Best way to keep bee moths alive ?

[kyron4]

Hello, I'm new here, great site!!! Glad to find it. My first post- What's the best way to keep bee moths alive for the longest time ? Fridge or a 68* basement in the dark ? Best temp. ? Anything to add to make them last longer ? I ask because I can get a 500 pack for $9 and if I can make them last all season it would be worth it. -Thanks, and again great site !!!

[Barnacle Bill]

Hello, I'm new here, great site!!! Glad to find it. My first post- What's the best way to keep bee moths alive for the longest time ? Fridge or a 68* basement in the dark ? Best temp. ? Anything to add to make them last longer ? I ask because I can get a 500 pack for $9 and if I can make them last all season it would be worth it. -Thanks, and again great site !!!

Can't help you with you question but a hearty welcome to Crappie.com

[CrappiePappy]

my good friend Dale Cochran of Grubco :


Bee Moths - (copied from the Grubco website)
"They are a creamy white, soft bodied grub about ¾" in length. They should last for 3 or 4 weeks with proper care and require no additional feeding. A #8 or #10 hook can be used with the waxworms. Use plain or tip them on a jig. Waxworms are excellent bait for all types of pan fish, especially crappie.

Care Instructions: Store in container and same bedding as they are received at 55-65 degrees. A cool basement is ideal. Keep the bedding dry; as moisture in the shavings will shorten shelf life. If condensation forms under the lid, remove the lid for several hours and then replace."

So, it looks like the basement would be OK .... but, don't expect them to last more than a month or so. I have a carton from Grubco - keep them in the fridge (no basement - apt stays 72deg) They've lasted for 2wks now, in the fridge ... with only a few of them dying. I really need to get them "back to the lake" again ... or get a fish in my aquarium, to feed them to ...LOL!! .....luck2ya .......cp

And Welcome to Crappie.com !!

[Moose1am]

I am going to the bait shop today to get some bee moths. I'll ask the owner of the bait shop what he does to keep them alive. I need to go there to pick up some water treatment chemicals.

I want some bee moths to feed the little bluegill that I added to my aquarium. I went out last week with my fly rod and caught several small bluegills to add to my freshwater aquarium.

All but one of the crappie have died over the last two years. I only have one of the original white crappies left. He is about 11" long. I did catch a 12" crappie last month and put him in the aquarium but he died a few days later. He developed some white fungus growth on his body and sucumbed to that disease three days later. All my crappie have died from that fungal disease. It looks like cotton is growing over their skin. I lost the big bluegill that I had too. His nose was eaten off by some bacteria disease and I had to destroy him too.

So I am replacing the old fish with some smaller bluegills. I want to see if they can make it though the fall and to next spring.

Oh and my 1" long Yellow Bullhead catfish that I caught last summer has really grown now. He is almost as long at the crappie now. I estimate he is about 9" long. I have not measured him but I should. He started out hiding behind the filter tubing all the time and somehow got some food and grew until he was big enough to eat minnows. He only eats live minnows now. I feed the fish some small pieces of hotdog and honey ham and the catfish would not eat the hotdogs. But the warmouth and the small bluegill ate the honey ham ok.

my good friend Dale Cochran of Grubco :


Bee Moths - (copied from the Grubco website)
"They are a creamy white, soft bodied grub about ¾" in length. They should last for 3 or 4 weeks with proper care and require no additional feeding. A #8 or #10 hook can be used with the waxworms. Use plain or tip them on a jig. Waxworms are excellent bait for all types of pan fish, especially crappie.

Care Instructions: Store in container and same bedding as they are received at 55-65 degrees. A cool basement is ideal. Keep the bedding dry; as moisture in the shavings will shorten shelf life. If condensation forms under the lid, remove the lid for several hours and then replace."

