Mealworm Beetles

[charlie476]

I was wanting to hear from some of yall that personally raise them. My containers are 17"W 24"L 6"H with roughly 1-1 1/2 inches of bran. How many beetles can I get away with in them for two weeks before moving them to the next empty beds. I currently have 250 in each and they seem like they aren’t crowded at all. Supposing yall don’t think they are crowded Id really like to place 500 in each but worry if I crowd to many they will eat the eggs.

 

[charlie476]

Well today i completed my shelving to hold 40 containers. I think i had way to many beetles per container i had as many as 1000 per container I'm guessing. Perhaps thats not to many but not that I upgraded my containers. I am now putting 250 per container hoping that will help prevent beetles from eating eggs. The beetles have been in a few containers for almost a month and I didn't see any signs of worms. Thats when I started thinking they were eating all the eggs. But at the same time I think it would be impossible for them to eat every egg. On my second to last container i was going to remove the potato's i have in there and noticed ALOT of mini meals on there After taking a closer look it appears there might be 10-20K of them in there they are already moving the wheat bran and they are so tiny. But if anyone has any input id love to hear it. There really isn't any resources online about how many beetles per sq ft is a good number. I know the large farms such as sunshine prolly wont give out this info. Maybe I can contact a university that studies insects