# Culturing lesser wax worms made easy



## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

This is how I culture and feed lesser wax worms.

First you will need to gather all the supplies you will need;

Rice baby cereal,honey, a vessel (ff cup & lid),a bowl and fork,a coffee filter,feeder tongs,and a donor culture.

1) pour some baby cereal in a bowl.Gerber or beech nut is fine.

2) Pour some honey in the middle of the cereal and start working it into the cereal by pressing it in with the fork.You can use any kind of honey.Mine is dark like Molasses because it's buckwheat honey and I didn't like the taste of it.If you use regular honey it will be a bit lighter in color.You want it to be uniformly mixed and it should be almost doughy.

3) When you get the desired consistency put about 1 1/2-2 inches in the ff cup.I use a ff cup and lid because I have them handy and they are cheap.You can use whatever you prefer,just make sure it is well ventilated and secure.

4) Put a heaping tablespoon of media from the donor culture right on top.This will have eggs and tiny to adult larvae by the hundreds or even more.Some of the larvae will start to crawl out and disperse right away. Before you put the lid on you want to put some moths in there so they keep laying eggs to really get the new culture going.After you add the moths quickly cover the cup with the coffee filter,then the lid.These guys sometimes chew through the lid material which is why I've been using the coffee filter and it has been working well for me.I'm going to experiment with cutting some super fine screen and hot gluing it to the bottom of the lid.I will post pics of it later on after I find what works best.

The way I catch the moths is pretty easy.Before I open the donor culture,I tap the moths to the bottom,remove the lid and quickly cover it with another ff cup.The moths naturally want to fly to the top.It doesn't take long before they are in the top cup.Put a lid on it while the cup is still upside down.When you're ready to include them in the new culture simply tap them to the bottom of the cup and dump them into it.As stated above,this has to be done quickly, or you will have escapees.

5)Now sit back and wait for them to do their thing and and repeat the process.Now you can use the original donor culture to feed anything from Thumbs to Terribilis to lizards.The larvae start out very tiny.I use the plastic feeder tongs to pull out the size I want depending on which animal I'm feeding.My Daygeckos absolutely love eating the moths.

Enjoy another food source,however they are very fattening and will chunk up your frogs if you give them out too often so use them as a treat in a weekly or bi weekly rotation.It's great if you have under weight animals that need to add a little bit of bulk.


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## InvertaHerp (Mar 4, 2013)

Thanks!! Great write up, I've been looking into to secondary/alternative food sources to rotate with the flies.


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

For me, the issue always was getting the larvae for feeding, too time consuming unless you have a secret?

For a few viv they are fine, otherwise bean beetles in quantity seem better.


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## Dendroguy (Dec 4, 2010)

Bean-beetles all the way if you have more than 20 or so vivariums. Lesser waxes, I've found, are more like a treat rather than to add variety. My geckos love them

D


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## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

sports_doc said:


> For me, the issue always was getting the larvae for feeding, too time consuming unless you have a secret?
> 
> For a few viv they are fine, otherwise bean beetles in quantity seem better.





Dendroguy said:


> Bean-beetles all the way if you have more than 20 or so vivariums. Lesser waxes, I've found, are more like a treat rather than to add variety. My geckos love them
> 
> D



Guys I totally agree with you.I raise bbs as well.They are an integral part of my frogs dietary rotation.At least the larger ones anyway.This thread is intended to be instructional because I've had some members ask how to do it.As I stated I use them as more of a treat in my rotation.I have a bit over 40 vivs,but feel that I can't have enough food sources.This is one of those cases where more is more.My day geckos love the larvae,moths and bbs too.

Shawn,as far as harvesting them,I use the plastic feeder tongs to hand pick the size I want depending on the frogs I'm feeding them to.I find they like to climb the sides often,which makes it kind of easy to just pluck them out with the tongs especially if you have multiple cultures going.I don't use these as a main staple,but more of a bulker for breeders but mostly for treats.It can be time consuming if you feed a ton of them.

I have thought about modifying a ff cup,by making a vent in the bottom of the cup and attaching them top to top maybe with painters tape.This will make the culture twice as tall,but if they have the extra room to crawl up to start their cocoons,I would think there would be quite a few more in the top cup.Then just remove the top cup,put a lid on the bottom one and harvest the larvae from the top cup.This is just a thought I had, which I will experiment with in the future.I have a buddy that is going to give me some stainless steel screen mesh.I'll try it then and post my results with pics.It may be bit before I get the supplies and try it out.By all means if anyone has any good ideas to harvest them without destroying the culture please post them whether from experience or just thoughts.


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## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

Someone (Charles Brooks) posted in my other thread about putting in some wax paper in the cup,which is a good idea.It will give you more surface area for them to climb on which theoretically should give you more grubs to harvest at a time.


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## charlesbrooks (Oct 18, 2009)

oddlot said:


> Someone (Charles Brooks) posted in my other thread about putting in some wax paper in the cup,which is a good idea.It will give you more surface area for them to climb on which theoretically should give you more grubs to harvest at a time.


Lou, may I add, I also found out wax paper makes it easy for to start a new culture, and decrease my turn around time. I simply take the wax paper containing the waxworms, cocoons from my old culture, transfer that wax paper to my new culture. This way, you are not just adding waxworms to your new culture. You also adding cocoons, ready to emerge into adult breeding moths. While taking only about four seconds for the total transfer process.


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