something exciting and meal worms.

[JeffreH]

Curling is an indication that they will be pupating soon - you'll actually have the best result keeping them warm and out of the fridge if you are trying to encourage them to pupate and molt. Insect growth rate is partly a function of temperature... the higher the temperature to some point, the faster they grow. Keeping them in the fridge will actually decrease the speed at which they molt into new instars and the rate at which they pupate. It'll keep larval worms available to feed longer, but it growth rate will slow substantially.

[yoshimi]

I just wrote a response but I must have clicked "go advanced" cuz it disappeared into the internet ether.

Shortly after putting them in, I took them out of fridge. Figured they're probably all about the same age so if some are pupating, them most are about to. I did want to keep feeding from them, and I was finding lots of newly molted ones yesterday and the day before but only one today. So, when sifting through looking for pupa shrimps, maybe I'll find more white ones, maybe not, but you're correct, nothing will happen in the fridge.

Found a thorough how-to sheet listing temps and humidity levels and time frames. If I keep them on roach bin, I *might* see bugs next week. Maybe. The meal worms are back up on shelf next to crickets. It's warm but not too warm, and they seemed to be doing fine there. As I said before, in my erased comment (which was the very best comment ever), this is kind of exciting.

[yoshimi]

Found two more white meal worms and one more pupa shrimp. Tong-fed again but he had trouble with the 1st of the two. He went for the shadow, for the tongs themselves, and I may have been holding it too tightly. He finally got it, and took the other without issue, but that's enough for now. I'd prefer he got his food on his own, even if it's crawling around in a bowl. I'm definitely still encouraged to try earthworms tho. When I told my bf, he thought I said/meant tongue feeding, too.
I guess I thought it was so cool cuz it was the 1st time I got his attention in a positive way. Or did something that got his attention. Anything else I do, even if I'm delivering food, he hides or at least ducks down. So, it was fun but we'll save it for earthworms.

[yoshimi]

Total of 17 pupa shrimp now! When they're newly pupated and mostly white, I've noticed that's when they do the most wiggling when touched or grasped in tongs. To let potential predators (meal worms, beetles) know not to eat them? More curling in my meal worm cup, but most everybody is hanging around on top. It's very gross to look at if you like eating noodles. No more molting, that I've seen.

My plan (in it's infant stage), is to continue removing pupa as I see them and putting them in the pupa cup on roach bin for warmth, and moving any beetles that appear into a larger bin. Then when I start to see little visible meal worms, move the beetles into another bin just like the first. And when I start seeing meal worms in that bin, hopefully the ones in 1st bin will be big enough to strain out into a deli cup like I have my meal worms in right now. I have tons of deli cups, but surface area won't suffice for beetles, I think. Then I can move beetles back into 1st bin, and unless it spirals completely out of control, keep it going. Sounds ok?

[yoshimi]

The 1st of my pupa shrimp has turned into a beetle! Here's an up and comer: And here's Mr Beetle in his new home:Right now he's munching a carrot chip. 6 days at a high temp, they were right.

[yoshimi]

My baby meal worms hatched! Don't know when, tried not to look at beetles much, but some are a decent (tho small) size already, and others are still tiny-ish, mostly on bottom where eggs were laid.

Only took a million years (a month).

[fish4all]

If you really want to get the most meal worms from breeding separating is going to do that. I used to raise them and have done so off and on for about 10 years. I separated the pupa, (shrimp alien things) from the larva, (the worms) and the beetles all in separate containers. I kept all of them in plastic shoes boxes. By putting plastic canvas down I was able to prevent the beetles from eating the eggs.

The cannibalism is more from a lack of moisture than hunger. If I kept plenty of veggies in a bin I could get okay results without separating them but still nothing compared to really trying and separating them all.

It only took about 6 months to get my 100 starter colony to about 80,000 or so. They almost filled a 1 pound coffee can when I separated them.

If you ever get really adventurous try King Mealworms, a lot more work to get them to pupate and won't breed as fast but can still raise a ton of them in a short time. And the little shrimp alien pupa are so cool at 4x the size.