How to start/maintain a colony

[TowlSK]

Hey guys and gals,
I'm interested in starting my own meal worms colony, and to be honest indont know a huge amount about them.
Whats the best way to start one? I know I need to get a tote and cut an opening for a wite gauge bit in terms of substrate and what to do after they turn into beetles I don't have a clue
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thank you!

 

[Malum Argenteum]

If you only need a small quantity of mealworms (few dozen per week), you can simply put a few hundred adult mealies in a bin with oat bran bedding as food and chunks of carrots or apple cores for water, replacing the carrots/apples as they disappear or mold over.

Keep at warm room temp (75-80F) with plenty of ventilation (full open/screen top). After the colony starts reproducing (months), pick out mealies as you need them. As the oat bran gets used up and turned to frass, periodically (every few months, or as needed) sift out the worms and beetles and discard the frass, and replenish the oat bran.

That's how I did it for years, but now I use way too many (10 - 15,000 a month or so during much of the year) so I purchase them.

 

[TowlSK]

If you only need a small quantity of mealworms (few dozen per week), you can simply put a few hundred adult mealies in a bin with oat bran bedding as food and chunks of carrots or apple cores for water, replacing the carrots/apples as they disappear or mold over.

Keep at warm room temp (75-80F) with plenty of ventilation (full open/screen top). After the colony starts reproducing (months), pick out mealies as you need them. As the oat bran gets used up and turned to frass, periodically (every few months, or as needed) sift out the worms and beetles and discard the frass, and replenish the oat bran.

That's how I did it for years, but now I use way too many (10 - 15,000 a month or so during much of the year) so I purchase them.

Thanks for your reply, but I have another question if you don't mine me asking but what do you do with all the beetles? I know you need to keep a few to lay eggs for the colony to keep going but will meal worms not become pupa around the same time and then you'll have too much beetles? Or do you need like 10 ts to keep it under control?

 

[Albireo Wulfbooper]

Thanks for your reply, but I have another question if you don't mine me asking but what do you do with all the beetles? I know you need to keep a few to lay eggs for the colony to keep going but will meal worms not become pupa around the same time and then you'll have too much beetles? Or do you need like 10 ts to keep it under control?

get more animals or start adding mealworms to your diet. if you fry them they make a nice crunchy protein-rich salad topper.

 

[Polenth]

Thanks for your reply, but I have another question if you don't mine me asking but what do you do with all the beetles? I know you need to keep a few to lay eggs for the colony to keep going but will meal worms not become pupa around the same time and then you'll have too much beetles? Or do you need like 10 ts to keep it under control?

My colony started with mealworms all the same size. A few years later, they're all mixed ages, so I have all sizes of mealworms and beetles.

I keep a small colony in a critter keeper style enclosure and swap them to a new enclosure with fresh substrate once they eat the main substrate (I use oats for that). I put at least 20 beetles over and a mix of mealworms of different sizes. I freeze a bunch of mealworms to be prekilled feeders. The remains of the old enclosure, including any remaining animals, goes into the food digester/composter in the garden. They'll help break stuff down out there and they're native here, so it isn't a big deal if they leave it. They also make good feeders for the wild birds, but I haven't been up for sorting the bird table for some time for health reasons.

I haven't tried eating them yet, but I dislike the texture of most invertebrates, so I'd probably hate them. I might try making flour with them at some point as that'd avoid the texture issue.

 

[Malum Argenteum]

Thanks for your reply, but I have another question if you don't mine me asking but what do you do with all the beetles? I know you need to keep a few to lay eggs for the colony to keep going but will meal worms not become pupa around the same time and then you'll have too much beetles? Or do you need like 10 ts to keep it under control?

I leave the beetles in there to lay more eggs. As they die, I remove them during the sifting out of the frass.

You'll eventually either have too much production, or not enough. It simply isn't possible to exactly regulate the production of feeders that (a) have an indeterminate production output per input, and (b) that have months of lag time before you can gauge output per input -- though over time you'll get a knack for keeping it somewhat in bounds. Whenever I have extra feeder production (which these days is roaches, since as I mentioned I don't breed mealies anymore) I feed them to my chickens.

Personally, I won't eat mealworms as I'm allergic to their frass.