coddling moth in mealworm colony

[Bmac27]

I have a well established mealworm colony and its production rate has always been a constant .
I have a large 4 draw set up with mealies at different stages to suit my colonies needs , a chamber for pupae and a large enough chamber for a few hundred darklings .
I have an established cycle whereby I am adding new darkling beetles to the keep up the youth and vigour and I clear out the dead consistently .
They are in an organic oatmeal substrate and are fed on carrot for the mealies and apple for the darklings (virtually zero mould and no pesticide contact)
I have never had poor production numbers until recently and this concerns me as I use them as a supplementary source of livefood .
I have never had any problems with coddling moth up until a month ago when I noticed the moths and subsequently the coddlings larvae in the oatmeal .
There is no completion for food sources between the moth larvae and the mealies and i remove the moths and larvae as soon as i see them , so I wonder if any one could clue me in as to why my numbers have drop so significantly ....
Could the moths have introduced a disease to my mealworm colony that could be wiping out the mealies ???
The darklings have had no problem and the mortality rate is much the same as it has always been throughout the cycle !!
The timing could not be worse as my Melbas , Blue caps and just about all of my colony are nesting or with young .
Any input would be greatly appreciated as I really dont want to start from scratch .

[Mortisha]

This is a pretty good reference site - often mites or mould can cause problems in mealworm colonies. Usually from high humidity.
The mites are super tiny. Look for white tiny moving things the size of sand grains around the top of your mealworm containers.

http://www.sialis.org/raisingmealworms.htm

[Pete Sara]

Brad with the heat as of late may have had some effect on the mealies. But as for the moths all I do is take the tub into the aviary with a lid on and let the buggers loose in there for the birds to eat. Save waisting them .
Unless you have an air tight seal on the drawers with flywire the buggers will get in , but as some of the others on the forum have mentioned before , is to freeze the bran or pollard medium as to kill any un wanteds in the mix then using it , but if your tubs / drawers allow the buggers in you will always have a problem... My birds love the moths , far better for the birds than mealies for the fat content in mealies is higher...pete.

[Netsurfer]

I think you should try some of those "Cedar moth balls" you can try K-mart or Target or even some of those "2 dollar shops", if not, you'll definitely find them on eBay.
Has anyone got the new Giant Mealworms available now, they grow to about 65-70mm and 5 - 7mm diameter. Some months ago I found one 50mm long and didn't know what to think, where it came from, thought it had to be the biggest on the Forum, any one got one 51mm?

http://www.amazingamazon.com.au/giant-meal-worms.html

[Bmac27]

Thanks for the input guys
Pete I dont know why I never thought about that before haha .
I cant find any evidence of mites or other indicators of ill health amongst the colony and since they are kept in a room in the house arent exposed to the elements ... the only thing I can put it down to was a dud batch of mealies that I purchased to bridge the gap in my cycle ... I looked into it and im assuming this is what has occurred , what i found was that some mealies (depending on the supplier) are actually mules and cannot reproduce ! They apparently morph into sterile darklings !
so by trying to close the gap , I have burned the bridge and made the gap even bigger (just my luck!!!)
Anyway start again I shall ....

[Tiaris]

Couple of suggestions to maximise productivity with your mealies:
Mealworms thrive when their environment is humid. Dryness will dramatically reduce breeding.
Sieve out beetle colonies each week or two & put beetles into new substrate each time. This will give new young mealworm colonies coming through all at the same stage of development & far more of them than if left together to develop at different stages in the one colony. The drastic increase in numbers produced will overcome any affect of codling (flour) moth infestation. If mealworm density is high enough they will eat out the moth larvae & their "clods".

[Bmac27]

Thanks Tiaris ,
Yes im pretty predantic in my approach with the mealies and I replace the substrate every 3 weeks with fresh oat bran and I have 4 separate stages containing mealies at different stages of their life cycle ... Westie believes my batch may have been irradiated and therefore sterilized and im pretty convinced that this has been my colonies undoing .
Problem sorted as he is happy to provide me with a fresh batch of good stock .
Cheers

[Tintola]

Codling moths and their caterpillars only infect apples and other fruit and nuts . What you have is flour or meal moths. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour_moth

[Bmac27]

Thank you for correcting me Tintola .
Ive always called the buggers "codling moth" and most people I know call them by that name also ... it must be a WA thing .

[Tintola]

Sorry Bmac27, I didn't mean to sound abrupt. A rose by any other name Etc.Etc. It doesn't matter what you call them I suppose, as long as you all know what each other is referring to.