Supplements: You can add the following to the dry food/bedding: wheat germ, finely ground egg shells or cuttlebone (for calcium), soybean meal, Wombaroo insectivore mix, fish flakes, fine mouse cubes, bone meal, graham (whole wheat) flour, and dry brewer's yeast (provides proteins and trace elements essential to the insects' growth and makes larvae grow more. Brewer's yeast can be obtained at health food stores. It's pricey, so you might want to buy it in bulk at a feed store or online. You can sprinkle the vegetables/fruit with calcium and vitamin supplements to add nutritional value. Experiments where skim milk (calcium source) was added to wheat bran (1:3 or 1:2 ratio) yielded better growth than wheat bran alone.
Cloth or newspaper covering: You can partially cover the food surface (about 2/3) with several layers of newspaper, brown grocery store bags, paper towels, or a folded piece of cloth. Leave space between the paper and edges of the container.
Worms will crawl between the newspaper layers to pupate, which makes it easy to collect them.
The beetles will lay eggs on cloth. However, it is difficult to get the beetles off the cloth when maintaining the farm. Beetles will also lay eggs directly on the food source. Or you could put thick, clean, dry hunk of bark on top of the bedding. The beetles will lay eggs on it.
Separating out worms: To remove worms to offer to birds or to separate them from eggs and beetles you can:
use a stainless steel sifter
put a sheet or newspaper or grocery store bag or a plastic lid on top of the colony. The worms will crawl under it in a few hours. Repeat until you have taken all worms out and then replace the bedding.
hold back on moisture for a couple of days. Then put a lettuce leaf, moistened piece of bread, or damp Bounty paper towel or blue paper shop towel (rung out - re-wet and ring out as needed) in the container on top of the bedding. The larva will cover the bread or lettuce. Shake them into a container until you get what you need.
Cleaning: Remove dead mealworms or beetles. Dead larvae turn black. Dead pupae turn brown and shrivel up. Deformed beetles die early. Other dead beetles stop moving and their antenna crinkle up.
Frass: As the mealworms consume the bran, a fine, dusty or sandy residue will settle out on the bottom. Eventually, shed exoskeletons and waste products (frass) will build up, and a slight ammonia odor may be detected. That means it's time to sift the grain to separate the worms and adult beetles (don't throw out tiny larvae or eggs); wash the container, add new grain, and return the worms to the container. You'll probably need to do this at least 3 times a year. If the frass builds up too much, mealworms may turn gray and get black stripes and then die.
The frass (waste) can be used as fertilizer for flowers or vegetables. You might want to save the frass in a separate container for a bit and put some lettuce/cabbage to see if there are any mealworms you can separate out.
Sifters: You can make a sifter with #8 (1/8") hardware cloth or nylon reinforced screen tacked onto a wooden frame. If a sifter is made to fit in the bottom of the mealworm container, the frass will fall through the sifter, making it easier to clean the container. The fine hardware cloth may be difficult to locate (try a hardware store), but you can also buy a wire mesh basket from an office supply store, or use a contraption like a Double Over-the-Sink Colander with extendable arms (available at Linens N Things).
Colony "Cycling" or Maintenance: Some farmers leave worms, beetles and eggs all together in one container. If you do not separate them, do not change the bedding after the worms turn into beetles, as it contains eggs of future worms. Leave the bedding until you can see and sift out the small mealworms. You really should go through the entire farm about 3 times a year to separate out the beetles into their own container and add fresh bran. Too many adults in the container can eat eggs and reduce the colony's production.
Others farmers separate them out, since larvae and beetles might chow on the inert pupal stage, and beetles may eat pupa/eggs. If you start a new culture every 2-4 weeks, you will always have all life stages, they will be about the same age, and you won't run out of worms.
To separate the beetles out, you can catch the live ones easily by providing apple slices. They swarm to the apple - just lift it and shake off swarm after swarm. The handful that are left are easy to pick up/spoon out as they surface.
Set-ups:
The best set up may be to have two containers that fit inside one another. Put the beetles in Container A, and put small holes (smaller than beetles, bigger than bran) or screen the bottom of that container. Sit Container A inside Container B. Every 2 days to 2 weeks, shake out the bran (with eggs) out of Container A into Container B. The beetles stay behind. Add more food and moisture sources as necessary to A as necessary. Once you've collected enough bran and eggs in the B, transfer the contents to a "nursery" container (Container C) with a source of moisture and let it sit for 30-40 days, and start over again. You can cover Container C bedding with a piece of newspaper or cloth that is spritzed lightly with water on a daily basis. I don't know how well this set up would work if you have a cloth with the beetles on it, as they may be laying eggs on the cloth.
Use three or more containers. Container A can be a big Rubbermaid bin with a lid. Containers B and C can be open shoe box size containers that sit inside of Container A. Or you can use the multi-drawer stacked containers, or simply three separate containers.
Pull pupae out by hand of Container A (it only takes a few minutes if you do it every 2-3 days)
Put pupae in Container B (no food needed.)
Let adults emerge before disturbing. Pick out the beetles out of Container B every couple of days (you can use a spoon) and put them in Container C with some bran and folded cloth they can lay eggs on. They are easy to see because unlike the pupae they have wiggling legs.
After 2-8 weeks, take the beetles out of Container C and feed them to the birds/discard. Periodically remove any dead beetles.
Let the eggs in Container C hatch. For the first couple of weeks/months you can hardly see the larvae. Tens of thousands fit in a shoe box size container. Disturb the culture as little as possible during this phase.
When they are big enough to sift out from the grain, separate larvae out with a sieve or by hand and put them in Container A or more containers if you want to sort by age and size.
