I have recently started a beetle colony. I have about 300-400 beetles. Everything is going great, thanks to all the info I found in the archives. I am curious as to how long it will take for my small beetle colony to be cabable of cleaning a deer skull within a few days? Currently they are working on a deer head that has been in there for a month. They are about 35% done. How many beetles does it take to clean a deer skull within a few days? Also, how many beetles are usually kept in one colony? I can see them eating and breeding. I can easily see the number of beetles increase weekly. Do I just need to be patient? If so, for how long?
Have a good day. -John
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John, let me start by saying I'm not a beetle guru or an entomoligist. I am like you and have three working colonies of beetles. They have cleaned a lot of skulls, but not without setbacks. They are like having pets, in the sense that you have to feed them, water them, Clean after them, and protect them from intruders. It sounds like your bugs are off to a great start.
I think there are too many variables at play to determine how many more beetles you need to clean a skull in three days. I've never counted. I guess it would depend on how hungrey they are. I've read that its good to have more than one tank of beetles so that when the occupants of the first tank slow down or stop feeding as much you pass the meal onto the second tank and watch a bunch of hungrey beetles go to town and finish off your skull.
I've taken a naturalists approach to the whole thing and just let nature take its course. I write down notes on what I observe. I duplicate what works and stay away from what led to the crash and burns. Things I found to be of concern, Temperature, moisture, Motion sensitivity, parasitic insects, SPIDERS and food availablity.
Just a quick example, I've found the beetles I use do well on fresh meat and start looking for a different meal when it gets too dried out. So I moisten down the meal with a couple sprays of water and the strike is over. Other people who've I've taken advise from on this site have had better results letting the meat on the skull dry out totally, go figure. Complete opposite approaches equally successful results.
I think I've rambled enough. I'm not even sure I answered your question...Oh well, keep the faith, I hope this helps.
with the beetles I run are that I have times when they are less active and it takes 2-3 weeks for a single head and I wish they'd hurry up. There are many other times when they take 2-3 days for a skull and I am calling friends asking if they have extra meat for my bugs. I second about the humidity issue. That and temp. seem to be the biggest factors excluding mites. I suggest freezing everything first to kill off mites, and drape a cloth over the head. This helps hold in the moisture when you do spray it. It has taken me 2-3 months the three times I started from scratch (because of mites and ants) to build up a colony to where it can handle a head in under a week.
I think I will try to moisten the skull slightly. I'll try the cloth over the head trick. My beetles might be taking longer with this skull because I was not sure exactly how much meat is normally removed before introducing it to the beetles. I removed the brain, eyes, and tongue, and some of the meaty areas. I have never been a witness to the condition of the skulls prior to the beetles, so mine might have had too much extra meat. I am new at this and cleaning the skull took me longer than what I had expected (about 45 min.). How long does it take somebody with experience to skin and prepare the skull for the beetles?
I think having multiple tanks of beetles is a great idea, and I will do this. I'm just not sure when I should try to start another tank. Do I wait until my original colony is 3 months old, or 6 months, or ? Or do I just take a few out now and get another tank going? My colony is only about 5 weeks old.
As for the "areas of concern" (temp, humidity, intruders):Keeping a temp between 70 and 80 has not been a problem but I would have to change my set-up to maintain a tighter temp range. For Humidity I am spraying a fine mist of water in the tank once a day. It sounds like I should try something a bit more controlled, I'll have to reaearch that more. For the intruders, (spiders, mites, ants) I will keep the tank relatively dry and freeze all skulls before entering the beetles.
Thanks again. Have a good day. -John
out your skulls, use scalpels. They work much better than knives. I go through 3-4 blades per skull and it takes awhile, but the more flesh you remove, the less time it takes to clean. Soon you will be saving the scraps you cut off because you will be hurting for meat. Especially since most skulls come in the winter when the beetles aren't as active and when the bugs are most active (summer), less skulls come in to feed them.