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My Way: Mealworms

I've been advocating feeding mealworms to wild birds for many years, and I've been doing it even longer--21 years by last count. I'd hate to guess how many tens of thousands of mealworms have passed through my door. To a mealworm my front door is the gate of hell. I feed them to wild birds, pet birds, box turtles, aquarium fish, frogs, and even to the odd fence lizard that scuttles along the stone wall. Over the years I've learned a few tricks that make procuring, handling, and storing mealworms much easier.

1. Don't buy mealworms from a pet store. You'll pay ten times what they're worth for larvae that are usually half dead. Mail order your worms from a fast, reliable supplier such as those who advertise in the pages of this magazine. My usual summer order is 5,000.
2. Refrigerate them when they arrive. Mealworms are packed in crumpled newspaper inside gauzy bags. If you put the shipping box in the refrigerator for a couple of hours before unpacking them they'll release their hold on the newspaper, and simply fall out when you spread the crumpled pieces apart. If you wish to refrigerate the larvae for the long term, to keep them from pupating and turning into beetles, remember that refrigeration makes them go dormant and prevents them from growing or eating. You'll need to remove them every week or so and allow them to eat. Otherwise, keep them as cool as you can, perhaps in a corner of the basement, to extend their lives as larvae.
3. Get a muck bucket. Unfold and gently shake the crumpled newspaper over a large muck bucket or even an empty trash can, and you'll have them out of the packing material in seconds, with none going AWOL.
4. Use a shallow container. A plastic shoebox is ideal housing. Mealworms need a lot of surface area and won't thrive in a deep container due to heat and frass buildup. Don't worry--they can't climb more than an inch or so.
5. Give them old-fashioned rolled oats. Mealworms eat only bran, which has been removed from quick oats. Hence the recommendation for old-fashioned oats. They will also thrive on wheat bran, but that can be hard to find in the grocery store. Allow about an inch of oats in the container per 1,000 worms, and replenish it as the larvae grow.
6. Give them carrots for moisture. Though many sources recommend apple or potato slices, these can foster mold or mites that will kill the worms. Carrots are clean, waste-free, and mold-free.
7. Offer them in a heavy dish. A small crock or dog dish is ideal. I put ours on the deck railing where bluebirds like to sit, and it doesn't take long for them to key into the crock. Don't put them out in wet weather unless the birds are well conditioned to eat them immediately. Mealworms will give up and drown in a drop of water.
8. Fight flour moths with traps. Any time you leave oats hanging around for weeks at a time you're bound to see some Indian flour moths--those tiny bicolored insects that twirl under kitchen lights and cling to cupboard doors. I recently tried a flour moth trap--just a piece of cardboard covered with stickum and baited with a pheromone that male flour moths can't resist. (The one I tried is the Flour and Pantry Moth Trap from BioCare Household Pest Remedies.) After three weeks, there are 86 moths stuck to it, and none in my cupboards. It isn't often you run into a product that works that fast or that well. I try not to think of all the lonely female flour moths, dying as spinsters. After years of infestation, I have to confess I rather enjoy the thought.
9. Keep mealworms out of sight. Under the sink, in a little-used cupboard--trust me. Houseguests are taken aback when you forget and leave their box out on the kitchen table. And don't make jokes about including them in tomorrow's quiche. Same deal. People just don't understand. That's okay. You'll have lots more wild bird friends soon, friends who aren't prone to such snap judgments.