Getting ready for round 2

After our catastrophe, I cleaned out the growth chamber where our BSF were stored. It was difficult to clean due to several parallel thin grooves that even my abnormally small fingers could not fit in to. I was able to clean it out about ~80% but will come back with my car vacuum later to make sure it is 100% clean- in case this in any way affects our BSF.

There were many carcasses of insects in the growth chamber. I took samples of them, and we were able to identify them as rice weevils. The fact that the experiment before ours had a 100% mortality is not a good sign. Is this the curse of growth chamber #4?

But luckily rice weevils are benign and likely did not have an adverse effect on our BSF.

BSF are photophobic so I plan to cover the containers with a towel, once our second shipment arrives.

I also emptied out the containers that held the BSF, after of course making sure that not even a single little guy survived. I noticed a peculiar musky sort of odour as I opened the container.

Next time I will replace the coffee filters (that cover the ventilation square holes) with a very fine mesh. Perhaps this will allow more water vapour in to the container and since BSF prefer humidities that are quite high (> 75%), hopefully round 2 will prove more successful.

Tragedy has struck!

I opened the door to the growth chamber and was greeted by a tragic sight- it was virtually a graveyard. Apparently the entire growth chamber is broken and defunct; setting the temperature and humidity levels is superficial. While the gauge on the outside of the machine may read 27C with 75% humidity, the readings I took by placing a gauge within the machine gave me 24C with 33% humidity. Quite a difference. This is quite sad and a pretty big disappointment. With only (at most) 1/3 of our medium-sized larvae having survived the inferno, we will most definitely have to order another shipment of the little guys. The next step is to locate a better location for the larvae to mature, as I am unwilling to chance using the growth chamber again. Dr. A and I discussed potentially using the greenhouses at UBC. We will contact the greenhouse keeper, visit them and take our own gauge measurements to ensure the conditions are optimal for our BSF larvae to mature. Today has been a sad sad day.

Update #1

BSF larvae w/i growth chambers, w/i separate containers

taped coffee filters over ventilation holes

• Larvae were kept at 23C, 48% humidity but more ideal conditions are ~28C w/ 75% humidity.



• The medium sized larvae fared the best. They appear to be maturing well- approx. 1/4 have turned a darker brown colour, a sign that they are maturing.



• The xs larvae fared the worst; only ~1/3 survived and they are quite lethargic. I don't think they survived the transport/shipping process well. They seem to be more fragile than their s and m-sized brethren.



• Found out (from Rylo) that BSF are skilled escape artists so I taped coffee filters over the (5) drainage holes in each container. This will be a temporary measure; I plan to replace the coffee filters w/ a very fine mesh on my next visit.



• Moved BSF to a growth chamber set at 27C (with a range of 10C) and 75% humidity. Dr. A and I had trouble with the humidity setting- it appears to be broken. We placed 4 large pans of water in the growth chamber to increase humidity.