My Wood Is Rotten! Plus Some Click Beetle Stuff...

My Traeger wood pellets are finally done fermenting! It smells earthy, and is a dark brown color, so it is now ready to be used for my bugs! Truth be told, I don't have many species that need it, so it is not extremely useful right now. But I do have some click beetle larva that will probably benefit from a substrate of rotten wood and leaves, so I will be rehousing my click beetle larva and using the rotten wood as the substrate.
I have a single click beetle larva of an unknown species that I found in a log in the summer of 2014 that I have been trying to pupate, but apparently it is not ready yet, so I have rehoused it and I have used my rotten Traeger wood pellets and some dead leaves as the substrate. Here are some pictures of the larva!

Unknown click beetle larva

Tail close-up

Head close-ups

Hopefully this guy does well, I would really like to see what it turns into! :)
In regards to my Aeolus sp, one of my two adults died, and the three larva are doing well and are eating cat food.
As for my Alaus melanops larva, I thought it was going to pupate, but alas, I was wrong. I put a bunch of mealworms in its enclosure for it to eat, so far it has not shown signs of eating. Will keep you guys posted on any interesting developments.
Well, that's it for today, I hope you guys enjoyed this post! :)

Rotten Wood Progress.

My Traeger sawdust has turned a dark brown since I last updated, and it has gone through many stages of getting moldy, then not, then moldy, then not etc. It still needs to ferment a bit more, but I think its close to done! Here is what it looks like now.

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this post, even though it was quite short. I hope to have some better quality posts coming up soon, so stay tuned! :)

Making rotten wood!

Remember when I said I had stuff "brewing" in the bug room? Well I really should have said fermenting, because that is exactly what I'm doing, fermenting Traeger wood pellets to make rotten wood! All it takes is Traeger wood pellets, flour, and yeast! (I think active dry yeast is the best).

First you take a bunch of wood pellets, and then pour hot water on them, and then they expand, kinda like the coconut fiber bricks. So remember, a cup of pellets makes lots of sawdust, so don't use too much! Then you dry the sawdust out, add flour and yeast, stir well, and then add some water to make it moist again. Put it in a well ventilated container, stir it daily for about a month, and bam! You have rotten wood! (Fermenting times can vary though, keep that in mind!).

While fermenting, the temperature of the wood rises, and it feels hot to the touch. When it is done fermenting, it will return to normal temperature. If used while still fermenting, you will probably bake your bugs alive, so you gotta wait until it is done fermenting. Here are my ratios for the wood and flour and yeast:

Roughly 10 cups of sawdust (not the actual pellets, the resulting sawdust!)

1 cup of flour (I used bread flour, I'm pretty sure you can use any wheat flour)

And one small packet of active dry yeast (I think I should have used a little more yeast, but whatever, it's my first try!)

Here are some pictures of the wood! (So interesting, right?)

In case you didn't know, rotten wood is needed as food for many different invertebrates, rhino beetle and stag beetle larva for example. Lots of click beetle larva like to eat it too, so it is a good material to have on hand. Today I noticed the wood was getting hot, so the fermenting process has begun! Will keep you guys posted on any interesting developments! Hope you guys enjoyed! :)

EDIT 1/12/2023:

This recipe worked for me this one time, however I'd like to note that two subsequent attempts I made to replicate this batch both ended in failure. I believe it was because with my subsequent attempts, I used normal all purpose flour, rather than bread flour like I did this first time. This is by no means a professional flake soil recipe, but this first batch did in fact ferment properly and made useable flake soil, as you can see in my subsequent posts here.