Raising Mealworms - best practices? How to prevent / stop grain moths to keep wife happy?

[MikeRenna]

Happy new year!

New member here!

I've been raising mealworms on and off on a small scale for over a decade (2 shoe box plastic containers). But never getting what I think should be a good yield, taking a lot of time to deal with maintenance and one time, getting grain moths in the house and bombing our house. Then our dog got sick.

There's threads here that are loads of pages long spanning years. I've tried reading them, but often it's more debate rather than productive info. One person was pretty adament, saying stop lying, its not as easy as you are saying'. I kinda agree with that. Just buy the dried ones and be done with it?

This past summer, I got the bug to try again. My wife said to keep them in our shed. That's because a while ago, with the boxes in the basement, we wound up getting grain moths through the house (1 - 2 a day in 2400 sq ft house - is that a lot?). Bombing and being real careful with instructions / prepping the house, our dog still got sick (but fully recovered).

This year, I was getting 100 - 150 worms every few days (is that a lot or little for 2 shoebox size containers?) in the shed. a key thing was that I put several sheets of paper towels on top of the wheat bran, then put sliced carrots, potatos, apple cores on the bran and paper towels. Picking up the worms from the paper towels was easier than rummaging through the bran. Through the summer, I saw a couple grain moths in the shed. (I was freezing the wheat bran for a couple weeks before using).

I got her to let me bring them in the basement in the boiler room - nice and warm. I bought some 12 qt plastic containers from Walmart. have 3 containers gowing and getting 200 worms every few days (I pick up the larger worms. I leave the smaller ones. And there's loads of beetles I ignore. Started seeing a couple grain moths in boiler room. Put up flypaper / flyribbon - 4 of them. Caught about 15 over the last couple weeks on those and .saw 1 in kitchen last week.

I've started making sure lids are on the containers & the humidity has gone up - water drops inside the containers even. Yield has gone down. LOTS of beetles. No mold. As much as low temps lower yields, how about humidity? I leave the covers off for a couple hours /; change the paper towels / stir the bran.

I'm always intrigued how warm an area of bran gets when the beetles swarm / hang in the same area : )

Ever few weeks, I use my wife's wire mesh collander to screen out frass. a couple times I keep the frass in a spackle bucket for a few weeks and nothing starts groing in there - no eggs were in the frass? Eggs are on the bran?

Any thoughts on all that? Including:

1) How's humidity affect worm making?
2) Keeping grain moths out?
3) what is a good yield of worms for what size container?
4) how do you collect worms out of a container? just manually picking them out?
5) How often do you harvest from a specific container? Do you pick all the big worms? Or make a point to leave a % behind (ie, am I potentially overharvesting?).
6) I take some beetles from a container with a lot of them and put some into other containers with less activity - help refresh the family and cross breeding? Good or bad?
7) I took some of the wheat bran that was in the garage (but not having been in the freezer) and put in a closed container in basement. After 3 weeks, I don't see moths in there. Frustrating - I saw a moth IN a container only 1 time (I make a point to check 1 - 2 times a day). With the 15 on the flypaper I'd think I'd see more in a container. These are snap on containers - they get out that quick and easily?

THANKS

 

[saysfaa]

I'd like to know too. My mealworm farm is not going as well expected, either. I have adults only, as best I can tell ... from a container of mealworms from a pet store bought a few months ago.

The only one of your questions I can help with is the flying grain moths. The beetles used for most of the mealworms raised for chickens can't fly. Either you have a different kind of mealworm (gathered from the wild, maybe) or your wife assumed an unrelated infestation of something that looks similar was your mealworms.

 

[MikeRenna]

@saysfaa thanks for the info. Yes, I've never seen the beetles flying (my wife wouldn't stand for them if they were zipping around the house!)

