Chrysina beyeri
- Thread starter Goliathus
- Start date
MasterOogway
L2
So pretty! I have some C. gloriosa on the way, will be my first time working with this genus. Any advice?
JKim
Mecynorrhina
@MasterOogway Chrysina gloriosa is very easy species. NO WORRY AT ALL!! Adults feed on fresh juniper leaves, and they love it! they lay A LOT of eggs. Survival rates are also high. Use regular substrate, nothing special, no additional food sources required. VERY EASY species. Takes less than a year to emerge starting from eggs.
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Goliathus
Pachnoda
The time period between pupation and emergence doesn't seem to be very long - it's the larva's pre-pupal, winter diapause that takes some months. It's difficult to know the exact amount of time involved with the various stages in this and other Chrysina species though, since they often construct fully enclosed cells, or, even if they do leave a small "window" into the cell through which they can be observed, the eventual pupa becomes completely obscured by the stretched larval skin that forms a loose envelope around it after the molt.
The larvae are quite easy to rear on the same type of decayed hardwood substrate as is used for most Dynastinae and Cetoniinae. The key factor for success with Chrysina is to make sure that once the larvae start reaching full size and are beginning to turn from white to pale yellow, they are provided with a layer of clay soil at the bottom of their container, in which they will build pupal cells. See the following post for more info - http://beetleforum.net/topic/3899-chrysina-beyeri-gloriosa/
You can either keep each larva individually in a 16 oz container, as shown in the above link, or, 20 to 25 larvae as a group in a 10 gal. aquarium or equivalent-sized plastic box.
MasterOogway
L2
You guys rock. Thanks for the info and the thread link. 
Goliathus
Pachnoda
Since gloriosa is smaller than beyeri, I'm sure you could keep at least 25 or maybe even 30 larvae together in something the size of a half-filled, 10 gal. aquarium without having them get in each other's way when they are ready to build pupal cells. I've always just been careful not to crowd beetle larvae (of any species) too much. Chrysina larvae don't have cannibalistic tendencies, and won't bother each other even when kept at rather high densities - there just needs to be plenty of room for them to space themselves apart when the time comes to build cells, and not all of them will do so at the same time; rather, a few will do so early on, followed by the majority some time after, and then finally the last few.
Love the legs on these!
MasterOogway
L2
Right?
Would there be any issues keeping even L1's in bin with a clay layer underneath the flake/leaf litter mix? I'm going to be out on paternity leave for a while after our C. gloriosa come in and am trying to cut back on the amount of work the rest of the staff will have to do while I'm gone. Was thinking I'll just set up the bins with the clay layer already in so they won't have to worry about it. I couldn't really think of anything tragic that would happen, but I've been surprised before....
Goliathus
Pachnoda
No problem with doing that - just firmly press a layer of reasonably moistened (that is, somewhat "tacky"), clayey soil (approx. 1.5" thick) at the bottom of the rearing bin. The larvae will pretty much ignore it and stay up in the organic layer until they're ready to build cells. I do the same thing with my Euphoria fulgida larvae, since like those of Chrysina, they're very fast-growing.