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LIVE FOOD
STEP BY STEP
Waxmoths
Galleria
mellonella
Pictures and Text by Ken Uy
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Prepare a suitable rearing container. Waxmoth
cultures need good ventilation, but the caterpillars can
chew through paper or cloth. A solution would be to cut
a hole in the lid of the rearing container, then glue
fine metal screen over the hole. Waxmoth larvae (or
waxworms) like to be crowded, so the container shouldn't
be very big.
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Mix up some culture medium. I use wheat bran, mixed
with brewer's yeast to boost the nutritional content,
glycerin (also called glycerol-- can be purchased at a
pharmacy), and honey. The exact proportions aren't too
important, but the resulting medium should be moist but
still crumbly. The glycerin seems especially important
for newly hatched larvae, because I've experienced poor
survival rates when I skip adding it. Excess medium
keeps well, as long as it is protected from stray larvae
and other insects.
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Loosely wrap a small lump of medium with a bit of
crumpled wax paper, and put the package in the culture
container. Add some large healthy waxworms from the pet
store. It's important to choose healthy caterpillars
that don't show any sign of black spots or darkening,
because dead caterpillars can spread disease and ruin a
culture. They also smell bad! Keep the culture warm, at
85°F. The caterpillars will burrow into the medium to
eat, then pupate. At this point, trap a sheet of paper
toweling under the lid of the culture container.
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After the moths emerge, they will mate and the
females will lay their eggs in the folds of the wax
paper. The adult moths don't eat, so no special feeding
will be needed. Keep the culture in a dark place, to
allow the moths to be active and mate. After they lay
eggs, the moths can be fed to herps that like to hunt
flying insects. The eggs will hatch in a few days, and
the young larvae will be seen crawling around the sides
of the container before burrowing into the medium. The
paper napkin cover inserted earlier will keep the tiny
larvae from escaping through the screen. They'll be too
small to chew through paper at this stage.
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The adult moths will die after they breed, and can
be removed. I seldom bother to do that, because the
larvae seem to eat the bodies anyway. Keep adding little
lumps of food as the medium gets consumed. If you see
larvae crawling around the sides of the container, it
means they need more food. The larvae can be harvested
at this stage, using forceps to pick them out of the
medium. Compared to store-bought waxworms, cultured
larvae are very active and fast. The larvae actually
heat up the medium, but they still need to be kept warm.
I keep them on top of my light fixtures.
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Move some large larvae to a new culture container or
two, or transfer the cocoons when the larvae pupate.
This is much easier than moving the moths, which can fly
pretty well. Large larvae can be stored for a couple of
months at 60° F.
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| WAXMOTH LINKS:
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Rearing Waxworms 1
Rearing Waxworms 2
Husbandry Tips For Waxworms |
Copyright © 1999 by
Kenneth K. Uy. All rights reserved, blah blah blah.
-)
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