The grain moths are also called pantry moths and other names. They come in with the wheat bran from the mill. If you google grain moth or pantry moth, you can read up on them. I don't think they are a common issue, but as I mentioned, I had them a while ago and now I am seeing them a little bit. Curious if they are the tip of the iceberg or I'm track to eliminate them with the flypaper and freezing the wheat meal.

As for your mealworms - what size container do you have? just 1? What are you feeding them? temp? humidity? Can you post a picture?

Again, I've been doing this for years on and off. So I know some things but there's lots I don't.

For years, I was using an old drawer from a fridge and a single plastic container like the size in the pic above.

Getting back into this / into the house, I am trying to do this better. I got the bins in pic above... but then saw costco has slightly bigger but sturdier ones on sale for a little more $ so I got those.

For good or bad, I notice now that I have red beetles. along with the black. Don't think I had them in the past. Now I am seeing that's just the black beetles before they turn black.

I just started another bin - I moved a couple sheets of paper towels chock full of beetles into that new bin.

Not sure though - will they lay eggs or they already did (when in the black beetle life cycle are they laying eggs?

 

[saysfaa]

Ah, yes, on the pantry moths. We have had them two or three times - all a few decades before I got the mealworms. It makes much more sense that they came in on the wheat bran.

I'll probably get to the other parts of your response later this week. Edit add never mind, I can't concentrate on what I should be doing; maybe I can on this.

 

[saysfaa]

I'm afraid the pantry moths are the tip of the ice berg. We didn't get rid of them until we went scorched earth - every trace of every type of grain product thrown away and the space thoroughly wiped down. Essential new grain products kept in the freezer until a couple of weeks after we stopped seeing the moths. Before we did that, we tried putting the grain products that looked clear of them into quart jars with lids screwed down tight, plastic pantry storage containers with lids we thought were really tight, etc, etc. And we found them or their webbing in everything, even the threads of the jar lids,

We didn't spray, though, I tried the above first.

And we didn't know what they were when we first started seeing them so they got a really big head start.

 

[saysfaa]

I bought about 50 meal worms from a pet store in Sept or Oct. They were in a stainless steel mixing bowl with the bran they came with and oatmeal for substrate. They got lots of kinds of produce for moisture: carrots, green peppers, apples, potatoes, broccoli stems, probably others. They have surface area without produce covering it too. Like in the picture.

Hm, that potato is overdue for being removed... I've been pretty good about keeping the produce fresh.

I've added bread crumbs, chick feed, stale cheerios, maybe other such things.

When I saw beetles, I separated them into the second container: a corningware baking dish. I separated more a couple of times. I haven't seen eggs or young worms that I recognize. Thinking the adults might be eating them, I picked the adults only (as in very little substrate) into a third container to get as much older substrate and, hopefully eggs, into one container and adults in the other.

I added more oatmeal, chick feed, and such and produce to each container.

They were at about 75F for the first six or so weeks. Then it got cold and my husband saw them. One or both things resulted in the door to that bedroom being closed and to the temp being about 66F.

My son is coming home today for a week before he leaves for college, so the operation is in the basement - still about 66F, I'd guess. I can measure it but can't do much to change it.

Humidity has been about 60-70 most of the time since I got them.

It has been dim to dark lighting almost all the time.

I read they don't lay eggs until they are old enough to be black but don't know more than that.

 

[Alohacayo]

Hi! Welcome to Byc!

Just my opinion, but get rid of the mealworms and switch to super worms.

The beetles don’t fly and once you get a colony going they are super easy.

Here’s an article on raising super worms:
https://geckotime.com/how-to-breed-superworms/

You can also order a few hundred of them from Amazon for abt $30, and those will set you up. I would not recommend buying them from a local pet store because they’re usually dead (lift up the lid, if they stink, they are dead or dying). Healthy super worms have very little smell.

Okay, that said, your worm containers need air. You can’t leave a sealed lid on them. So, cut out the center of the lid and hot glue or tape a piece of window screen over it.

