Rearing Tenebrio Molatior

This is going to be a tutorial on how to breed and raise your own mealworm colony!

First your going to need to get mealworms,I suggest getting 50-100 as the colony will grow quickly at this number.Next you’ll need a enclosure.I just use a shoe box but i also keep my “Pet Mealworms” in a diffrent container.After you have your enclosure you’ll need substrate.The substrate depends on if the mealworms are Feeders or just pets.For mealworm feeders i suggest using a bedding made of oats,oat bran,wheat bran and ceral.But for pet colonies that need a little more attention i suggest using a beeding of cut up cardboard and tissue.You can moisten the tissue in the pet colony.Then add a bottle lid of bran or the bedding you used for your feeders.For the feeders source of water i provide them with a potatoe i suggest if you have around100+ just to throw in a full one as it molds slower then sliced potatoes.After 1-3 weeks you’ll notice weird white or yellow things that wiggle when touched.These are pupae,they don’t move,eat or do anything but wiggle when provocted.You can either leave them in the enclosure or you can seperate them.When starting new colonies i suggested seperating the pupae as the mealworms can and will eat the pupae which can be fatal to new colonies.After 1-2 weeks you’ll notice beetles.These things can just be thrown back in with the mealworms.Once you have the beetles in their for 2-3 weeks prepare to find new larvae in around 2-4 weeks or more.Once you have the 2-3 generation you no longer need to seperate the pupae and get let everything happen in the one bin.Once or twice a year you’ll have to clean out all the frass[looks grey.]All you have to do is just strain it out into a diffrent bin.Throw in more bedding for your feeders and place all the mealworms that didn’t make it through the strainer.Keep the frass in a container and add a slice of potatoe.If your too lazy or don’t have enough room for a second colony just place the frass in a ziplock bag and add a slice of potatoe and check the potatoe once every 1-3 hours and remove all worms and continue the process till you think you have all the babie worms.Then throw or flush the frass down the loo.

Hope this helps you all.I’ll make another tutorial on how to raise mealworms in about August 2010!
If you have any conserns feel free to ask on my forum:

http://mealwormmania.forumotion.net/