mealworms and ants... help.

[martinez2828]

I keep my mealworm breeding colony in my patio. And recently i went to put some patatos in the baby mealworms tub and i saw a LOT of ants all over the places. i had no idea what to do. i finally decided to take out all the mealworms one by one after about two hours i dumped out the rest of oats and ants. So after that i thought everything was good. BUT today when i went to put patatos in the beetles tub i saw a lot of ants too. Not as much as before but still a good amount. I dont know what to do this time :main_huh: i dont want to do the same things as before becuse the beetles have been in that tub for awhile and i reallly dont want to lose all of the eggs they have laid. please i need help any ideas are welcomed. Thank you.

 

[bubblez825]

there really is nothing you can do other than take the beetles out and dump everything and wash it out. the ants probably laid eggs in there, too, so the tubs need to be cleaned VERY well. If i were you, i would keep the tubs inside from now on. Ants can destroy a colony and poison the mealworms and beetles with any pesticides and any outside bacteria/poisons they have on their bodies. I keep mine in 16qt tubs under neath my bed. Been doing this for 5 or 6 years now; easy, out of the way, and no bug problems(other then the mealworms and beetle bugs themselves :main_laugh

 

[DrCarrotTail]

Yeah mealworms make an excellent ant food source - in fact that's what we fed ours in the ant lab I used to work in. Once the ants know where your mealworms are they'll leave a pheromone trail and probably have some scouts checking the area pretty regularly.

As bubblez said you probably want to try to save what looks clean, dump/sanitize the rest and bring them inside. If you want to try to save the substrate they're in you might be dealing with a lot of lost ants in your house for a while. Getting a new batch of mealworms might not be a bad idea if the ants persist. They're surprisingly smart little buggers.

 

[BadKelpie]

Or, you can take a lid from a rubbermaid tub (or any shallow pan type thing that is a couple inches wider than the mealworm tub), put the mealworm tub on that, and add water. Ants can't swim. The remaining ants that can't get out will die. They won't lay eggs in it, only the queen lays eggs.

This is an old trick to keep ants out of cat food bowls

 

[wsumike87]

If you have a tub that is on a chair you can put the chair feet in a glad plastic tub (like the tiny ones and have water in it. Again from what someone said before me they can't swim.

 

[DrCarrotTail]

A++ to the last two posts. Not sure why I never think of the easy practical solutions. Must have spent too much time in school...lol