Mealworm farming

[bobbyc1970]

alright i got it bad now. Found this at a yard sale two dollars. Gonna start another bin..............Score.

 

[galanie]

Quote:
SCORE! I have a set of those that has my craft stuff in it and I keep looking at it then going... nah... But if I found one for 2 bucks I'd sure use the drawers for colonies!

 

[bobbyc1970]

Heck ya. I thought they like the dark. So i thought oh yeah. because i have a clear white one. Cant wait. dont know if im gonna order new worms or just put some more beetles in it.

My serama's loooooooooove them. they will jump out to get them lol

 

[Kassaundra]

Quote:

My colony has a lot of growing before they can "move on up to the eastsde" !!!!!!!!

(Did I just date myself???????

) But I am getting ready to split my dubia colony.

 

[bobbyc1970]

Ive split mine the bottom and top are beetles. the middle is new wormies. but i have so many beetles thinking of starting a new colony or just buy.

Quote:

My colony has a lot of growing before they can "move on up to the eastsde" !!!!!!!!

(Did I just date myself???????

) But I am getting ready to split my dubia colony.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

I start new colonies all the time. I probably have about 15 shoeboxes that have 20-30 beetles in them. I let them lay until they die and by that time the eggs are getting close to hatching or have. Then I feed the worms til i can harvest.

In the meantime I let a shoebox full of worms pupate and start new colonies with them. On and on and on. Sometimes I just dump all the material that I know has eggs or small worms into a larger box such as those drawers(or totes)

Then I use the smaller boxes to start the new colonies. You can never have too many of those it seems. The beetles lay alot of eggs in 3 months before they die...

 

[ipana]

My "farm" is doing well, too. My biggest difficulty is changing the substrate. I had one tub with a lively and productive setup. There was "frass" on the bottom so I knew I needed to put in new substrate. I haven't found a way to sift out the stuff I don't want without losing some of the tiny new worms. To solve this, I took off the top layer of everything, leaving mostly the frass in the bottom. I put the "good stuff" into a new tub and the plan was to throw that out the remaining but as I looked more closely, I could see it "rolling" like it does when there are little worms. So, I put some new substrate into that tub. Now about two weeks later, I have another colony. Does anyone have a method to separate these things? The idea of the shoe box size of a box sounds good so that you could just give the whole thing to the birds but then, I'd probably have to have too many boxes. If anyone has a plan to keep the good but get rid of the old without losing too many worms, I'm all ears.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

I am still looking for that too. I am thinking that when my box gets like that I will divide the frass into small portions and add it to an existing "new" box. Then any eggs or worms will live and grow.

Once i took all the frass and put it into a tote. Added some potatoes on top and left it alone. I did get some worms but I don't think it was really worth the effort even though there was no effort. There just wasn't enough worms to warrant the extra space the tote took up and the smell due to concentrated frass.

I have been taking the frass and throwing it under my fruit trees and any other plants I want to grow. Don't know if that's a good thing but I thought that the frass probably was a good fertilizer.

 

[crazy huhn]

Quote:
It is the very best fertilizer you can get. Nothing is better!!! I have not used any commercial fertilizer since I have mealworms and now even have customers coming back over and over again to buy the castings.

This is what I have found about the castings, did not do my own analysis, but my garden looks great without any effort: mealworm castings contain 4 times the available nitrogen, plus other important nutrients such as phosphorus and iron -- Nitrogen-4.17% Phosphorus-2.70% Potash-1.64% Sodium-62.9mg/100gms Iron-26.5mg/100gms. PH is 7.25--- perfect for your vegetable garden! You will be using only ¼ of these castings for the nitrogen value compared to regular commercial fertilizers! Extremely cost-efficient! Recommended applications for lawns are between 10-20 lbs per 1000 square feet. Plants (indoor-outdoor), flowers, grass, soil rejuvenation or other fertilizer applications. Take one or two teaspoonful for plant or flower use, sprinkle evenly then water. For best results mix with soil.

 

[slatemnt_farmer]

If its worth knowing,

I got my meal worms via kit form from ebay a few years back and have had very good luck with em.
My kids take them fishing and sell them to other local fisherman