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!

The substrate was very moldy!

As you can see the substrate was really moldy when I took this photo, so I decided it was probably time to try and separate the mealworms from the moldy substrate and give them some fresh food. It took ages to sift through all of the moldy oat bran and pick out the larvae – I know at least two of the worms ended up in the bin. What made matters worse was that the spores from the mold were tickling my throat. The mold itself is white, so all of the blue in the above picture is spores!

Anyway, after about an hour I finally managed to remove most of moldy substrate and put the mealworms in a smaller container with some fresh bran. I couldn’t remove all of it so the mixture will probably go moldy again, but as I used less substrate it should be easier to change next time. I also decided to use some pieces of potato peel for moisture instead of the soggy bit of kitchen roll.

I managed to remove most of the moldy substrate

The mealworms are now in a smaller container with less substrate, and a piece of potato peel for moisture

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)

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…

Now that I have seen some evidence that the adult beetles are producing offspring, I have divided the beetles into two containers – one containing adult beetles and one containing the larva. I will now empty all of the food from the adults’ container into the other container every so often – this is because the adults will lay the eggs in the food, and will also eat the eggs. By transferring the food to another container I will hopefully prevent them from eating too many eggs and produce more mealworms.

I haven’t enclosed any photos because they are too small to get in the shot, but expect some lovely baby pics when they get a bit bigger!

I already knew that most beetles are capable of flight, but I thought it was ok to keep the lid off because a couple of websites had said you could do that. Apparently not! At least this explains how one of them escaped…

I think 1 of them has either escaped, or been thrown away when I changed their paper towel (I put a damp paper towel in with them for moisture).

Also, I still haven’t found any babies in there, which is odd because I have seen them mating a few times. I think I will have to give in a buy a starter mealworm colony.

In general the girls have seemed happier the past couple of days – I think the reason that they have been making so much noise in the mornings has been because they were being eaten alive by mites. When I let the girls out today they all seemed fine, but after about an hour I noticed that Meg was wandering around slowly and not scratching around in the mud like the others. I gave her some meal worms and some poultry spice, but she has been getting more and more lethargic as the day has gone on. She has spent the last few hours standing by herself under a tree.

Meg has been sitting all by herself for hours

I’m not sure if she is sick or just tired – the last few times that I went out to look at her she had her eyes half closed, and kept closing them for a while. I’m wondering if the mites have made her slightly anemic or something…

I hope she is just tired...