I wish I hadn't fed any to mine. I think blue bottles will work better for me anyway, but by the time I order the spikes, then pupate and eclose, that could take almost 2 weeks.....I wish someone could ship a cup of live flies to me.
Thanks Phil. This jar of honey I have had all summer. It sits on the counter. I have never had honey go bad at least to me. I am still eating it but I do use a knife after the knife has been used for peanut butter before the honey. I switched to a new store bought container and have had no more issues.I talked to the bee guy, he said only things he could think of is they are using something called bt or tb on the corn and bean crops to make the insects not like the pollen, but from what he understood, it did not hurt them, just made them not like it. Also the only other thing is if the honey gets old it will ferment and that could affect the flies. One more note, if the honey gets old, on top of the fermenting, it can get some parasites in it to, he said to change it frequently to keep it clean and not to use old honey, he said very unlikely to have something bad in the honey, but not impossible.One of the most interesting posts yet, Rebecca. Biotech BT corn and cotton are modified to repel insects like weevils by producing bacteria. You can find plenty of documentation for and against its use, particularly in regards to bees, but Australia has been using this for years and doesn't have CCD. No one, though, has even suggested that this bacterium lives on in the honey.
Personally, I have never seen honey so old that it had started fermenting, and I image that it would be visible and sniffable if it did.
Did you use the same knife to spread honey on the cages? Maybe some of the mantids had peanut allergies! :lol:
I think honey is the best choice. Look how it is made. You get the nutrional value and it can hydrate the flies as well.
The water I use is filtered from the fridge and then I add reptisafe on top of that. I am thinking there is still too much stuff in the water or my sprayer is contaminated somehow. I have always used this technique without any issues but I guess I will try the other water.It may be your water. I buy distilled water from Wal-Mart for .70 a gallon. Lasts me about 2 weeks and it insures nothing is in the water.
I drink tons of it <_< They do treat it with chlorine twice a year and my wife told me they said not to use it in aquaria. I figured since I treated it it would be fine. I have only lived here a year and a half so that may not have been long enough to use the water with many mantids during the times that they change the treatment method.
Don't Just use any paper towel! Use Bounty paper towel, it is the most absorbent! I feel like a spokes person for Bounty right now! :lol:
+1!Glad to hear it, Rick.
