New bedding

I've decided that oatmeal is not the best bedding, at least for the beetles.  I haven't thought of any way to take the beetles out of the bedding with its (hopefully!) eggs in it, other than picking them out a few at a time.  Since the oatmeal is close to the same size as a beetle, I don't know what kind of sifter I could  use.

I found out that I could buy a 25 pound bag of wheat bran at Tractor Supply for just over $6.00.....and that's  BIG bag!  It's fine enough that I'll be able to sift the beetles out.  (I still have to find a sifter that will let the beetles through.)  I did read that sometimes there are grain mites in some bedding,  so I microwaved a bowl of it for two minutes, hoping that will kill any mites.  

Then, I picked out all my beetles to move them to the new bedding.  And then I dumped the old oatmeal they had been living in (and hopefully more eggs) into the bottom tray which held the original worms along with the last oatmeal I separated the beetles from.  I had about 20 worms left in that bin and they're probably not far from pupating, so I moved them into the pupa bin.

I've looked closely at the stuff in the bottom of that bottom bin, but can't tell that anything looks like an egg or a baby worm.  :=(

I'm showing a picture of the beetles in their new bedding with some pieces of cauliflower core.

Hoping for eggs

I'm not sure what I should be doing next.  I read a couple of instructions, and I'm supposed to separate the beetles from the eggs so they won't eat them, but I'm not sure I have eggs.  There's some small "trash" underneath the beetles' oatmeal, but I don't know if it's eggs or just oatmeal trash.  The beetles are supposed to lay eggs after a couple of weeks, and I've had beetles for longer than that, so I should have some. 

They say to sift the beetles out, but the oatmeal and the beetles are about the same diameter, so that's not practical.  Maybe I should get some oat bran to use as bedding, and then I could sift.  I ended up just picking the beetles out, which took a long time since I have a lot of beetles.  I put them in another plastic container as I picked, and them poured the oatmeal (and hopefully some eggs) into the bottom drawer which has the remaining worms in it.  This is the drawer which I hope will someday contain baby worms after they hatch.  

I put new oatmeal in the top drawer and poured the beetles back in so they can lay more eggs.