ok, I've had my mealie farm for about a week now. I was pulling out some mealies to feed my gliders this morning and noticed about 15 aliens. I pulled the ones i could find out to put in a different container, and some of them are white and move quite a bit, but some are yellow and don't move at all. Are the yellow ones dead????

Now that you mention 'aliens'..are they OK to feed to the suggies?

Don't know about the yellow 'aliens'...yellow sounds dead to me, but

The mealworms will pupate into a form that is about half way to the beetle that they eventually become, and it does sort of look like an alien. (I found this site that has pictures of the various stages of pupae and the beetles - http://www.fishpondinfo.com/worm.htm - I didn't ready any of the text, just looked that the pictures).

If they are still moving (and your suggies will eat them), they are safe - but, if you want a self-sustaining farm, I would leave them so that they can pupate a final time to beetles.

I seem to remember that they start out white, and then turn a light yellow right before they pupate the final time into beetles, but am not positive (it has been several years since I tried a mealie farm.

Yes, you can feed them to your suggies.
They will turn different shades until they morph. They start out as a white and will continue to darken. Their heads will turn a golden color right before. Hope this helps!

it's normal Laura, and some gliders like the aliens, but some don't. I don't have any aliens or beetles right now, BUT, I have about a million baby mealworms, finally

ok, good. I can't believe that i have aliens already, I figured it would be at least a few weeks before i had aliens let alone getting close to having beetles, lol

I usually don't feed the aliens just b/c I breed them as well. They will start out white and turn a yellow-white color before they turn into a beetle.

If you don't want to have a mealie farm, refrigerating them keeps them dormant and they don't morph. I have 2,000 in the fridge and have had them in there for about 2 mos. w/o them doing anything but sleep. LOL

I know this has been answered elsewhere, but I see three terms, mealies, aliens, and beetles. I know what a mealie is, and I know what a beetle is, but what is an alien? Is it the white mealie, after the skin is shed? I have some of those when I take them out to feed. Or is there another stage, if I wasn't to put them all back in the fridge (I'm not interested in a mealie farm), where they turn from the white mealie to a yellowish mealie, to something that looks like an alien?

Katty, the alien is the stage between mealie and beetle. I'm looking for a pic, I know I have one

The only pic I can find is this one, but it's blurry

it is kind of hard to describe, but they have the head of a fly, and a flat worm like body, but are much shorter than the mealies

And their little legs are too short to do anything with, They just look like aliens. Trust me, once you have them, you know it. I didn't know what they looked like until today when i found all of them

Thanks, guys! I think I'll definitely stick with just buying and feeding mealies and let others worry about aliens!

I would just buy them, but I have 3 suggies now, getting another one next week, and looking for 4 others, it is much more cost effective for me to start a mealie farm now and save in the long run