February--March Observations

February 18th	First day of mealie-wormies.  Gross.  The mealworms appear to be in a larva state--yellowish and squirmy.  I notice that several have shedded their skin, which means they are on their way to pupation.  However, mealworms shed their skin several times before pupating and I am not sure how long they have been in this stage.  I will have to watch for their transformation.
February 26th	Our mealworms are growing up.  Many of them have morphed into the pupa stage, which is evident from the little white/tan blobs embedded in the wheat germ.  Several larvae still squirm about and suck on the rotting apple left in their from when AnnaMarie babysat them.   So far I have kept them on top of my bookshelf in the living room.  It gets some sun in the daytime and since it is by the window, it may get a little cold at night.  I have not noticed a difference in their activity level between morning and night.  Maybe I will move them to a darker or warmer place and see how they react...
March 4th	Yes, I still have our mealworm teenagers.  All but two or so have morphed into the pupa stage and I believe they will stay this way for 2 or 3 weeks.  The bedding is starting to rot, but I am afraid to disrupt their pupating process by changing it.  Interestingly, some of the pupae are darker in color than others.
March 15th	Oh my goodness, they are beetles.  These guys are HUGE!  They are black with hard shells, and do not squirm quite as much as they did in the larva stage, but they are definitely active.  They are still feeding off this apple--is that bad?  They seem to be alive and well.  I have noticed that they tend to crawl up the sides more than they did when they were worms, probably because now they have little legs.  I’m also pretty sure they have begun to mate...Good luck Abby--you’re next--we are going to be grandparents...

Amber Jones

Pictures- Lindsay

Mealworm Observations- Lindsay

Well, these lovely little things are me and my husband's first official pets! And no longer are they in their mealworm stage, they are now officially "Darkling Beetles", also known as Tenebrio beetles. Before Amber passed them on to me, AnnaMarie was so kind as to change their bedding, which was a bit damp. Once the dry bedding was put in, they were much more active. This is something that led us to our investigation and experient of whether the beetles prefer wet or dry environments.

I did some research about Darkling Beetles and found out some other reasons they are so active. They are now mating! If the female beetle does not submit to the male, the male will chase her around until she does submit (hence the activeness of the beetles!) I also noticed that several of the beetles were burrowing in the bedding (which is wheat germ). I did research on that and found out that once the sperm is released into the female she will burrow and can lay up to 500 eggs.

The beetles are about at the end of their life cycle now, but their eggs will start a whole new generation!

Had the beetles from April 4-12

Abby Bess-Observation

The mealworms were thriving and great while I had them. I was too grossed out by them to change their bedding, so I just kept it as it was. They did not seem to mind. They moved around a lot and also didn't seem to mind the rotted apple that was in there either :). I could count 13 meal worms that have turned into beetles. I saw one worm that had not turned into a meal worm yet, but it was still alive.

I put a new piece of apple into their home and they all went towards the new piece.

I passed the mealworms onto Lindsay next :)

Goodbye worms

Today I passed off the worms to someone else, but just to cap off my week here is a summary of my observations.

It turns out that mealworms are pretty hardy. They survived several freezing bike rides bouncing around in a plastic bag and a few days where I was gone the entire day and didn't check on them. I was sure they were dead, and so was surprised when I opened the lid and saw they had been eating and pooping and growing.

They don't seem to move very much, but that may be because I am only home when it is dark outside and cold in the apartment. Yesterday I got home a little earlier than usual and the sun was still up so I put the worms in the light. They started to move around and seemed to respond to the warmth and the light. I had them in class today as well which was bright and somewhat noisy. They were a lot more active there than normal. They seem to go into a dormant state when it is cold and dark, maybe as a survival technique.

A few of them have shed their skin, which supposedly happens a few times before they pupate. The next person should watch to see if they pupate

I Got Worms

J. Kevan Haslam (JK)

I GOT WORMS
Day 1: Today I went looking for an animal for our science case study I was a little bit disappointed that I could not get a hissing cockroach so I settled for meal worms. When I bought a cup of worms I was a little bit disappointed because I thought that they would be big and cool like fishing worms was I wrong they are small and white and look like maggots. They also really don’t move around much either. So when I got home I tucked them away in the fridge.
Day 2: I went back to the fridge and tried to make the worms a new home. So I got one of my roommate tuber ware bowls and gave them a nice new place to live. Then I decided to get them a little bit of food so I looked around my place and found a nice red apple to feed my new pet ( I said to myself what worm does not like apples). So I cut up the apple and put it in the bowl for the worms to feast on.
Day 3: I woke up and noticed that I had a lot of the worms were dead and they have not even touched the nice apple that I gave them to eat.
Day 4: I came home from school and looked at my project and even more of the worms were dead. I am beginning to think that I am doing something wrong with all of the worms that I have lost in the past few days. I also pulled out the dry apple that the worms had not even touched and replaced it with a slice of potato. I hope this works much better.
Day 5: I check out my worms before I went to bed and almost all of them were dead! I keep thinking that I am doing something wrong because more of the worms are dead than are alive.
Day 6: I need to buy more worms I hope this batch goes better than the last one.
Day 7: I am now passing the worms on to a group member I hope they have better luck than I did.

Day 1 with the mealworms

So, when I got the meal worms today it was clear they were not exactly thriving, so I did some googling and found a good website with info on raising mealworms: http://mealwormstore.com/index.php. Mealworms have 4 stages:egg, larvae, pupa, and beetle. Ours are larvae. They do fine in a container with holes in the lid and a bed of some kind of grain and piece of carrot or apple to provide moisture. Right now they are in wheat bran which can be their bedding and their food. I put an apple piece in which is where they drink from. When I first got them they were hardly moving and seemed to be almost dead, so I poked holes in the lid thinking that would help. They didn't really perk up though. When I read about providing moisture I immediately cut a piece of apple and stuck it in and they seem to be reviving and clustering around the apple. As soon as our larvae pupate we need to move them to separate containers so the larvae don't eat the pupae. It may still be a while before they pupate, but you should look online at pictures of what they look like when they do.

Bedding and apple should be changed about once a week.
That's my update for now