# Mealworm Colony Innovation Needed!



## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

For the last couple of years I've been breeding my own mealworms.

I have four colonies which I seed with 1000 mealies and these keep me amply supplied.

There are two things, that I've been struggling with however.

The first is cleaning out the colony. Eventually, they eat all of the oats and I start topping up. The problem is that the faeces/moults/dead beetles etc keep accumulating until there is a three to four inch layer of fine faecal matter.

Now I can seive this out, but this also seives out most of the eggs and small mealworms(I mean the micro mealies - 3mm and less). The larger rubbish stays in the sieve and still needs manually removing from the larger mealworms.

I have resorted to having 4 colonies and just ditching one every 3 months and starting again. I wondered if anyone had any ingenious ideas for how to separate the large rubbish from the mealworms, and how to get rid of the faecal matter without losing thousands of eggs and babies?


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## freekygeeky (May 25, 2007)

when the poo shed and all the matter gets to much i seive it all out, lleave it by its self in a tub, wait a month or so , by that time anythign that was in there (ie eggs) would of hatched. SO i sift out the baby mealies, and throw it away.


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## JRoss (Aug 31, 2009)

I dont believe there is an effective way. I have had this problem so i just leave it there letting it accumulate, all i do is take out dead beetles. Throwing the excrement away would result in loads of eggs being lost. Sieving tends to disrupt my colonies but when i leave them alone, everything is bustling with activity.


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

freekygeeky said:


> when the poo shed and all the matter gets to much i seive it all out, lleave it by its self in a tub, wait a month or so , by that time anythign that was in there (ie eggs) would of hatched. SO i sift out the baby mealies, and throw it away.





JRoss said:


> I dont believe there is an effective way. I have had this problem so i just leave it there letting it accumulate, all i do is take out dead beetles. Throwing the excrement away would result in loads of eggs being lost. Sieving tends to disrupt my colonies but when i leave them alone, everything is bustling with activity.


I thought that there would be no stunning solution, but you have to ask!

Actually Freeky's suggestion is a good one and I will definately try it. :2thumb:

By the time I throw my colonies and reseed, there is however about 10kg of excrement and dead beetle parts so it's not fun!!


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## froggsong (May 8, 2009)

Hi there folks. Just thought I would share something I read recently when looking for an easier way to harvest my mealies. 

Mealies will run from heat, so if you put them in a funnel with a bit of cotton wool (or something they can get around) in the bottom of the funnel to hold back the dust, you can hold a light over the funnel and they will run for the bottom very quickly and crawl around the cotton and out the bottom. 

I tried it, and it worked pretty well, but I held the light too close and cooked some of them. 

If you wait until all the eggs would have hatched but before they are large enough to pupate (somewhere around halfway through the larval stage), you can sift out the largest mess, then put the dust and mealies in a bowl and take them outside (it's going to be messy, lol). Stand in a place that's breezy (or in front of a fan on low), with another bowl at your feet. *Slowly* pour the mealies into the bowl at your feet, letting the dust blow away with the wind. The mealies are heavy enough that they will fall straight down, while the dust will go to the side, mostly missing the bowl at your feet. You may have to do it a few times, and I recommend wearing a mask, but it's a fairly easy way to sort them all out of the dust. 

Hope this helps out!

EDIT: Also, all of that mealworm waste is pretty good to mix in with your compost (if you compost). I save some of it to mix in with the soil for my potted plants, works pretty well as a fertilizer.


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

More useful ideas and very ecofriendly!

Will have to get experimenting!


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## zoe6660 (Jun 3, 2007)

i clean my meal worms out using a cieve and all that go though it is the crap, but when i was breeding some of the tiny babies would fall though.


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

zoe6660 said:


> i clean my meal worms out using a cieve and all that go though it is the crap, but when i was breeding some of the tiny babies would fall though.


Yes, that's the problem!


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## zoe6660 (Jun 3, 2007)

Grond said:


> Yes, that's the problem!


you could do that but dont get rid of it, keep it in a bigger tub and feed the small ones up for a week then do it again and u should have them all.


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

zoe6660 said:


> you could do that but dont get rid of it, keep it in a bigger tub and feed the small ones up for a week then do it again and u should have them all.


Yes, I think that's a good idea. It's similar to what Freeky suggested.

Don't know why I didn't think of it sooner! It seems so obvious now!


