I was breeding beetles last night.  I had buckets of them.  Buckets of larva, crawling and seeking food.  Buckets of pupae, turning into something new.  Buckets of beetles, scratching and scritching looking for mates.

It was the larva that i went to first. I saw that they were eating holes and tunnels in the bread and fruit.  Digging and eating and digging. They were in a bed of grain and dust.  So much food, it looked like the ground was moving under them.  I lifted a piece of bread, and they clung to the bottom of the bread, and refused to leave their meal.  Under the bread, the ground was covered with writhing bodies and moving larva.  Brown and tan, and long. They looked about an inch long each, with small dark heads, and lighter segmented bodies.  Pulling themselves over and around the other larva, hiding away from the exposure from the removed bread.  The bread was riddled with body size holes.  They grew and fed and fed.  Never ending.

I noticed that the larva were sometimes freezing in place and changing shape.  They got thicker at the top, and curled in on each themselves, and stopped moving.  They got white, and pale.  When i picked one up, it wriggled in a small concentric circle.  Like it knew something was happening, and only had a few things that they could do to try to escape.  I moved these to a new bucket.  A container with nothing happening.  They were frozen.  Just waiting.  No need to look under the food, because there is no food here. Nothing to eat, because nothing is eaten.  Then you see a move, and notice that there is a pale brown beetle.

They are the color of sand, white and brown.  Light tan, and moving slowly.  They are shorter and fatter than the larva.  Moving slowly and looking so delicate and fragile.  I move them to the third bucket.  This one has so much activity.  So much more than the other two.  Where the first was eating, and only eating.  The second was asleep.  The third was doing everything and more.  The beetles changed too over time.  They got darker, and darker, and looked more sturdy and strong.  Where they started out slowly moving, and trying to stay still, as they darkened first to darker brown and then to black, they started to move faster.  They ate more food, and seemed to want fruit and bread, and grains as well.  You could hear them if you put your ear close.  It sounded like rain, or popcorn.  Tiny scratches and scraping sounds.  It sounded peaceful and tranquil if you didn’t mind that the source was thousands of tiny black beetles scurrying for food.

And the mating was happening as well.  in the giant circle of their life, this seemed one of the most impactful to their lives.  They have a moment of union, where the two come together, and travel over the ground as one.  Then they are done, and apart.  It isn’t long, just a few minutes, but then there will be more and more larva soon. I can’t see the eggs, and know they are there.  The ground must be full of tiny eggs waiting to hatch.  Waiting to be moved back to the first bucket.

 

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