Raising super worms is a pretty neat science experience if you’ve got children, the larval stages are really cool. Especially the “alien” stage.

Any way, good luck, I haven’t raised them in years, but super worms are REALLY easy. And, side note, if you get your colony rocking, you can sell them on Craigslist to reptile people too.

Another fun insect to raise are Dubai roaches. But that’s another thread! Lol

 

[lillyahoo]

Happy new year!

New member here!

I've been raising mealworms on and off on a small scale for over a decade (2 shoe box plastic containers). But never getting what I think should be a good yield, taking a lot of time to deal with maintenance and one time, getting grain moths in the house and bombing our house. Then our dog got sick.

There's threads here that are loads of pages long spanning years. I've tried reading them, but often it's more debate rather than productive info. One person was pretty adament, saying stop lying, its not as easy as you are saying'. I kinda agree with that. Just buy the dried ones and be done with it?

This past summer, I got the bug to try again. My wife said to keep them in our shed. That's because a while ago, with the boxes in the basement, we wound up getting grain moths through the house (1 - 2 a day in 2400 sq ft house - is that a lot?). Bombing and being real careful with instructions / prepping the house, our dog still got sick (but fully recovered).

This year, I was getting 100 - 150 worms every few days (is that a lot or little for 2 shoebox size containers?) in the shed. a key thing was that I put several sheets of paper towels on top of the wheat bran, then put sliced carrots, potatos, apple cores on the bran and paper towels. Picking up the worms from the paper towels was easier than rummaging through the bran. Through the summer, I saw a couple grain moths in the shed. (I was freezing the wheat bran for a couple weeks before using).

I got her to let me bring them in the basement in the boiler room - nice and warm. I bought some 12 qt plastic containers from Walmart. have 3 containers gowing and getting 200 worms every few days (I pick up the larger worms. I leave the smaller ones. And there's loads of beetles I ignore. Started seeing a couple grain moths in boiler room. Put up flypaper / flyribbon - 4 of them. Caught about 15 over the last couple weeks on those and .saw 1 in kitchen last week.

I've started making sure lids are on the containers & the humidity has gone up - water drops inside the containers even. Yield has gone down. LOTS of beetles. No mold. As much as low temps lower yields, how about humidity? I leave the covers off for a couple hours /; change the paper towels / stir the bran.

I'm always intrigued how warm an area of bran gets when the beetles swarm / hang in the same area : )

Ever few weeks, I use my wife's wire mesh collander to screen out frass. a couple times I keep the frass in a spackle bucket for a few weeks and nothing starts groing in there - no eggs were in the frass? Eggs are on the bran?

Any thoughts on all that? Including:

1) How's humidity affect worm making?
2) Keeping grain moths out?
3) what is a good yield of worms for what size container?
4) how do you collect worms out of a container? just manually picking them out?
5) How often do you harvest from a specific container? Do you pick all the big worms? Or make a point to leave a % behind (ie, am I potentially overharvesting?).
6) I take some beetles from a container with a lot of them and put some into other containers with less activity - help refresh the family and cross breeding? Good or bad?
7) I took some of the wheat bran that was in the garage (but not having been in the freezer) and put in a closed container in basement. After 3 weeks, I don't see moths in there. Frustrating - I saw a moth IN a container only 1 time (I make a point to check 1 - 2 times a day). With the 15 on the flypaper I'd think I'd see more in a container. These are snap on containers - they get out that quick and easily?

THANKS

Where can you buy oat bran? I checked both my area feed stores & neither sell it.

 

[Bluebird Lady]

Happy new year!

New member here!

I've been raising mealworms on and off on a small scale for over a decade (2 shoe box plastic containers). But never getting what I think should be a good yield, taking a lot of time to deal with maintenance and one time, getting grain moths in the house and bombing our house. Then our dog got sick.

There's threads here that are loads of pages long spanning years. I've tried reading them, but often it's more debate rather than productive info. One person was pretty adament, saying stop lying, its not as easy as you are saying'. I kinda agree with that. Just buy the dried ones and be done with it?