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## haunted-havoc (Aug 6, 2009)

i havent tried this but it might be an idea. have a box with the bottom cut out and replaced with a fine mesh, that is big enough for the faecal matter to fall through (maybe 1mm) but that on top of an empty box. this way the oats wont fall through the mesh neither will the mealies or beetles. but the feacal matter and eggs will. 

the movement of the mealies and beetles with sort of shake the lot through the mesh. then when all the beetles are dead on the top you can repeat the process with the mealies that hatch from underneath. just put the box that was underneath aside for a while and voila!

i dont know if this would wok but it seems to me as if it would


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

haunted-havoc said:


> i havent tried this but it might be an idea. have a box with the bottom cut out and replaced with a fine mesh, that is big enough for the faecal matter to fall through (maybe 1mm) but that on top of an empty box. this way the oats wont fall through the mesh neither will the mealies or beetles. but the feacal matter and eggs will.
> 
> the movement of the mealies and beetles with sort of shake the lot through the mesh. then when all the beetles are dead on the top you can repeat the process with the mealies that hatch from underneath. just put the box that was underneath aside for a while and voila!
> 
> i dont know if this would wok but it seems to me as if it would


It probably would, you can buy boxes like this. It's the keeping the faecal matter that's the vital missing link!


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## haunted-havoc (Aug 6, 2009)

but it does make an almost maintenance free colony, and if you do with say 2 toy boxes. thats prettygood going. i suppose you could put a lid on the faecal matter to stop smells


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

haunted-havoc said:


> but it does make an almost maintenance free colony, and if you do with say 2 toy boxes. thats prettygood going. i suppose you could put a lid on the faecal matter to stop smells


Yes, I'm definately getting ideas! Just need to work out how to make 10000 pin holes in the bottom of a RUB!


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## REDDEV1L (Nov 27, 2008)

haunted-havoc said:


> i suppose you could put a lid on the faecal matter to stop smells


I did this...I sieved my colony out and put the frass (faecal matter) into another container...Then, to encourage any baby mealies to show themselves i put two small pieces of potato in then put the lid on to stop the smell.

Cpl of weeks later I go check and see all the small pieces of bran that slipped through the sieve all in one corner...I thought Great...i've got plenty babies in there then...NOPE...Millions of MITES

I'm still battling to get rid of the mites right now, and that was a few months ago...they got everywhere...Although they don't like my roach colony for some reason (I keep those with a base of bran too)




I've just finished a massive overhaul of my mealy colony, taken me ages to do, but I've seperated all the mealies from the beetles (I ended up with 1000's of munched aliens when I kept everything together) and i've kept everything. The frass is in a large OPEN-TOP tub in the garage and i'm slowly sifting through the dead picking out as many tiny babies as I can see (One thing I've noticed is they love to lay eggs inside the bodies and heads of dead beetles...which is a right pain!!)


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## JRoss (Aug 31, 2009)

The mistake was putting the moist potato directly on the bran. When the bran gets wet it encourages mite infestation. If the environment is dry the mites cannot thrive.


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

REDDEV1L said:


> I've just finished a massive overhaul of my mealy colony, taken me ages to do, but I've seperated all the mealies from the beetles (I ended up with 1000's of munched aliens when I kept everything together) and i've kept everything. The frass is in a large OPEN-TOP tub in the garage and i'm slowly sifting through the dead picking out as many tiny babies as I can see (One thing I've noticed is they love to lay eggs inside the bodies and heads of dead beetles...which is a right pain!!)


Yes it would take me days to sort one of mine out and save every little mealie! I haven't got that much spare time.

Will experiment over the next few months and see what happens!


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## mrmikey (Aug 12, 2009)

Your gonna have to use your imagination but..

Think of a big wooden box (Like a empty tortoise table, No hide ect), With a slanting piece of wood in the middle, going to a small "pit" with maybe food in it?

I'll upload some 3D pics of this idea later


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

mrmikey said:


> Your gonna have to use your imagination but..
> 
> Think of a big wooden box (Like a empty tortoise table, No hide ect), With a slanting piece of wood in the middle, going to a small "pit" with maybe food in it?
> 
> I'll upload some 3D pics of this idea later


My imagination is not yet seeing what you're seeing! Sounds intriguing though, will await pics!


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## jools (Apr 4, 2009)

I keep a sucsession of several tubs. Beetles go into 1st one for 4 weeks or so and lay eggs. After about a month I get all the beetles out (keeping all the bran / poo / eggs in the tub) and put the beetles into the next tub of substrate where they again seed it with eggs. I do this a few times. After a while the first tub is full of mini-mealies but no fresh eggs as the beetles have been moved. As soon as the mealies are big enough I sieve them in the usual way to get rid of the frass. This system means that I don't have eggs/micro mealies and "usable" mealworms in the same tubs. The tubs of mini and std mealies have no frass and the laying/hatching tubs don't have too much. And I have ready pre-sorted sized mealies. Hope that all makes sense - it works well for me.


