This is insane

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Plus, if it was pesticides, (Rick, i think i saw your box turtle thread and you keep em outside?) wouldn't the turtles suffer? I don't know what pesticides do to turtles, for the fact that i keep mine inside, but i can only imagine that they would croak it.

 
lemmiwinks said:
Plus, if it was pesticides, (Rick, i think i saw your box turtle thread and you keep em outside?) wouldn't the turtles suffer? I don't know what pesticides do to turtles, for the fact that i keep mine inside, but i can only imagine that they would croak it.
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They do live outside but then again I know pesticides are not a concern here unless it came in on that locally made honey.

 
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I bought some house fly pupae from another forum member a few weeks back. I had difficulty hatching them, only a few hatched from the first batch I tried, and they all died before I fed them to any of my mantids. I set up another cup of flies and only 15 or 20 hatched out of it. The flies were fed honey, and I kept them with plenty of water on their sponge to drink from. They started dying after a couple of days as well. I fed them to 5 of my mantids, and some of the honey I was using as well. Unfortunately, 4 of the 5 mantids died within 48 hours after eating those flies and honey. The 5th one died soon afterward. I was thinking I got a bad batch of flies, so didn't try hatching any more of the pupae. Now that I read this thread, I'm thinking maybe it's the honey? Either way, I've lost a lot of mantids in a short time recently too. (and the only thing I had done differently was to feed those flies to them).

 
Rick said:
They do live outside but then again I know pesticides are not a concern here unless it came in on that locally made honey.
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Yeah, I was just trying to rule out pesticides :) , I wouldn't think they'd use pesticides in honey... I give my flies locally made raw honey too. I guess it was just bad honey or bad flies :p that's really disappointing though. Sorry about the loss :(

 
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lemmiwinks said:
Yeah, I was just trying to rule out pesticides :) , I wouldn't think they'd use pesticides in honey... I give my flies locally made raw honey too. I guess it was just bad honey or bad flies :p that's really disappointing though. Sorry about the loss :(
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Christain explained how the honey could be contaminated. Or the flies I was using may have been bad. I have had no more deaths.

 
If I can remember tomorrow I will talk to my bee expert and ask him some questions on the honey subject. Btw Rick, I never feed mine honey, a dry mixture I make myself and they do fine on it, it does have honey powder and bee pollen grind fine in it and they seem to do ok with it, next time u order, remind me and I will send u a sample.

 
spicey said:
I bought some house fly pupae from another forum member a few weeks back. I had difficulty hatching them, only a few hatched from the first batch I tried, and they all died before I fed them to any of my mantids. I set up another cup of flies and only 15 or 20 hatched out of it. The flies were fed honey, and I kept them with plenty of water on their sponge to drink from. They started dying after a couple of days as well. I fed them to 5 of my mantids, and some of the honey I was using as well. Unfortunately, 4 of the 5 mantids died within 48 hours after eating those flies and honey. The 5th one died soon afterward. I was thinking I got a bad batch of flies, so didn't try hatching any more of the pupae. Now that I read this thread, I'm thinking maybe it's the honey? Either way, I've lost a lot of mantids in a short time recently too. (and the only thing I had done differently was to feed those flies to them).
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No that was a bad batch of flies I got a few from the same source and I did not feed any to my mantids seeing as how the flies where dying.

 
hibiscusmile said:
If I can remember tomorrow I will talk to my bee expert and ask him some questions on the honey subject. Btw Rick, I never feed mine honey, a dry mixture I make myself and they do fine on it, it does have honey powder and bee pollen grind fine in it and they seem to do ok with it, next time u order, remind me and I will send u a sample.
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How do flies eat dry food? Don't they have sponge like mouth parts?

 
Katnapper said:
I think they regurgitate on it, then suck it up. :lol:
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WhoopsPuke.gif


 
Rick said:
Seems like they would be dehydrated. I will stick with honey just not the same kind as before.
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I tried a powdered sugar and powdered milk dry mixture, then would mist them just like I do the mantids. But they still seem to go for the honey more. Seems like they like it better... and I feel it probably is more nutritious (on what basis? My own thoughts only.)

 
Katnapper said:
I tried a powdered sugar and powdered milk dry mixture, then would mist them just like I do the mantids. But they still seem to go for the honey more. Seems like they like it better... and I feel it probably is more nutritious (on what basis? My own thoughts only.)
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Wouldn't you prefer honey over powdered milk? :p

 
Er...honey? I`m surprised even humans are eating it! Colony Collapse Disorder anyone? Pesticides are killing bees off...especially in America, where Aussie bees are sent by the millions every year to replace all the dead ones!

 
bodhi said:
Er...honey? I`m surprised even humans are eating it! Colony Collapse Disorder anyone? Pesticides are killing bees off...especially in America, where Aussie bees are sent by the millions every year to replace all the dead ones!
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And?

 
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.

 

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