sorting Mealworms

david13

New Member
Messages
2,276
Location
USA
What is the best way to sort mealworms from pupa and beatles. And then the babies or eggs from the beatles. What are your guys' method to keeping them separate so it is easy to get mealworms. Without having to pick out every pupa and every beatle. Thanks!
 

acpart

Geck-cessories
Staff member
Messages
15,335
Location
Somerville, MA
A fair amount of picking out is inevitable. Here's what I do about every month:
Sift through the mealworm container. Put all the aliens in their own container and the beetles in a separate container

Sift through the beetle container, letting the grain fall into a fresh container. Pick out the beetles, aliens and reasonable sized mealworms and put them in the appropriate container

Sift through the "tiny mealworm" container and dump anything that stays in the sifter into the larger mealworm container.

At any given moment I have a container for large mealworms, one for tiny ones, one for aliens and one for beetles. Every time I feed the geckos, I look through the alien container and pick out all the beetles.

Aliza
 

indyana

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,336
Location
Massachusetts, United States
I work on the same idea. I use a colander to sift through the mealworm bin. I pick out pupae and beetles and put them into their own container. I then sift the mealworm bedding through a screen strainer to get out the frass, or I may just replace it.

When there are visible little worms in the beetle/pupae container, I sift out the bedding and put it into a third container. I let the mealworms all hatch and grow big, then sift them out of the bedding and return to the main mealworm container. I compost the bedding at this point.

Every time I feed the bugs, I do a brief picking session and move any pupa/beetles I see into the right container, and I do a full sift every couple of weeks.
 
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