19 replies to this topic

[AntsMAN]

I bought meal worms a week or so ago and the bedding/food bag they sent with it now has two moths in it. I gave some of this to my meal worms is there any worry, I haven't seen any in the container I keep them in.

 

[AntsAreUs]

Yes, I've had these in my mealworms colony before. I think they are called Indian Meal Moths? I'm pretty sure they are pests, for me they just laid eggs all over the bedding then there were a bunch of little worms everywhere spinning webs they are so annoying!

[dermy]

Yes those are Indian Meal Moths they are serious pests of grain products. Look out for "caterpillars".

[William. T]

Feed them to your ants. These moths spun cocoons in my cricket feed, so I fed them to my Tetramorium SpE.

[AntsMAN]

I went to look at the bag of food to see if the moths had suffocated yet and there were to holes in the bag and only one moth there.

[dermy]

Could be digging down, I'd recomend ripping it open taking the moths out and looking at the food for a bit to see if there are any larvae or any more moths. I'd do it before any of them [if they are females and mated] start laying eggs.

[AntsAreUs]

You should inform the owners of the bedding you got them from.

[AntsMAN]

Already done. Waiting on a response.

[AntsMAN]

In my main meal worm container, I waited for all the caterpillars to hatch from their eggs and cocoon.  There were about 10 only one was still crawling the rest in the corners cocooned.I picked out each meal worm one by one and destroyed everything else in the container. Also the pupa are very dark and look dead?

 

 

 

[Trailandstreet]

What did you feed them except the oatmeal?

I give them fresh veggies like pieces of zucchini, carrots or sth else from time to time.

[dermy]

Yeah by the looks of it some may have died from lack of moisture

[AntsMAN]

I keep carrots in with them, and its been 65%+ humidity everyday for the last few weeks.

[Crystals]

The black ones are likely dead or dieing.

Mealworms are usually quite hardy, the usual killing culprits are low humidity (you had carrots, should be good), heat too high (perhaps cooked in shipping?), or parasites. 

Or even poisoning might be a possibility.  I know cleaning windows with windex can kill quite a few insects in the room.

 

For bedding, I prefer 75% bran and 25% oats.  I have had better success with mostly bran bedding.  I very lightly mist my bins once a week or so.

[AntsMAN]

I will get some Bran soon as I get home all I have in them is oats. Actually there was only about 15 dead on arrival shipping went great. The moths may have had somthing to do with it, I didn't see any mites on them or any other pest just the moths. Nowhere near anything poisionous.

 

Like I said the humidity has been very high for the past few weeks and I keep the room with my ants/meal worms at 75°F.

[Crystals]

Remove the black ones before they start to smell or polute your culture.  Or leave the black ones in that culture, and put the healthy ones in a new culture with bran. 

Let us know if they keep dieing.

[AntsMAN]

Last night I changed them over picking them out one by one, and there are about 15-20 freshly dead ones today?  My bran is on the way.

[AntsMAN]

After killing the moths everything seems fine not many die offs, there are a lot more beetle larvae and they look great I put a small piece of carrot next to them for moisture.

I keep two larger pieces of carrot in with the worms, and some paper towel tubes.

[AntsMAN]

There are hundreds of pupa now, and 20 or so beetles (in there own container). The worms don't seem to be eating the carrots like they were, could this be because they are all close to the pupa stage?

The moths are gone, no sign of them at all.

I still haven't go my bran, will quick oats suffice for now or do they have to have bran?

[Crystals]

Quick oats will work.

In a few months you will have thousands of baby mealworms the size of a grain of rice. 

 

Keep the bedding the beetles are in, even put some crumpled up paper towel (the non-bleached brown ones)  Even brown coffee filters or egg carton chunks will work, they will hide there most of the time, which keeps them from looking for eggs.

 

Each female will lay 300 or so eggs.

[AntsMAN]

 

All of the beetles are under the toilet paper rolls.

 

Edited by AntsMAN, August 8 2015 - 11:36 AM.