Lots of baby mealworms!

There are probably hundreds of baby mealworms in my "baby" drawer now.  To see them, I have to move some wheat bran aside  and they immediately crawl back into the bedding, but you can see movement everywhere.  Here are a couple of them that I captured on a spoon.

Beetle sifting

I did my first beetle sifting today.  I have tons of beetles in the wheat bran and had been looking for something to sift them out with.  I bought a colander at WalMart, but the holes were too big and lots of beetles fell through.  After trying several sieves I already had, I ended up using the inside piece of my salad spinner.  I put the sifted wheat bran in a drawer by itself. I don't know if the tiny worms will need veggies for moisture or not, but I put some carrot strips in it.

Last night I found 106 pupae in my latest batch of worms!  And there were about another hundred today.  All the worms are fat and look like they will be turning soon.  I've already started getting beetles from these pupae, and I'm putting these in with the older beetles.  I don't know that there's any reason to keep them separate.

I wanted to get rid on the oatmeal that I started with, since wheat bran is so much easier to use and seems to be better for them.  I sifted the oatmeal really well and put the dregs, a few tiny worms, and hopefully some eggs into the wheat bran I sifted the beetles out of.  There is some oatmeal dust, too, but it is about the same consistency as the wheat bran.  I saved the old oatmeal flakes in a plastic box, just in case some more worms hatch in it.

Lots more pupae!

I looked through the batch of worms I started on 2/11 and 2/13 and found about 30 or 40 new pupae today.  These worms have been in wheat bran the whole time, and I think they're doing a lot better in that than the oatmeal.  Not all of the pupae were lying on top as before, so I sifted through it with my hand and found a lot more.  I'm putting these into a crab box with about an inch of wheat bran with two pieces of newspaper on top.  I don't know if they'll dry out too fast since there are slits in this top, so I'll have to keep an eye on them.   The others were in drawers, which still let air through, but had more cover.

I also sifted through the batch of oatmeal which had the leftover pupae in it from my first batch and found only three pupae left.  I put that oatmeal on the deck for the squirrels to eat.

First pupa in new worms

I just found my first pupa in the batch of worms I started in early February.  These are living in wheat bran, so maybe they will reproduce faster.  I haven't decided whether to separate these pupae or not.

I still need to find something to sift my beetles out of the wheat bran.

Baby worms!!!

I finally found some baby worms!!  I had almost given up hope.

Two nights ago, a friend was here and we started really looking hard for some babies.  After searching for a long time, we found a few tiny ones in the oatmeal.  I've put a picture here.  You can judge its size by the oatmeal flakes.  I hope some of the "trash" in the bottom is more eggs.

Then we started looking in the wheat bran bedding under the beetles.  There are some there, too! I really like that bedding a lot better.   I need to find something to sift the beetles out of their bedding, so the baby worms can grow up without being eaten by a beetle.

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.