Bugs Make Great Pets
How to Breed Your Own Wax Worms
Just using items you probably have in your kitchen pantry we are going to turn fifty wax worms into thousands of wax worms in just six weeks. We will go over the wax worm life cycle and also discuss the supplies you will need to breed your own wax worms.
Wax worms are great bait for pan fish like bluegill and crappie. They also make great feeders for reptiles and some birds.
Wax Worm Life Cycle
Photo credit Springer Link
We will be using a heat mat below our breeding container to get the temperatures up to at least 80 F to speed up the breeding process. The goal is to complete the wax worm life cycle in 6 weeks.
- Eggs are laid in batches of up to 300. Eggs hatch in 5-8 days.
- Larvae feed for 1-5 months.
- Pupae can hatch rapidly or take up to 2 months to hatch depending on temperature.
- Adult wax moths are 3/4” with longer wing span (1-1/4 to 1-1/2”). They live for about 1-3 weeks, during which time they mate and lay eggs. They don’t eat or drink when they are moths.
Supplies needed to breed wax worms
- Plastic container with lid.
- Half a container of oats
- Jar of honey or corn syrup we will only be using about 6 oz
- Glycerin is optional but it does help keep the bedding moist
- Heat pad is optional but really speeds up the process
Just mix the oats and honey and glycerin with your hands until its like a bread dough. I did add about a shot glass of water to the mixture to give it more moisture. I also chopped up the oats in my ninja blender so the oats where like flour.
Watch Me Make Wax Worm Bedding
Once you have everything mixed up you add the wax worm larva. I started with fifty wax worms which I bought at the bait store. We are now ready for nature to take over.
I placed the container on the heat pad and put everything into a dark closet. Within 5 days 90% of the larva had already turned into pupae. If you don’t have a heat mat try keeping it in the warmest place in your house. Now we wait for the pupae to hatch into moths which I’m hoping will happen after a week.
One week later the moths began to hatch. I also added some crumbled balls of paper in the container and the moths seem to like crawling on them and hopefully begin laying eggs.
After you master breeding wax worms try out breeding Superworms here.