This past summer, I got the bug to try again. My wife said to keep them in our shed. That's because a while ago, with the boxes in the basement, we wound up getting grain moths through the house (1 - 2 a day in 2400 sq ft house - is that a lot?). Bombing and being real careful with instructions / prepping the house, our dog still got sick (but fully recovered).

This year, I was getting 100 - 150 worms every few days (is that a lot or little for 2 shoebox size containers?) in the shed. a key thing was that I put several sheets of paper towels on top of the wheat bran, then put sliced carrots, potatos, apple cores on the bran and paper towels. Picking up the worms from the paper towels was easier than rummaging through the bran. Through the summer, I saw a couple grain moths in the shed. (I was freezing the wheat bran for a couple weeks before using).

I got her to let me bring them in the basement in the boiler room - nice and warm. I bought some 12 qt plastic containers from Walmart. have 3 containers gowing and getting 200 worms every few days (I pick up the larger worms. I leave the smaller ones. And there's loads of beetles I ignore. Started seeing a couple grain moths in boiler room. Put up flypaper / flyribbon - 4 of them. Caught about 15 over the last couple weeks on those and .saw 1 in kitchen last week.

I've started making sure lids are on the containers & the humidity has gone up - water drops inside the containers even. Yield has gone down. LOTS of beetles. No mold. As much as low temps lower yields, how about humidity? I leave the covers off for a couple hours /; change the paper towels / stir the bran.

I'm always intrigued how warm an area of bran gets when the beetles swarm / hang in the same area : )

Ever few weeks, I use my wife's wire mesh collander to screen out frass. a couple times I keep the frass in a spackle bucket for a few weeks and nothing starts groing in there - no eggs were in the frass? Eggs are on the bran?

Any thoughts on all that? Including:

1) How's humidity affect worm making?
2) Keeping grain moths out?
3) what is a good yield of worms for what size container?
4) how do you collect worms out of a container? just manually picking them out?
5) How often do you harvest from a specific container? Do you pick all the big worms? Or make a point to leave a % behind (ie, am I potentially overharvesting?).
6) I take some beetles from a container with a lot of them and put some into other containers with less activity - help refresh the family and cross breeding? Good or bad?
7) I took some of the wheat bran that was in the garage (but not having been in the freezer) and put in a closed container in basement. After 3 weeks, I don't see moths in there. Frustrating - I saw a moth IN a container only 1 time (I make a point to check 1 - 2 times a day). With the 15 on the flypaper I'd think I'd see more in a container. These are snap on containers - they get out that quick and easily?

THANKS

I too raise mealworms and here is what I find for more success. Keeping them in a warm place is not the best for them. Too much humidity and heat is not a good thing for the bran bedding especially with moisture in the air, and the heat will cause the mealworms to pupate quicker. I have been successful with the cutting out of a lid (using a plastic shoe box or larger) leaving the edges and about a half inch to inch intact. Get some screening (fabric kind works great but you can use the aluminum kind - just more frayed edges) from the hardware store, cut to a size larger than the lid cutout. Using a hot glue gun, seal the screen to the opening of the lid making sure every edge is glued down. This will allow a good amount of airflow. I use cut up potato chunks and sometimes carrots, as these don’t create too much moisture in the bedding. Thankfully, I never have had a moth problem.

 

[Ryder_sanders]

I'd like to know too. My mealworm farm is not going as well expected, either. I have adults only, as best I can tell ... from a container of mealworms from a pet store bought a few months ago.

The only one of your questions I can help with is the flying grain moths. The beetles used for most of the mealworms raised for chickens can't fly. Either you have a different kind of mealworm (gathered from the wild, maybe) or your wife assumed an unrelated infestation of something that looks similar was your mealworms.

Hey, I read that some mealworms are treated so that they don’t pupate… could this be your reason for only adults?!