If you can't get your superworms to morph

[quyllur]

I made something of a discovery last night that I thought I'd share for those that might be having trouble getting their superworms to morph.

I keep my superworms in the closet with my hot water tank in order to take advantage of the warmth. The side effect of that is that it is a very dry environment and my first superworm to be separated out for pupation turned into a dried out husk. So I needed a way to provide moisture for them to successfully molt.

Then it came to me, I'm keeping my superworms and beetles in a natural-ish environment with soil/sand, branches and leaf litter. Well one of the first things I noticed was with the extra moisture from the soil, I was getting freshly molted white worms all the time. So I put two and two together and started putting just enough of the soil sand mixture into the pupation chambers to cover the worms and then spritzing them down with water.

The worms are still away from food and other worms, conditions they need for morphing, but I figure they'll feel a bit safer being able to burrow, and of course the moisture. So I took all of the worms I had set aside for the last week trying to get them to morph in their little cups, and covered them up and the next morning I had 4 new pupa!

Anyway, your mileage may vary, but I'm very pleased with my results so far.

Even if you keep you worms in the traditional oat meal, you could always get a bit of soil from a clean source just for the purpose of pupation.

 

[CooperDragon]

That's a good trick. Thanks for sharing!