Things haven’t been going so well for the mealworms recently. I changed the substrate a couple of weeks ago, and everything was fine for a while, but one day I came home and most of the mealworms were lying on the top of the substrate. I had no clue as to why this was happening, and moved them into a new tub with new substrate. I picked out all of the dead ones and left them to see if they would recover.
I checked on them every day, and more of them have died each day. I think the reason that they have been dying is that the substrate was too moist. I have since left the lid off, and have been putting vegetables in for moisture instead of soggy kitchen roll.
After I came back from my holiday I had a look in their container and I must admit I was expecting the lot of them to be dead. When I had a look I instantly noticed a few empty skins on the top of the container so some of them have survived. In amongst the bran and the dead mealworms I managed to find at least 3 live ones and they are getting quite large now. Hopefully these 3 will survive so that I can breed a new batch. Next time I will make sure that I don’t allow them to get too soggy!