August 31, 2021

 

I’m gonna grow mealworms for my ducks!

My son with a big ol’ handful of larvae! 

Here’s the top drawer. I have the larval stage in the top drawer with plenty of fruit for the little guys to munch Shout out to my lemon cucumber plants! They’re the MVPs here for producing enough water source for three drawers and 7 ducks! 

I think that this pale guy either just became the last instar of the cycle or is about to pupate. I’m not entirely sure at this point. He stays in the baby bin until later notice. 

Update 08/27/22: This is what they look like right after molting into their last instar.

Ugh. What a cute one with his little grape.

I have pupa in the bottom drawer. I’m not feeling quite as confident about that move, because I’d like to turn the second drawer’s bottom into a screen for eggs to drow down into. However, I have neither the time nor the screen materials to accomplish that, so for now they’re gonna have their own beauty sleep area. I put them all under the dome of hollowed out cucumber in the hopes that they would eat the fruit, not each other’s sleeping bodies. Apparently darkling beetles are well known for that - savages!

There’s a single hatched beetle, but he’s malformed. :( From what I understand I need to not allow him to breed with healthy beetles since genetics are important to consider when maintaining a healthy colony. I’ll get a better picture of him later. Maybe he’ll live in the giant glass jar that I kept the leaf-footed bugs in? 

On the top of the cucumber slice you can see casings from the larvae going through pupation. This is already a really interesting project!

Also, totally unrelated, but yesterday we had a strange event where the car I’m borrowing started hemorrhaging gigantic ants! I was a little too stunned and overwhelmed to think to take pictures of the action, but you can KNOW I collected two specimens for pinning. Sorry carpenter??? ants. You cannot live here

Saturday I went to Linka’s house to pick up the meal worms and saw some cool bugs in her garden and front yard!

I found this giant bug in my parents' garden. It was dead when I found it, so I rehydrated with alcohol and pinned him! 

Update 8/27/22: Strategus aloeus, female.

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