I must have been crazy...

.. to think that I could take care of this many bugs. They are eating like cows! Here is a picture of what they eat in a 24 hour period.



The bad news is that bringing all those oak leaves and branches into my house means that I'm also bringing in all sort of other little critters. There are assorted spiders, mites, other caterpillars, and the occasional juvenile praying mantis. I've been trying to catch them all and let them go, but the spiders mostly get away from me. Anything little that crawls off into the insectary seems to get getting caught by the spiders who have set up shop in the corners of the room. I'll have to do a thorough cleaning once all the spinning is completed.

The good news is that I have the sickness under control and have not had any more deaths. Colony A is beginning the last molt, and then the eating should bump up another notch. It's going to be a very busy next three weeks.

I did a bug count of colonies A and C tonight, and here how the numbers worked out -

Colony A - 259 eggs, 169 worms (43 died from the illness)
Colony C - 268 eggs, 190 worms.

I'll do a count on colony B tomorrow or the next day. Assuming the numbers are close I should have 500+ worms.

Man, that really makes me sound nuts. I will never again raise this many bugs at once. It's just too much!