Update on the "Clean Bug System". Wire mesh in the sizes I want costs alot, no way around it. Could be that standard aluminum window screen will suffice as long as it is in good shape and the openings uniform...meaning the wires are not all spread out in the mesh. My experience with mealworms is minimal and so I do not yet know what mesh sizes to really even consider.
The way I imagine a finished system is a 2' x 2' wide x 1' tall, well made, straight and square coroplast box for the composting worms. Properly maintained bedding will mean no need for drainage. On top of that, the first mealworm box is a fitted screen bottom coroplast enclosure with the screen edge border being 1" x 1" wood frame, sandwiching the screen so the bottom fits over the earthworm enclosure snug and the top wood frame pieces give something to attach the coroplast wall for that section, everything keeping square and flush and so on upward with more sections which house different sizes of mealworms according to age until we reach the beetle box on top.
I'm not sure this is feasable and is depending on the duration of the mealworm life cycle for my particular conditions, temperature being the kicker. Cooler temps mean slower growth and visa versa. I had hoped to design it so that by the time I harvest the tray directly above the earthworms, each tray could then be emptied into the one beneath it, keeping the size of mealworms in each tray pretty much the same so it would do away with the need for sorting and sifting so much.
After studying the mealworm life cycle somewhat I think regardless of the number of trays, the beetles are going to way out-produce eggs for the system to keep up with my imagined system or the number of trays would be reaching the ceiling! This is a good thing but kind of kills my original design thoughts.
Still, the basic same concept can be done. It will just require a separate system of breeding beetles on screen bottom enclosures to be placed over solid bottom enclosures for a period of time and then changing the bottom enclosure. This should keep the mealworms close to the same size for a given enclosure and they can be emptied onto a screen bottom enclosure over a composting worm enclosure when they get big enough to not fall through the screen and can at least spend the remainder of their life being clean bugs versus living in their own feces.
Mealworms I believe are also going to way out-produce my number of composting worms, at least in the beginning. What's needed is for the mealworm population over a given composting worm bin to produce enough but not more than enough frass so that the earthworms can consume it all as it is produced and not have buildup of frass or fallen mealworm feed grains in the composting bin. So a balance is going to have to be established between the two.
Will just have to eat alot of extra mealworms until the composting worms breeding cycle kicks in to critical mass! That's when you have more composting worms than you know what to do with and can begin selling them. It will happen. Once started with a pound of worms and had impossible to figure amounts over a couple years time. Of course the more one can afford to start with, the faster things will progress. Current European Nightcrawler prices online dictate I start slow and also my available space in a spare room at home. I would be in trouble quickly starting off with too many. This year as I go along with the experimenting and such will also give time to build a well insulated outdoors shed specifically for bugs & worms.
For the future I vision all kinds of different insect enclosures setting atop of composting worm bins. Since I'm all into this concept of producing clean gourmet bugs, why not design an adult cricket enclosure that can go straight from the bug shed, into the freezer and from there into a boiling stock pot without ever having to open the cage?
So many bugs, so many ideas, too little time. :)
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