Mealworm farming

[LibertyChick]

Quote:
You might just want to bring the bin outside and give them to the girls to dig into the bin themselves. I'm sure they will enjoy the little white bugs too.

 

[Kassaundra]

I did a quick search on grain mites, and if that is what they are (by description and looks it sure looks that way) the info was basically a loss of the infested colony. It sounded to me like that colony needs terminating and all efforts to save the two that haven't been infested, from being infested.

Definately got me to thinking about prevention. Nuking or freezing any grain product before it enters the colony, and multiple smaller colonies instead of one large one.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

This was my original bin. None of my other tubs have these except where I moved pupae and beetles over. I have 2 bins on separate tables that I transferred pupae and beetles to them and they have no signs of mites.

Oh well, outside they go.

I will order another 2000 and get them going while my other 2 decent bins finish up egg laying and growing new mealies. At least it wasn't a total loss. I still think these bugs came from DD's little seeds and she feels bad about it but she didn't know and I didn't think so I do not blame her. It isn't nearly as bad as my DH letting my car get stolen and wreaked last week. At least I have my dented up car back.
Always think positive, I say!

 

[motoclown]

Quote:
I just had the same problem, came to the conclusion that they were flour weevils or moth larvae
like you find in your kitchen cupboards from old food.

My meal worms were in a fish tank so I
took out about 100 meal worms & all the beetles I could find to restart
Ditched the rest to the chickens.
Started over with some organic oatmeal in a smaller plastic bug tank with a lid to try and keep the weevils out.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

These have to be something else!
I just took my 2 tubs outside and set one down for the chickens, who thought it was a blast to dive in and eat the beetles, pupae and wheat bran but the original tub/bin I held back. I set it on the hood of my poor, wrecked car and started shifting through the substrate tossing out beetles into the other tub at my feet for the chickens to snarf up when lo and behold!!!!....there are tons of baby mealies crawling all around down int there!!!

If I had mites wouldn't they kill all these little mealies?

Why destroy a bin that has babies that are obviously growing? I have had this problem for about a month now and that has to be how old these little wee wormies are.
I set it on one of the shelves in my carport and will have to decide what to do. I did not put a lild on it but have mice living under the shelves and junk beside it, much to my cats and chickens displeasure. I am sure the mice would get into this bin and eat everything, much less other beetle and wormie predators.

Am I crazy for not dumping the whole lot?

I know eventually I will be feeding these worms to my chicks so I suppose I just feel I would waste that effort if I let them go now.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

Quote:
I just had the same problem, came to the conclusion that they were flour weevils or moth larvae
like you find in your kitchen cupboards from old food.

My meal worms were in a fish tank so I
took out about 100 meal worms & all the beetles I could find to restart
Ditched the rest to the chickens.
Started over with some organic oatmeal in a smaller plastic bug tank with a lid to try and keep the weevils out.

Hmmmmmm, could be from moths but I don't get why I don't have it in my other tubs. I think it is from the seed packet but boy do they multiply. I just don't like them in my house. Meal worms and beetles are no problem but these mites are crawling out on my floor and I hate to vacuum every day. Heck fire, I hate to vacuum every month!

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

WestKnollAmy, those are definitely grain mites. I think that I might be ready to call it quits on that colony after this long. The couple outbreaks I've had were over quickly; perhaps my lower humidity worked in my favor. I do have a very faint memory of a grain mite outbreak we had more than twenty years ago in our bank of colonies that we successfully treated. We couldn't just kill the ~20 colonies that we had so we used the tendency of the mites to go towards light against them. I recall that we kept the lights off in the mealworm room and put an incandescent light just a couple feet away from the colony and vacuumed up all mites that were attracted to the light over a series of days. My memory of that event is terrible though. BTW, the mites are after the grain and not the mealworms.

 

[Kassaundra]

What an ingenious idea! I googled for a remedy for her and came up w/ nothing.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

Thank you everyone, for trying to help my horrid situation. Bummer that it is!

Okay, fine. Since Gallo jumped in with expertise advice I will dump, as much as it hurts me........

I do appreciate all the valuable info and will nuke my wheat bran (BTW, do you know how long it takes to nuke that much wheat bran?????) from now on. I started with oats but have a big bag of wheat bran and I have no doubts that I have to nuke it before adding worms.

Off to destroy a colony of mealies, beetles and some pupae.........

 

[ID Pam]

Quote:
I am working my way through this thread. I would love some pictures. I have just started raising mealworms in order to have a good supply when the winter weather hits. I have the beetles, and what looks like a zillion tiny wiggly threads which I assume are baby mealworms. I am not seeing many larger ones. I am going to pull out the beetles and start them in another box. I am unsure if the tiny dots I see are eggs or worm poop. I will now continue on until I ready all of the posts hoping to find more ideas on food and care. I want to keep them as clean and healthy as possible.

Pam in ID