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## mrmikey (Aug 12, 2009)

Grond said:


> My imagination is not yet seeing what you're seeing! Sounds intriguing though, will await pics!











If you cant read the text on the bottom it says: 
Waste Material Goes Here (Far Left), Ramp for the living (Middle), The "Pit" (Far Right)

The Blue text says "Ends could be hinged for to make it more easy" what I meant was ease removing waste and worms.


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

jools said:


> I keep a sucsession of several tubs. Beetles go into 1st one for 4 weeks or so and lay eggs. After about a month I get all the beetles out (keeping all the bran / poo / eggs in the tub) and put the beetles into the next tub of substrate where they again seed it with eggs. I do this a few times. After a while the first tub is full of mini-mealies but no fresh eggs as the beetles have been moved. As soon as the mealies are big enough I sieve them in the usual way to get rid of the frass. This system means that I don't have eggs/micro mealies and "usable" mealworms in the same tubs. The tubs of mini and std mealies have no frass and the laying/hatching tubs don't have too much. And I have ready pre-sorted sized mealies. Hope that all makes sense - it works well for me.


This is probably the most straightforward way of doing things to be honest.

Having seived 10 pounds of beetle crap yesterday, I'm thinking of changing my method!


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

mrmikey said:


> image
> If you cant read the text on the bottom it says:
> Waste Material Goes Here (Far Left), Ramp for the living (Middle), The "Pit" (Far Right)
> 
> The Blue text says "Ends could be hinged for to make it more easy" what I meant was ease removing waste and worms.


So is the idea that the worms would crawl up the ramp and into the pit once they hatch?


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## mrmikey (Aug 12, 2009)

Grond said:


> So is the idea that the worms would crawl up the ramp and into the pit once they hatch?


I was thinking of empting a culture in at a time and letting the worms crawl up ?

I'm not sure how it would work tho.


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

mrmikey said:


> I was thinking of empting a culture in at a time and letting the worms crawl up ?
> 
> I'm not sure how it would work tho.


Ahhhh! I see! It's a worm sorting device.

It would get some of them but I'm not sure whether most of the lazy blighters would stay at the bottom of the ramp!


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## connor 1213 (Apr 6, 2009)

mrmikey said:


> image
> If you cant read the text on the bottom it says:
> Waste Material Goes Here (Far Left), Ramp for the living (Middle), The "Pit" (Far Right)
> 
> The Blue text says "Ends could be hinged for to make it more easy" what I meant was ease removing waste and worms.


where can you buy these


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

connor 1213 said:


> where can you buy these


You can't. It was just an innovative idea.

You'd have to make your own.


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## froggsong (May 8, 2009)

So, I've tried something new with my mealies and I thought I would share (again, lol). I'm not sure if this would work on a large scale. I only have a small dish of them going right now.

I am not using bedding, at least not as far as bran or oats or something goes. I am using ripped (not shredded) pieces of paper. I have the food in the bottom of the bowl (I am using Mazuri rodent block, they seem to love it, so do my crickets; don't know if you guys have that in the UK), and potato on top of the paper (to discourage mold). They are fatter, more plump, and softer than I have ever had them. The regular fellows were almost as soft as the freshly molted ones. They are VERY easy to sort out, and VERY easy to clean. Just lift the paper, shake it off (to get off the feces), put the paper in something else, then pick out (or sift, or whatever) the mealies and put them in the new container (so you can clean the other one). 

I imagine you could use corrugated cardboard as well, they would likely "enjoy" crawling through the corrugations. In fact, cardboard would probably work better on a larger scale. 

Using this method can also allow you to gutload the mealies, depending on what you feed them (I'm thinking pellets of some sort are definitely the way to go with this method). 

So, what do you guys think? Do you think this will work long term or will it fail tragically???


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## Grond (Jun 17, 2008)

froggsong said:


> So, I've tried something new with my mealies and I thought I would share (again, lol). I'm not sure if this would work on a large scale. I only have a small dish of them going right now.
> 
> I am not using bedding, at least not as far as bran or oats or something goes. I am using ripped (not shredded) pieces of paper. I have the food in the bottom of the bowl (I am using Mazuri rodent block, they seem to love it, so do my crickets; don't know if you guys have that in the UK), and potato on top of the paper (to discourage mold). They are fatter, more plump, and softer than I have ever had them. The regular fellows were almost as soft as the freshly molted ones. They are VERY easy to sort out, and VERY easy to clean. Just lift the paper, shake it off (to get off the feces), put the paper in something else, then pick out (or sift, or whatever) the mealies and put them in the new container (so you can clean the other one).
> 
> ...


I'm not sure if they would lay their eggs in the paper/cardboard as they need some sort of substrate. Might be worth a try though.


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