In relation to that *amazing* cricket unboxing story comes this really awesome question.
How do you get 1,000 SUPER JUMPY crickets into a box in the first place?
Turns out, that's actually a surprisingly easy thing to do.
(Thread)
How do you get 1,000 SUPER JUMPY crickets into a box in the first place?
Turns out, that's actually a surprisingly easy thing to do.
(Thread)
There is no shortage of videos/guides on how to rear crickets.
It's pretty easy, and you can generally get a few thousand in a rearing box at a time. Essentially, you rear->ship.
...but how do you move them from the rearing box to a shipping box?
It's pretty easy, and you can generally get a few thousand in a rearing box at a time. Essentially, you rear->ship.
...but how do you move them from the rearing box to a shipping box?
It turns out that there are specialized tools for this.
One such tool, that you've probably seen in petstores is a cricket funnel.
This allows you to measure small amounts of crickets by volume, essentially you know roughly how many crickets are needed to reach a certain point.
One such tool, that you've probably seen in petstores is a cricket funnel.
This allows you to measure small amounts of crickets by volume, essentially you know roughly how many crickets are needed to reach a certain point.
When you're dealing with a lot of insects, they more or less act like a liquid and can be poured in a very jumpy mass.
You'll lose a few, but if you set up the rearing room carefully, they'll probably just fall back into the rearing tub.
You'll lose a few, but if you set up the rearing room carefully, they'll probably just fall back into the rearing tub.
This doesn't just work for crickets, BTW.
To work with bees, this is something we need to take advantage of as well.
To monitor them for parasites, we need to put them in mason jars to knock the mites off them.
To work with bees, this is something we need to take advantage of as well.
To monitor them for parasites, we need to put them in mason jars to knock the mites off them.
Lots of other insects, like mosquitoes or moths, are shipped as eggs or pupae depending on the needs.
We can measure eggs by weight, because eggs are a more or less uniform size when everyone's reared the same way.
With moths, you can rear them in individual containers.
We can measure eggs by weight, because eggs are a more or less uniform size when everyone's reared the same way.
With moths, you can rear them in individual containers.
If you need mosquito pupae, there's specialized tools we can use to separate them out. Companies like @Oxitec can even sort them by sex.
johnwhock.com/products/labor…
johnwhock.com/products/labor…
Dealing with large amounts of insects is a *really* common problem in entomology, and we've engineered dozens of creative ways to solve this problem over the years.
:D
:D
