Lucanus elephus and applesauce?

K

kevink

Fresh Imago
I was cleaning out the fridge, and found some snack cups of applesauce. I've got beetle jellies, and my female elephus has 

been happily eating them for months now, but, in the interest of not letting everything go to waste, I put some applesauce

in her food cup, I can't tell if she's eating it or not, beetles are not always good housekeepers...digging around, and doing beetle

things. Anyone  have any thoughts about using applesauce?

 
I don't exactly know what the apple sauce is, but scarabs (or Lucanids) seem to enjoy anything liquid that taste sweetness. I have an experience of feeding honey, watered honey, all kinds of jellies including the ones NOT made for beetles, apple, orange, grape, banana, watermelon, honey due melon, etc. AND depends on what you feed, their urine color is also differ..😂

 
Thank you JKim, I might mix in some honey with the applesauce.  It is kind of a tart flavored apple- Grannysmith is the variety.

 
Well, the question was pointless, the female elephus was at the end of her life and has expired, so my "results" were inconclusive.

I'll try it again when I have some more adults.

 
kevink said:
I was cleaning out the fridge, and found some snack cups of applesauce. I've got beetle jellies, and my female elephus has 

been happily eating them for months now, but, in the interest of not letting everything go to waste, I put some applesauce

in her food cup, I can't tell if she's eating it or not, beetles are not always good housekeepers...digging around, and doing beetle

things. Anyone  have any thoughts about using applesauce?
Click to expand...
If I had to guess, they probably put a lot of preservatives in those apple sauces so I wouldn't take my chances. I could be wrong of course. How long did the apple sauce stay fresh for after opening? 

 
It was a snack pack, and I kept it in the fridge, before and after opening, in a sealed container. The beetle had been acting abnormally for a couple

days before ,as it was. I don't know for sure if she ever ate any of the applesauce, each time I had put beetle jelly in for her, she'd dive in and eat what

I gave her fairly quickly each time, maybe a glop the size of a 1/2 blue berry or a little less. I never left the sauce in long enough to mold,

she would crawl around and substrate would cover it.

You're probably correct about the preservatives, something I never thought about, as keepers, it is something we need to pay attention to.

What's good for me, isn't for my bugs, and vice versa.

 
Because apple sauce is a canned (or jarred, or sealed in plastic) food there aren't generally many preservatives in it. If you look at the ingredients for Mott's brand it just uses Vitamin C as a preservative, which I imagine wouldn't be harmful to a beetle. It's naturally occurring in citrus fruits, which many beetles feed on.

 
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