Insect hobby question

[KyuZo]

Ok! who wants to get an africanize killer queen bee!???
just kidding
now that's is a big no no
those things are spreading and i can't imagine that anyone would want them to spread any faster, would you?

 

[arachnocat]

I've always wanted like a wall of bees. You know like those glass bee farms they have at zoos? But a whole wall. lol.
I saw a show the other day about bees living someone's attic. They built a huge nest and during the summer when it got hot, the nest melted and fell through to the second floor bedroom. Good thing nobody was home at the time. That would have been a fun suprise

 

[Mr. Mordax]

There IS an artificial food you can make that will not make them toxic. I'll see if I can dig it up for you.

I have a recipe for Fried Green Tomato Hornworms that calls for wild-caught off of tomato plants, so I assumed rearing tobacco hornworms (same genus) on tomato leaves would be safe. Unfortunately, due to container size and plant restraints, things didn't quite work out for raising them. :wall:

I can't believe I considered BREEDING them at one point.

 

[nepenthes]

LOL, their are people in the middle of arizona who capture Colonys of AHB and study them. I do beleive you are thinking of an Ovservation hive acutaly, I want to get one but my mom says she doesnt want bee's in the house. The only problem with that though is you would have to supply them with food in the winter!

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesobservationhives.htm

This guys a genius!

*I <3 Bee's *

And just so you guys know Im getting EHB (European honey bee's) not AHB (africanized honey bee's)

 

[Scolopendra55]

There IS an artificial food you can make that will not make them toxic. I'll see if I can dig it up for you.

Added by edit

http://www.entm.purdue.edu/Entomology/outreach/recipe/artificialdiet.pdf

I've also heard they can be reared on potato leaves but have yet to try it.

Maybe I should attempt this. :?

Or if you dont want to have to follow all those tedious scientific details and find all those impossible to get ingredients you can just buy pre-made food here: http://www.mulberryfarms.com/horn2.htm

 

[Scolopendra55]

I really hope exotic grasshoppers and katydids become more available. Also if it were easier to find good substrate for beetle grubs I'd like to see them more readily available.

 

[Stylopidae]

Or if you dont want to have to follow all those tedious scientific details and find all those impossible to get ingredients you can just buy pre-made food here: http://www.mulberryfarms.com/horn2.htm

What's the point of buying pre-made feeder food?

Besides...it doesn't actually seem that hard to make (vitamin pills, yeast, agar, etc. I doubt they need ALL of that to grow.)

As for the space requirements. Ghetto rigging my friend, ghetto rigging.

Scolo55...PM me on the whole beetle substrate thing. I may be able to help you out soonish.

 

[cliff]

I really like the water beetles! The whole different environment idea.

Velvet worms are intriguing but wonder about the difficulty in husbandry?

Cliff

 

[fantasticp]

As for the space requirements. Ghetto rigging my friend, ghetto rigging.

Have you ever actually raised them? If you don' seperate them enough, sometimes one will deflate like a baloon and get trampled all over the container by the others leaving a big stinky mess. Not to mention they eat so much there is poop coming out of the rafters.
IME they definately require a bit of space. You can condense them a bit once they pupate though.

 

[Stylopidae]

Have you ever actually raised them? If you don' seperate them enough, sometimes one will deflate like a baloon and get trampled all over the container by the others leaving a big stinky mess. Not to mention they eat so much there is poop coming out of the rafters.
IME they definately require a bit of space. You can condense them a bit once they pupate though.

I've raised a handful of them at once, 30 or so. Not from eggs, though. WC larvae. I kept them in groups of 3 and had 3 or 4 die on me. They do take up a bit of space, but I just used a shelf in my bedroom and a LOT of tupperware.

 

[fantasticp]

I've raised a handful of them at once, 30 or so. Not from eggs, though. WC larvae. I kept them in groups of 3 and had 3 or 4 die on me. They do take up a bit of space, but I just used a shelf in my bedroom and a LOT of tupperware.

I will never raise those again-just too messy. although it was pretty cool to listen to the moths flying around in my moth aviary at night.

 

[Mr. Mordax]

I will never raise those again-just too messy.

I agree! 30 green poop factories is no longer my idea of a great thing to rear. They started to smell really grody, and I had one disembowel another with its prolegs when I tried to separate them.

 

[bhoeschcod]

I think wasps are the best im hoping it becomes more popular

 

[Deroplatys]

Maybe web spinners?
they are like little ear wig thingies that feed of lichen and mould, and spin vast webs under rocks and on bark

 

[auroborus]

u think that was bad? try 70+ luna moths. after giving some away, letting some go, and the die off rate. i probably have 30 pupae now. Now the hard part is getting my mom to let me keep them in the fridge, (i had bad luck with keeping pupae out side, lost all nine cecropia pupae that way)