2 centimeters long, the longest one so far I measured today was 1 5/8 inches long and 1/2 centimeter wide.

These meal worms have been growing for three months, and they have never pupated, just keep getting fatter and longer.

The final pic is of the label of this super feed. I am now raising half my meal worms on this stuff. The other half I raise on regular wheat bran so I can get pupae and beetles to perpetuate my colony.

 

[Richard Pryor]

Interesting post.

I just started farming mealworms and my mealworms (the ones that came from rainbow mealworms) look exactly like your Barry Bonds mealworms. I asked for large meal worms. I fed them wheat bran when they got here and started pupating after about a week, week and a half.

I just saw the following on rainbow mealworms FAQ:

Are your giant mealworms GMO?
While this popular misconception is very flattering, unfortunately we didn't harness the ability to genetically modify insects in the 1950s (which is too bad, we would be rich!).

There are lots of rumors about giant mealworms, and hopefully this FAQ will put them to rest.

There are two kinds of insects, those who go through a complete metamorphosis and pupate into a different looking insect ( e.g., beetles, flies, butterflies, and waxworms) and those who don't (crickets, grasshoppers, roaches, and all true bugs). The difference is that those who pupate have a rapid decline in growth hormone which forces them to pupate, while those that don't keep a constant level of growth hormone throughout their life time.

We found a way to keep mealworms from having that sharp decline in hormone as it is in insects who don't pupate (crickets and roaches for example), so they won't go through metamorphosis. The energy that they would have spent forming a pupa is now spent into growing longer and thicker. There is nothing present in a giant mealworm that isn't present in a regular growing mealworm or in insects that do not metamorphose.

While the thought of being perceived as scientific geniuses was a lot of fun, our giants are just not genetically modified. Some growers use beef growth hormone to make their mealworms grow larger, and we have never and will never do this.

I've never raised mealworms so I guess the second generation will be much smaller than the first when they pupae.

I tried googling wheat mill run from that company and nothing came up. Nothing on their website, nor anywhere on the internet. Not sure what wheat meal run is.

 

[azygous]

Thanks for that response.

I included the photo of the label so you all would know all I know, which is not much. The stuff is much finer than wheat bran, more like flour. If it has any hormone in it, it's not listed.

I'm deliberately holding back some of the largest worms from feeding out to the chickens so that I can continue to measure their growth. In all these months, I've had a grand total of one larva die. It will be interesting to see how old they get before I start seeing a die-off.

 

[Richard Pryor]

One casualty in months is pretty amazing. I had thousands die this first round. I'm still not sure why they died. First guess was overcrowding, but looking at your pictures, I'd say your worms have less space than mine did. Once they started dying, it was a domino effect. I was dealing with 40k.

Do you sift and change bedding often?

I sent rainbow mealworms a message, asking them about their "secret". I should have an answer tomorrow.

 

[azygous]

Oh my! No! Those photos of my meal worms in those dishes were simply for display purposes. It's not easy to see the larvae when they're in their bedding. So I had sifted them out to take the photos. I'm very careful about changing bedding when frass builds up and they've run out of meal to eat.

I also try to keep the ambient temperature up around 80F. It's easier to do in winter as they're kept next to the wood stove. In summer, I try to keep them from being in any drafts even when I need to cool down the house for my own comfort.

Early in my meal worm farming I lost a lot of beetles. I believe it was due to over crowding and failure to remove the dead ones. Also, I believe it may have been due to not providing enough moisture in the way of carrots. I haven't suffered such a loss in the years since. Beetles go through a lot of carrots as do the growing larvae.

 

[Richard Pryor]

Got it!

How many worms you think you have? How many trays? Would love to see your setup.

You know, this whole mealworm farming ordeal started a few months back when I purchased a bag of insect frass for my plants. When I opened the bag I saw these worms and I freaked out. Wrote the company and they said they go through a rigorous process to "remove" all the eggs and worms. I'm thinking they might heat up the frass after sifting?

Anyway, shortly after I got chickens and the rest is history.

The funny thing is, when I inspect the bag of frass, I still see a few live mealworms. We're talking 2 months no food, no water, freezing temperatures (we had a frost a few weeks ago), 95 degree temperature, no ventilation. Then you have my worms: wheat bran, carrots, controlled temperature, TLC, thousands dead

 

[Richard Pryor]

Interesting information re: mealworm nutrition facts vis a vis what you feed them. They praise wheat mill run. It's meant for reptiles but the information is interesting.

Click here.

 

[Richard Pryor]

Hi Richard!

Are you asking about our Giant Mealworms?

It's a trade secret but it involves us changing their daylight hours, temperatures, and diet to trick them into growing rather than pupating

Sincerely,

Rainbow Mealworms