Dynasties tityus freshly emerged care

[the_cream_man]

Hi all,

This is my first time breeding beetles, so I'm still learning.  Earlier this year I had a Chrysina gloriosa get apparently eaten by mites after it emerged.  So I saw a ton of mites in my D.tityus pupal chamber containers and it looked like they had emerged in the chambers so I took them out so that they wouldn't get eaten by mites.

I partially buried them in another tub with some old substrate and sprayed it a little.  They were already hard but still dark brown.  Should I wait till they turn yellow then put them in the fridge for diapause?  Also do I need to feed them/offer water at this point or are they just gonna chill? They're moving around a little but mostly just sitting.  

@Nathan I saw you had some good advice with this species in some other posts, any words of wisdom? Others welcome to answer as well

Best regards,

Joe

[JKim]

If you already took him out of pupal chamber, you don't have to place the container into fridge. That's not necessary. You can just keep them in your room, or wherever you usually keep them. D. tityus take quite an amount of time until their color becomes bright yellow. The color of it will remain greenish or dark brown for a while until then. It can even take about half an year too. Try feed your beetle once a week or bi-weekly to see if he starts to feed on, or your beetle may starve to death...

You can mist/spray water on substrate, do not keep it dry.

[Ratmosphere]

A setup I use for them would be a small plastic container with a lot of damp sphagnum moss.

You could even just put them in your egg laying container off the bat, they will bury themselves for a while before mating. 

[Dynastes]

On 8/2/2021 at 10:12 AM, the_cream_man said:

Hi all,

This is my first time breeding beetles, so I'm still learning.  Earlier this year I had a Chrysina gloriosa get apparently eaten by mites after it emerged.  So I saw a ton of mites in my D.tityus pupal chamber containers and it looked like they had emerged in the chambers so I took them out so that they wouldn't get eaten by mites.

I partially buried them in another tub with some old substrate and sprayed it a little.  They were already hard but still dark brown.  Should I wait till they turn yellow then put them in the fridge for diapause?  Also do I need to feed them/offer water at this point or are they just gonna chill? They're moving around a little but mostly just sitting.  

@Nathan I saw you had some good advice with this species in some other posts, any words of wisdom? Others welcome to answer as well

Best regards,

Joe

I just put them in a cool corner of the basement. I've never used a normal refrigerator for them, just one adjusted to about 55. If you keep them too warm too fast they will die much faster and lay few or no eggs, but their need or reaction to diapause depends greatly on the stock origin (cold climate, subtropical, or long-term C.B.). Depending where they come from many will never turn yellow, just green or gray, and only when they're dry and too dry will kill them rapidly.

[the_cream_man]

On 8/6/2021 at 12:39 AM, JKim said:

If you already took him out of pupal chamber, you don't have to place the container into fridge. That's not necessary. You can just keep them in your room, or wherever you usually keep them. D. tityus take quite an amount of time until their color becomes bright yellow. 

Yeah my fingers are crossed that eventually they will turn bright yellow.  Regardless they're beautiful beetles but I'm really hoping that I got some from a yellow stock!

On 8/6/2021 at 9:00 AM, Ratmosphere said:

You could even just put them in your egg laying container off the bat, they will bury themselves for a while before mating. 

Thanks! Yeah I had them in my egg laying container at first and they seemed to just bury themselves

On 8/8/2021 at 10:41 AM, Dynastes said:

I just put them in a cool corner of the basement. I've never used a normal refrigerator for them, just one adjusted to about 55. If you keep them too warm too fast they will die much faster and lay few or no eggs, but their need or reaction to diapause depends greatly on the stock origin (cold climate, subtropical, or long-term C.B.). Depending where they come from many will never turn yellow, just green or gray, and only when they're dry and too dry will kill them rapidly.

Thanks @Dynastes, in a wild stroke of luck I found a wine cooler this past weekend at a thrift store so I set this to 55 and put the Beetles into separate 8oz containers with damp oak flake sub. Is there a minimum amount of time they need to diapause before egg laying?

[Dynastes]

On 8/9/2021 at 7:53 AM, the_cream_man said:

 

Thanks @Dynastes, in a wild stroke of luck I found a wine cooler this past weekend at a thrift store so I set this to 55 and put the Beetles into separate 8oz containers with damp oak flake sub. Is there a minimum amount of time they need to diapause before egg laying?

I'd say 30 days at least but two or three months is usually how long they stay dormant unless you keep them in a hothouse.

[the_cream_man]

On 8/9/2021 at 6:20 PM, Dynastes said:

I'd say 30 days at least but two or three months is usually how long they stay dormant unless you keep them in a hothouse.

Thank you so much!