Beetle bonanza!

I didn't have time to check my "farm" this morning before we left for the day.  When I got home in the evening, I found a few new pupae and forty-six new beetles!!  I've posted a picture of them before I added them to their friends.

I've found that the best way to pick up the beetles is to flip them on their backs and touch them with my finger.  They'll just grab the tip of my finger with their feet and I can move them to the cup I use for transfer.

Morphing pupa and beetle

Today I found both a pupa and a beetle who were in the final stages of morphing, and I took some pictures.  I also took a picture of my collection of beetles which is growing.

LOTS more pupae!

Several times today I've taken a few more pupae and beetles out to move them to their next drawer.  Tonight I looked one more time, and just pulled out 18 more pupae!  Now, we're really making progress!  My beetle drawer is looking pretty active, too.

More cute beetles

This morning I had about six more beetles (along with 4 new pupae). Three of the beetles were really pale-looking, so they must have just morphed.  I've got a picture of them here.  Aren't they cute?  I guess they will be brown in a little while and then turn black.

I've noticed that when I move the newspaper that's covering the worms, they don't dig in as fast now.  I think a bunch of them are starting to slow down, and I may have a lot of pupae soon!  They're also pretty big and are fatter.

Jackpot!

I felt like I hit the jackpot this morning!  I found 13 pupae and 4 light brown beetles!  Now, we're getting somewhere!

I was helping clean the wildlife clinic yesterday, and found a nice black beetle, which I promptly put in a cup and brought home with me.  Now, when I open the beetle drawer, I can see some activity.

I've been giving every drawer a fresh apple slice every few days.

Stray beetle

We had an unexpected addition a couple of days ago.   My husband said he found one of my beetles in the laundry room.  He handed it to me, and it was a tiny bit larger than the ones in my drawer, but I looked closely and it sure looks like the same type of beetle.  I'm no beetle expert, but I decided to put him in the drawer with the other beetles anyway.  The only thing I can think is that he started as a mealworm in the laundry I do for the wildlife clinic, and fell out and did his molting in my laundry room.  I guess the conditions for beetle-growing don't have to be very precise!

I've also had one more pupa morph into a beetle.  They sure are taking a long time!  I get four or five more pupae each day.  Maybe it's like a watched pot, since I look several times a day.

Hooray! Beetles!

I found my first two beetles last night!  They are light brown, and I've read that they will soon darken up and become black.  I took them out of the pupa drawer and put them into another drawer with some more oatmeal in it.  I gave them a piece of apple, since I read that beetles need to drink.  

This picture was taken before I took the beetles away from the pupae.  The pupae are the little off-white curled-up things.

My setup

Here is a picture of my plastic cabinet for the mealworms.  I put the worms in the bottom drawer and am picking out the pupae to put in the middle drawer.  I don't know if I really have to separate them, but read somewhere that the worms will eventually eat the pupae, and the beetles will eat the eggs.  For now, I'll separate them since I don't have many and it's easy.  I guess the novelty will wear off after a while!

Starting my mealworm farm

I've been meaning to learn how to raise mealworms for over a year now.  Last summer, there was a drastic shortage of mealworms, and our wildlife clinic really had to scramble to feed all the baby birds that we were raising.  Unfortunately, it takes several months to harvest your first mealworms, so it wouldn't have helped for me to start then, so I put it off.

I finally got around to starting my colony a couple of weeks ago.  I read several articles on the Internet about how to do it, and will try and develop my own method.

I bought a three-drawer plastic cabinet from Walmart for $14.  I am using old-fashioned oatmeal as the bedding.  I put a layer of about an inch of oatmeal in a drawer with about 1/4 cup of worms from our wildlife hospital.  I put a couple of baby carrots on top and covered it with two sheets of newspaper which don't quite go to the edge of the drawers.  The article said to leave a couple of inches between the newspaper and the side of the drawer.  When I peek inside, the worms are usually on top of the bedding just under the newspaper, and then go down while I watch.