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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!

When I checked on the mealworms today I noticed that there was a lot of mould in their containers. The container that the babies are in has always had a bit of blue-green mold, but there was only a small amount before. Today, the amount of mold has increased significantly. In the adult beetle’s container there was a lot of orange mold covering the substrate. It has grown a lot quicker than the other container and I think this may be because I have been sealing the lid and it has been too damp inside the container.

I decided to remove all of the substrate from the beetle’s container and give it a good clean as I was not sure whether the mold was harmful or not. It was easy to move the beetle into a spare container whilst I did this – I just encouraged it to walk onto a stick and then moved it into the other container. I then cleaned the container with washing up liquid, and replaced the bran in the bottom. To prevent the mold problem in the future I cut a large hole in the lid and glued some net curtain over it. This should provide better ventilation and stop the beetle from escaping.

I cleaned out the beetle's enclosure, and put a lot less subrate in this time.

I made a mesh lid out of net curtain to provide better ventilation.

Previously I had been leaving the soggy tissue on a piece of cardboard. The problem with this is that the water eventually soaks through the card and makes the bran a bit soggy which may have contributed to the mold problem. This time I used the piece of plastic that I cut out of the lid to act as a barrier between the tissue and the bran – hopefully this will also help.

In the other tank the larvae are starting to get a lot bigger now – big enough to take a few baby pictures. Enjoy!

As promised: Baby pictures!

This little guy is about 1.5cm long (just over half an inch)

Just a short post today – this morning my girlfriend came down stairs and trod on one of the mealworm beetles that escaped. It wasn’t dead so I put it in the enclosure and put the lid on tightly! Now I just have to find the other 3…

I just went to change the mealworms’ water, and all of the adult beetles have escaped! I don’t know how that happened – the lid was balanced on top with a gap around the top for air. I wonder if the new tub is made of a different material that they can climb up.

Looking on the bright side, at least they produced offspring before escaping. I will probably raise all of the larvae to adulthood in this batch so that I can produce a good breeding colony, and then start feeding the next generation to the chickens. Now I need to make a better tank for the adults…