Tips for separating mealworms and beetles

Learn how to easily separate mealworms from dead material.
Come buy some mealworms or pupae sifting trays at spacecoastmealworms.com
And join the mealworm farming community at mealwormfarming.org

[@gravyboatman]

This technique is amazing! Thank you so much for sharing this! ❤

[@joannesmith3991]

great tip ty

[@1lanno]

Hi, I'm a small mealworm farmer, just for the birds around the place. I got a yield of around a kilo (a couple of pounds) of worms from allowing my first 100 grams of worms to complete their breeding cycle and I keep 100 grams of worms from each cycle to continue the process. Any tips on separating the different sized worms? I'm finding by the time they're all about feed size a lot of them have begun pupating.

[@toasted99]

These videos are really helping me start farming my own mealworms, i hope you upload more soon!

[@IMRinsectsReus]

🫡

[@monicasmm]

this is pretty brilliant, great for smaller farmers

[@WelcomeBackWoods]

Great tip!

[@needinit123]

Wow that’s amazing!! Thank you! Thank you!! Somehow some water got into one of my bins and I needed to separate the worms from the bedding and this worls wonderfully!!

[@emilyrose9760]

Just started breeding my meal worms & so far my biggest problems/issues are... -way too much condensation buildup on the inside walls? (Room kept in is at 74°ish) -daily need to sort due to soo many new black worms, pupa, beetles showing up that weren't present the day b4? -soo much skins. Are the skins bad if left in with the worms? Other then looking "messy" is it necessary to remove them all the time?? -how often should i be sorting a colony of 1000ct roughly? Is there a certain temp range they excel or prefer? Any extra advice be great. Definitely new subscriber here & gonna try this tip first thing tomo. -

[@spacecoastmealworms]

Do you have lids on your bins? This could be the cause of your excessive condensation. They need good air flow. Either get a screened lid or drill some extra air holes in your bins if you can. black worms are dead, which again might be a result of too much moisture. Pupae can stay pupae for a good week, so you really don't need to sift them out daily as long as you are providing carrots or potatoes for the worms. They eat the pupae when they are 'thirsty'. The exoskins are certainly a pest. My garage is full of them and my wife always complains! If you went with a screened lid (as mentioned above) or deeper walled containers they won't flout our as easily. I use a shopvac to blow mine out each week or two.

[@spacecoastmealworms]

check out our site mealwormfarming.org and our Facebook group (facebook.com/groups/1263030383739738/?ref=bookmarks) to get more ideas and to network with others.

[@CyanideOwl]

Leave the box opened.

[@CyanideOwl]

A new batch is always problematic and a lot of them die.

[@CyanideOwl]

The skins can be left alone, they actually eat it sometimes.

[@SunshineCountryChickens]

Looks great thanks for the info!

[@sbhajian]

Thank you for the excellent ideas. :)

[@larryrobinson08]

Thank you for this video, very educational.

[@kiki-drawer2669]

This works soooo well thank you!

[@nancyfahey7518]

Hope you guys appreciate how cool this video was. 😊

[@spacecoastmealworms]

So cool!

[@veronicabelgium8687]

Very clever, thx

[@KikiB1121]

My pupa have been having hard time shedding their skin when transforming to beetles. They’ll have the beetle head but can’t shed the tail and eventually die. Any suggestions? Don’t know if weather is a factor. It’s been very warm

[@markusbjork4885]

Try moving your pupae to a separate enclosure and upping the moisture. Contrary to the larvae and the beetles the pupae may need some humidity to help prevent deformities.

[@jonathandoradoherrera9850]

Hello, how thick does it have to be for the purps to stay and the tenebrio to fall

[@carolm4603]

Can you do a mealworm update

[@scottjost857]

I definitely need to, as the way I sift my worms has completely changed since I posted this video.

[@CritterHouseUSA]

Great tip! Thanks!

[@o0xjaymex0o]

This is pretty good for cleaning chitin. I use buckets like we do for dubia for anything else. I got about 4 buckets with different holes corresponding to size.

[@stephaniestiltner-foret7938]

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!!!! I’m pretty you just saved YEARS of my time

[@carolm4603]

When you do a video you should way them

[@mariannen5773]

Hi. I see on a lot of videos that they put / leave egg cartons in the bins, what is the reason for this? I put egg carton in my bin and the worms climb on it and noticed they have been chewing holes around it, is it safe for them?

[@spacecoastmealworms]

Egg cartons help give beetles something to crawl on and space out a bit more. The extra surface area actually results in more eggs being laid, since beetles lay fewer eggs the more crowded they are.

[@ninomaida3312]

Yes it is safe because the egg crates are meant to be short term and disposable, therefore not needing toxic preservatives included in the egg crate cardboard.

[@chrisknudsen526]

I put my mealworm setup in my garage because I didn't like the smell in my room, and some were escaping, so I moved my setup to the garage. Now everything is dead, and ants are all over the place on top and inside, not a single mealworm left. I think the reason that the ants invaded was because probably while I was working on the beetles one or two escaped and the next day I saw a dead beetle surrounded by ants. Then they invaded soon after

[@gaga4goats584]

My farm is small. I have mealworms for my chickens and bluebirds. How do I separate full grown worms from the smaller ones that need more growing. Do you sell something that sorts by size?

[@spacecoastmealworms]

I’m actually working on a prototype of that now!