Mealworms

[Sridhar.Rangdhale]

I have almost 50-60 Darkling Beetle its been some time almost a month but stil I have not seen any of the eggs hatching and being larvae good space mositure & food is provided on time. Am I doing any mistake in raising them?

Thank you

[debbie276]

Starting a colony take a long time before you see any. Try to be patient If you put a damp piece of newspaper across the litter in a spot and wait a day, then look at the underside of the paper, you may see worms. They are teeny tiny in the beginning.
good luck

[Rox]

I started my 'colony' about 3 months ago now and I'm only recently starting to get some hatched baby worms. As Debbie says, it takes a while and lots of patience...

Debbie,
Thanks for the newspaper trick. I'm definitely going to try it!

[Martie]

My thanks, too, Deb for the newspaper trick. I hadn't known of that.

[Sally]

Are your beetles starting to die off? The first time I raised mealworms, I thought nothing was happening and was about to toss the litter when I realized it was moving. The worms were too tiny for me to see, but the litter was teeming with them. It just takes a while.

[wellingtoncdm]

I agree. If you have that many beetles you have eggs and young. They probably aren't large enough to see yet. You can also separate the beetles into another container and keep rotating them. Ay one point I had several containers going and a constant supply of different age worms to feed. If you have too many worms to feed at once you can refrigerate them to suspend their growth. Just bulk them up with nutritious foods for a day or two at room temp before feeding them to your birds.

[cindy]

This is a complete guide to raising, stages and how to store mealworms

http://www.sialis.org/raisingmealworms.htm

[Sridhar.Rangdhale]

Thank you very much for all inputs.. let me wait for some more days..