Superworm questions

[steve905]

I've been trying my hand a raising supers/ I currently have @ 30 beetles in a shoebox tupper on a 1/2" of wheat bran. They have been in there for over a month. I'm seeing the beetle orgies and such but no worms yet. I also feed them carrots and water crystals plus the wheat bran. I've got anothe 40 or so pupae coming so I want to get this right...What am I missing?

Thanks

Temps are in the upper 70's

 

[Imperial Geckos]

it takes a while before you can see worms...remember they are microscopic when they hatch

 

[fl_orchidslave]

http://http://www.justskunks.com/page/909663 they say to remove the beetles after 1 month to keep them from eating the worms. While mine were pupating, I had a chance to buy a cup of beetles... after 2 weeks I noticed they were coming to the bran, not sure if they were eating or laying eggs. I don't know how long they had been in the bedding before buying. In case they were eating the goods, I moved them to another container. It's supposed to take about 2 weeks before tiny worms appear so then I'll know what they were doing. In the meantime, I had bought 1000 baby supers and began pupating a box of giants. The baby worms grow fast so it will have to be an ongoing thing to keep appropriate sized worms for hatchlings.

My grandson thinks the worm farm is cool

 

[Mich]

They do take FOREVER!!! Such a pain, mealworms are far easier and I find produce faster. My colony of super beetles I kept in their shoe box tote for about 3 wks (about 40+ beetles) and after that you do need to put them in a new one to avoid them eating any possible worms that do hatch as mentioned above. Just leave the original substrate and egg cartons in the container and put in fresh food like you normally would .. I've literally bumped my colony from the original container, into a 2nd container and then into a 3rd container before I noticed tiny works in the first one. For months it felt like I was just throwing food into empty cotainers and when you bump the colony to a new container every 3 wks you get quite a stack of them after just a few months. Look carefully on the pieces of carrot and food stuff before you throw it out, that's when I first was able to see the tiny things. I kept mine on oat mixed with bran. With my meal worm colony once I had beetles (and they pupate and turn to beetles much faster too without the need of using pupa containers to separate each individual worm) within a few weeks I had thousands of worms easily visable. I move the beetles to another container just to start the process over but I don't think if you left them they'd eat the worms like the super beetles do .. could be wrong though.. From what Ive seen on a few forums everyone thinks after a month of not being able to see worms that they failed but then they give it a few more weeks and eventually you'll see them.

 

[sunshinegeckofarm]

Its definitely not easy and I have yet to be completely successfull myself but I'm trying to get it right with breeding super...my geckos won't eat mealies so that would be useless for me. I tried roaches but the geckos r used to supers so they would just run n hide so the geckos didn't see them and I'm not tong feeding 60 something leos lol

 

[Mich]

Mine are the opposite, they will eat the meal worm and never touch supers, guess it's just what ever they are use to I bred wax worms too which is an ever bigger pain and again they woudn't eat them. And I never tong feed, I agree that would take wayyy too much time. I use the food dishes specifically made to hold worms and the mealies can't climb out (but the super worms can).

One great plus to supers is the beetles live longer then meal worm beetles and the worms won't pupate on their own so you can keep a large conatiner of them 'fresh' and gutloaded for months, ready whenyou need them!! Where as mealies will pupate and so are usually kept in the fridge to slow them down. What most people then fail to do is take them out for a few days to give them a chance to eat and get gutload before feeding them.

Once you invest 3 or 4 months you should then have a few containers all with little worms at different stages and sizes. Your breeding female beetles will live for aprox 4months so maybe around the 3rd month you may want to start to pupate the next batch so your colony stays going. Good luck