One person has a simple set up in a collection of 12 used takeout containers, each about 5"x7"x3" deep. The beetles are in the first one. Every couple of weeks she sifts the egg-containing bran and beetles into two separate clean empty containers. Four or five months later this provides a batch of mealworms that are pretty much all the same size.
Storage: Worms that you don't want to reproduce can be kept in a closed container (with holes drilled in it) in the refrigerator. Lay a paper towel on top to prevent condensation. At 38ºF, or even 45-50ºF they will last along time (months) in a semi-dormant mode. One source says larvae can stay alive 80 days at 23ºF. They will not pupate in the refrigerator. See more information on storage.
Freeze Roasting: Here is the technique Jeff Kellogg uses to freeze dry mealworms. Roasted mealworms do not require refrigeration, and should last more than a year.
Get 10,000 large mealworms
Put them in two large plastic containers on arrival and put them in the freezer.
Once frozen and dead, heat up the grill on the lowest setting.
Put the mealworms into a large disposable aluminum roasting pan, after sprinkling some corn meal into the bottom of the pan. This prevents them from sticking to the bottom.
put them on the grill, close the lid, and let them sit there for about 4-5 hours.
Again, put the grill on a very low setting (maybe only one burner on low) and shake them up every so often. They will turn brownish, but once they're cooked, they won't turn black and disgusting if left out in warm weather.
Once cooked, put them back in the freezer and use them as normal. No smell, no feeding, no problem.
Do not use a microwave. If you cook them indoors in the oven, it gets a little smelly.
Dusting: You can "dust" the outer part of mealworms with powdered mineral or vitamin formulations (e.g., Powdered Calcium [Ca2+] or calcium-vitamin combinations) prior to feeding it to an animal. Put larvae or beetles in a baggie, and gently shake them to coat them with the mineral-vitamin powder. Shake off excess before feeding to animals.
Uses: Mealworms are a good source of high quality protein. Some people do "gut loading" (offering extra food or protein to the mealworms) two days before feeding to animals. Larvae have a relatively hard exoskeleton made up of undigestible proteins and chitin. Recently molted mealworms may be softer and more digestible.
You might consider selling excess worms to a local pet store or a zoo. If you sell them, count out 100 mealworms by hand and weigh them on an accurate postal scale. Then figure out what the weight is for whatever quantity you are selling.
Bird food - caged and wild. Includes many songbirds and chickens, turkeys, guinea fowl, peafowl, quail, chukar, pheasant, and domestic ducks. Small birds like finches prefer 0.5" size (worms 4-6 weeks old). One source indicates that because of their high fat content they should not be fed as a main part of any diet.
Excellent fish bait. Mealworms last on the hook longer than many other kinds of live bait. They are one of the best baits for bluegill, perch, trout, whitefish and many pan fish, and for ice fishing.
Tropical fish. They especially enjoy newly molted larvae.
Turtles (aquatic turtles of all sorts, box turtles, tortoises), reptiles (sailfin lizards, chameleons, fringe-toed lizards, basilisks, water dragons, basilisks, anoles), frogs (e.g., dart), toads, salamanders and newts. See dusting - it's a good idea to dust mealworms fed to desert or basking reptiles with a vitamin D3 precursor and a calcium supplement like Calsup®, especially when D3 light lamps are not used.
Small mammals, e.g. mice, hedgehogs, shrews, sugar gliders, moles, voles, marmosets, bats, rats and other insectivores.
Scorpions, praying mantis, centipedes, large insectivorous spiders, etc.
Human consumption. Yes some people actually eat them. Freeze for 48 hours first. They will keep in the freezer for a few months if they are properly wrapped in airtight bags or containers. Rinse under running water before cooking. They can also be dried in the oven, and used in place of nuts, raisins and chocolate chips in many recipes.
Science experiments for school children. (Red Nova and Leaping from the Box)
Nutritional Value: (Source:
http://www.dbs.nus.edu.sg/research/fish/livefood/mealwm.html)
Stage Dry Matter % Moisture % Crude Protein % Crude Fat % Ash % NFE %
Larvae 43.05 56.95 48.31 40.46 2.92 8.31
Pupae 38.39 61.61 55.30 36.54 3.27 4.89
Adult 42.10 57.90 59.43 28.33 3.16 9.08
Note: Grubco's analysis was 62.44% moisture, 12.72% fat, 20.27% protein, 1.73% fiber, 1.57% ash, 133 ppm Ca, and 3345 ppm P.
Problems with mites: Sometimes a mealworm colony gets infested by grain mites (Acarus sp.) The mites may come from the mealworm supplier, in bran, or litter from poultry production, and may infest a colony that has been around for a long period of time. Excessive moisture may be a contributor. They are prolific breeders (800 eggs/female) and can withstand temperatures of 0 degrees and still hatch when brought to room temperature.
The mites are tiny and round, whitish or tan in color, and have eight legs. They may cling to air holes and look like very fine sawdust. Mites can not fly.
To prevent mite infestation:
Use only wheat middlings/hulls.
float mealworm containers in water (sort of like a moat); or put the container up on legs, each of which sits in a small container of water (which will also keep ants out).
use vaseline (a 2" wide band on the outside of the container just after you wash and dry it) to prevent mites from getting into a worm bed.
Jack Finch recommends sterilizing all bran/grain (by microwaving it or placing it in a subzero freezer for several days) prior to adding it to a colony to prevent mite introduction.
Blaine Johnson thought using aplies and potatoes as a moisture source may have connected to a mite problem he had, and switched to carrots.
If your colony does become infested, the mites will kill the larvae and adults. Destroy the colony, or freeze it and feed it to birds. Bleach the container before re-using it.
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