Raising Wax Worms

There's quite a few video's out on small scale wax worm farming, mostly from people raising them as reptile feed treats.  They are high in fat and so are said to be treats, not to be fed alone as a main source for reptiles or other pets.

I bought some wax worms along with some meal worms a week or so ago at Petco, to ease my urge to start up something buggy while waiting for some larger quantities of stock larvae purchased through Amazon.  The box quantity stated "50" but I got extra at 62.

So I read the "best" way to raise wax worms is to put them into a mixture of bran, honey and glycerine. I could not find bran like they show in the video's and glycerine is available but I decided to try my own experiment instead and bought a box of Honey Bunches of Oats breakfast cereal at the dollar store.

Crunched up about a quart of the cereal, added maybe 1/8 cup of dark honey and some water until it was moistened.  This was put into a 2.5 gallon water container which I covered one side of on the outside with aluminum foil to provide some darkness.  The lid was modified by cutting out a big hole and some fine screen placed for ventilation.  A crumpled piece of wax paper was placed in for my hopeful wax moths to lay eggs on.

Added the wax worms and placed in the top of my bedroom closet with the light on for added warmth since they need around 85 degrees F to do well and observed for the last several days.  The top of the cereal seemed to dry out pretty quick so I misted it with water as needed to keep it moist but not saturated.

Did not notice any molding of the cereal.  Four visible dead worms were removed, they turn black. The rest seemed to be doing fine and yesterday I first noticed them coming to the surface, making cocoons over themselves!

Now if these morph into moths and lay eggs, I suppose I should probably proceed with finding some bran and doing it right but I've never been known to follow protocol haha!  I like Honey Bunches of Oats cereal and so I think the wax worms are either going to learn to like it or else!  Will stick with it, at least long enough to find out if a new generation of wax worms can be raised to maturity. 

Glycerine?  It's supposed to keep the food/bedding from drying out. Is it necessary? I have no idea.  Some sources say yes and some omit it completely from feed recipes.  It doesn't seem to be necessary to get them from larvae to cocoon stage.