Grain mites takeover

[severe valley]

As the title implies, I am dealing with an intense grain mite infestation in my mealworm bin.

I've tried putting the bin in the sun for a few hours, ive tried putting a thick barrier of vaseline on the walls (they keep climbing OVER it)

the only thing i havent tried more extensively is applying split pea powder

im not sure how often to do it

any other advice 😭 ?

i seperated the mealworm bin from my other bugs and im monitoring them for any signs of grain mites, thankfully it seems only my mealworms are affected but they are HEAVY effected, when i first realized that there wasnt dust around my bin but hundreds of mites i nearly cried lol

[wheat jay]

You need to basically totally sterilize that enclosure and you’re likely better off just starting off from scratch if you want to guarantee the mites gone

[severe valley]

what do i do with the live worms/beetles?

[wheat jay]

how many are there and how much free time do you have on your hands

[severe valley]

a couple hundred

i have a lot of free time, but im also disabled

[wheat jay]

yeah i'd consider that good as lost unfortunately; quite literally put all the contaminated bins in a sealed container or something like a bag and freeze it - not refrigerate -- for at least 48 hours to euthanize all of these en masse so you can dump it out and clean it

[severe valley]

💔

my poor bugs ;_;

[wheat jay]

ye, the only way to spare those beetles and worms' lives would be an excessively tedious and time-consuming process of literally trying to manually remove mites from them which is honestly like, an unreasonable ask for anyone 😭

on the plus side, however

freezing is a very ethical way to kill invertebrates