Mealworm Life Cycle

[Yazyaz1]

After reading every single page on this thread(how sad of me )
i have decided to beg for beetles, would be great if you guys could send me some to start the colony, because i cant be bothered to do the whole life cycle . might be getting a breeding pair of leos, how much would they eat? probably been said on this website but ive never, EVER, had a lizard before and wanna have some leos(dey is well ard), apart from breeding meallies, could you guys give any first hand experience?

[Liz Lover]

Have been trying this myself...along side my mum.....no problems....except mum has just called and told me that she has had a tub of beetles and worms that were being "attacked" by what can only be described as microscopicaly small white bugs....
has anyone had any dealings with anything similar or advise on what this can be caused by??

[fubar]

Thanks for this thread, its been so useful, my mealies grew & grew and I now have a tub full of aliens (i was so happy when i found my first one!).

My daily routine of 'alien sifting' has become a habit now.

Patience has now rewarded me with my first beetles and they are starting to turn dark brown.

My question is, can the beetles climb? I have them in plastic storage containers, but never bothered with lids, as this caused too much humidity, do i need a lid for my beetle tub?

I was planning on following someone elses advice with moving the beetles to a new fresh tub every few weeks to provide an ongoing supply, as i use more small mealies than large ones, and this would save me having to dig through for the right size.

[smithyUK88]

Put a load of aliens in a spare plastic tub a few weeks ago and checked them today and ive got 7 brown beetles running around

[paulrob]

Originally Posted by chameleonpaul

How long does it take for the babies to get to adult roughly ?
I heard it takes aaaaaggggggggeeeeeeeesssssssss.
Thanks lol

About 5 to 6 weeks it dependant on how much water they have the more water the faster they grown to much water and you get grain mites

[paulrob]

Originally Posted by Liz Lover

Have been trying this myself...along side my mum.....no problems....except mum has just called and told me that she has had a tub of beetles and worms that were being "attacked" by what can only be described as microscopicaly small white bugs....
has anyone had any dealings with anything similar or advise on what this can be caused by??

Grain mites your giving them to much water
Grain mites are harmless They just crawl all over you and make you inch

[Yazyaz1]

i keep finding my mealworms dead, i have beetles, but alot of the meallies are dead or incredibly sluggish, any ideas?

[red foot marg]

do they need water, ?, if not how do they get moisture is it through feeding things like banana skins and greens????

[Joh7n]

Originally Posted by red foot marg

do they need water, ?, if not how do they get moisture is it through feeding things like banana skins and greens????

I've been keeping mealworms on and off since I was a teenager and I'm now about 180 .

Physiologically, the mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) has some very clever tricks. One is that it can survive, grow and reproduce in an entirely water free environment. It actually has the capability of living on metabolically produced water (ie the breaking down of the sugars that make up the cellulose in the mealworms diet produces water as a waste product. It's called glycolysis, if I remember my A level biology correctly). Mealworms occur 'naturally' as a pest in flourmills, where there is no water for them to consume, and yet they still manage to grow and breed. What tends to happen, though, is that as their population increases and they rubbing shoulder to shoulder with other mealworms they start eating each other during the skin shedding process (ecdysis). This is because the mealworms, pupae and beetles are damp following shedding until their new exoskeleton dries and hardens.

The problem with giving them wet food is it excourages mites, so there is a balance to made. I have never had a problem with mites and I would make the following recommendations. Never keep a tight lid on your container. This encourages both condensation and smell. I've always kept mine in a bucket with a lid made from a circle of curtain netting with elastic sown into the hem. The lid fits on rather like a shower cap! I also never give them food that is wet to the touch. This includes things like slices of apple. I give mine lettuce leaves and slices of bread broken into pieces.

Another thing to remember is that mealworms shy away from the light. I've noticed that people have suggested putting in egg boxes for the beetle to hide under. In my experiene I have found that they fend much better if kept in the dark. That way there is no need for hiding places.

I am actually considering producing mealworms commercially, maybe in trays made from cut down IBCs (the big square 1,000 litre conainers that sit in a cage on a pallet that the chemical industry uses). I am presently researching the best ways to rear them so I will share the fruits of my research/experience on this thread.

[lgscas0708]

ha glad we found this page, we feed all our lizards mealies amongst greens and hoppers and crickets and weve had no end of aliens and beetles i used to get bored and spend half an hour sorting them all out into aliens mealies and beetles then still just feed them to the lizards at all stages of life we must buy around 5-10 small tubs of live food a week inc. mealies so the money we could have saved lol now started a colony with the 30+ aliens we have atm