Any animals store can provide this kind of insects or buy it on internet.

Do not buy "superworms" because of hormons treatment, they will not reproduce themselves.

Mealworms are not well treated in animal stores (my point of view) so to avoid at maximum any chemical treatment, I did two full life circle before begining to prepare them.

Paper sorter is well fitted for this king of breeding. Just fill existing holes obviously or use tape with sliding face.

It's working well for me.

Cut one of the drawer at the bottom but not full size, leave some extra plastic, it will help sort the pupa and the beetles. Put it on top.

The next drawer is for beetles. Use some bran to make them a litter to lay eggs. Bran will provide a little food but carrots are way better for them. No need for specific water source, they take water from air and food. Do not put too much food as moisture will grow, it sticks and smells rot. Carrot peel will dry too fast, put full carrot in piece.

The followings drawers are mealworms in different stages of evolution. The last is the one that will be taken.

With drawers, sorting is not hard as it looks.

Pupas are extract from bottoms drawers regularly with teaspoon and kindly dropped off in the first drawer.

Dead beetles are extracted with pliers to leave litter as clean as possible.

Use stainless steel strainer and 3D printed one to sort bigger worms.

When to harvest ? hard to tell as it depends on maturity. Worms should have a nice brown color as the above picture.

Too late and the worms will turn into a chrysalis. Too early and you will not reach the full weight potential.

When harvesting is done, leave them for 24 hours without food to do fasting and clean their digestive organ.

Some will turn into chrysalis, nevermind, extract pupa and after fasting period, freeze them... R.I.P.

From eggs to worms to beetles, full life circle can vary a lot depending on food, temperature, hygrometry, promiscuity, light.

• give them bio/natural food without pesticides
• use bio/natural bran without pesticides such as "terre de diatomée"
• temperature between 25-30°C is best but 20°C is good enough
• hygrometry seems not a problem in european house, food will guarantees water supply
• any grow steps loves light, avoid it or use it to do sorting
• promiscuity seems highly influence growing to my experiences, the more worms there are, the faster they grow

Based on my experiences, oven is not a good idea. It dries and burns worms. Temperature is not well-controlled. Here is an example. 32g of 191 frozen worms before oven. 14.3g after "cooking" session at 60°C during 30 minutes.

My oven can't stabilize at low temp and oscillate between 70°C and 40°C... too bad.

Dehydrator is a way better solution.

Try your own time / temperature parameters. Mine is about 60°C for 4 hours. Not good enough but much creaspier than before.

Looking for a method to dry them I found on internet a French invention patent published in december 2016.

Set aside pealing step which will be difficult for a hobbyist, blanching step seems to be the missing one to achieve a nice crispy texture.

I'm waiting to harvest much more worms to do some tests.