problem with house flys and blue bottles hatching in winter

[Laemia]

I am having a problem and I really explained it in the topic but my home is around 70 to 72 degrees and I have tried a heating pad and a heat light but so far my flys are not hatching. I'm starting to get a little worried. I have a few species that love and seem to need flying insects and the past two weeks I've been feeding crickets and lobster roaches. I am having no problems with any of my fruit flys at all. I just bought a new batch of house fly pupae last Tueday, January 8th and I got the last blue bottles on December 6th. I put about half of those in the fridge but mine seem to pupate in the fridge also so am I keeping them not cold enough? I go through them every couple days and take out the pupaes but none have hatched in around two weeks. Thank you to all who help.

 

[Matthewtinnion]

Hi

I had the same problem a couple of weeks ago, getting impatient with the pupa hatching and putting them on the heat mat... in the end it turned out that all the pupa dried up and died on the heat mat, and the ones i left on a window sill all hatched, also my small fridge i have in the insect room is not cold enough to keep the maggots from pupating, in a month they had even hatched in the fridge.

It would seem that a cooler pupa period generaly achieves a higher hatch rate, at the expence of a longer pupa stage.

if you take pupa from your "warm" fridge you should be looking at around 5-7 days for hatching in the early stage.

Hope this helps.

 

[Rick]

How do they look when you first get them? I keep mine in the bottom of the fridge which is the warmest part. They last several weeks in there. I don't have any problems with mine pupating into flies in a cooler room, it just takes longer.

 

[Kruszakus]

Flys don't like to pupate if the temperature is too high - mine have problems emerging from the pupae at 26C! It's better to keep them somewhere near 22C and in a room where air is slightly humid - otherwise they will get stuck in the pupae, or die from dehydration before hatching.

 

[Laemia]

Well first thank you to all who helped. Rick the pupae look fine to me just brown but not a very dark brown other then some of the blue bottles pupae. I think I was going too high with the heat and too low with moisture. I finally have some flies today so I'm thrilled.

 

[Matthewtinnion]

Good stuff, Have fun chasing them around you house with a tea towel

Mat.

 

[Laemia]

I actually have a bug net so I do catch most of the little jerks who get away!

 

[macro junkie]

70f they will hatch 100%..i know cause i hatch 100% of my flys at 75f.at 70 they will hatch it will just take alittle longer..

 

[Laemia]

I have tried it not with the heating pad and when it got a bit colder here nothing. I am still having a problem with my blue bottles. I think I figuured out everything with the house flys but still no blue bottles hatching am I being too impatient? Like I said in the earlier topic I got my last blue bottles on December 6th 2007 and I was trying to keep them as long as I can following another topic on keeping them for two months but so far it hasn't worked for me. I think in the begining I was keeping them too cool in the fridge but I moved them to the coolest place in the fridge and about a week and a half ago I went through all the live maggots and ttok them out so they would pupate and nothhing yet. I am keeping them on the same heating pad on low and making sure they aern't too dry. It did just rain here last night. What am I doing wrong with those? All the maggots were alive and so far nothing. Hopefully I am being impatient. It's just for me so far with blue bottles they only hatch foe m ewhen I first get them and not a few weeks later after keeping the maggots in the fridge. Just wondering what I am doing wrong. Thank you everyone.