So, it looks like the basement would be OK .... but, don't expect them to last more than a month or so. I have a carton from Grubco - keep them in the fridge (no basement - apt stays 72deg) They've lasted for 2wks now, in the fridge ... with only a few of them dying. I really need to get them "back to the lake" again ... or get a fish in my aquarium, to feed them to ...LOL!! .....luck2ya .......cp

And Welcome to Crappie.com !!

[Moose1am]

Well yesterday I went to the Evansville Worm Ranch and got some bee moths. Paid $2 for a box of them. Is that about what everyone pays for their bee moths? Anyway I told Matt who runs the shot with his dad what the Grubco Guy's web site (Doug?) said about keeping the bee moths alive. I think that Crappie Pappy said that Dougs web site recommends storing the bee moths at around 55 deg F or in a basement. They should survive for about 3 to 4 weeks under these conditions if the bedding is kept dry.

Now Matt keeps his bee months in a walk in refrigerator at around 50 deg and he said his last for about 3 weeks.

I also talked with Matt about how often he has to change his water in those huge tanks. He changes the water every day. Now these tanks are about 20ft long or so and about 4 ft wide and at least 3ft deep. He told me that it takes about 4 to 6 hours to refill one of the tanks. They use city water too. Wow! That is a lot of water to pay for each day. He has about 5 or 6 of these tanks. He uses a product called "BETTER BAIT" minnow holding formula. He sold me a plastic 3lb container of this stuff for $8. I use just a small amount of this in my two 5 gallon minnow buckets last night and this morning the water looks very clean. This stuff turns the water blue. So your bait shop may already be using this stuff now. I know that some of the bait shops at Patoka Lake have blue water so they may use this stuff also in their minnow tanks The company that sells this stuff has a web site
www.sure-life.com and you can find out more about this stuf there. Or you can call them at (830)372-2239 or fax them at (830) 372-1824

I checked out the pH, alkalinity, nitrite, nitrates, hardness of the water before and after adding this stuff to my city water and it checked out good. And I am not looking at many minnows as I was before. I was using a product called Proper ph 7.0 which was sold at the local Petsmart. This product is made by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and I pay a lot more for this 8.8oz bottle than I should. LOL So I am going to be switching to the cheaper and IMHO better bait product now. One heaping teaspoon of teh better bait blue crystals will treat 50 gallons of water. Now that is a lot of water.

I go though 10 gallons of water about every two days. I have two 5 gallon plastic buckets that I keep my minnows in at home. I have them in my aquarium room setting next to the HVAC outlet in the floor by the window. The cold air from the AC comes out right next to the minnow buckets and keep the water cooler in that spot.

The old product Proper pH 7.0 made the water cloudy. I used one small scoop ( one table spoon) of this stuff for just ten gallons. So I used about a half scoop (the scooper comes inside the small plastic bottle when you buy this stuff) for only 5 gallons. But the next day there is a foam on the waters surface and the minnows are hard to see at the bottom of the bucket. And the buckets are white plastic. I chose white as it's easier to see the minnows at the bottom than when I used a black plastic or blue plastic bucket. The darker plastic colors hid the minnows from view even when the water was fresh.

Today I got up and checked the minnow buckets and the water was still crystal clear and there as no cloudyness in the water and no foaming.

I use two aquairum aerators to aerate the water and put Dissolved Oxygen into the minnows water.

Right now I can use 1/10 of a teaspoon to treat 5 gallons of water and I got 3lbs of this stuff for only $8. That is a good deal and I sure am glad that I went ot the bait shop yesterday and got this stuff to try out.

I should have known that the guy that makes his living selling bait would have the best product out there.

Right now I am very pleased with this product and will continue to use it from now on.

I will be going to their web site and checking out the chemicals that they use if I can find out that information. I know that potassium permangate will turn stuff blue so there may be some of that in these blue crystals. But that is just a guess right now and I really don't know what's in these blue crystals. But it sure does make the water look pretty! LOL

[Roberta]

We buy 500 or 1000 waxworms and super rmealies from Grubco at a time. Crappie fishing has been slow this year, so I'll wait a while before ordering more waxies, but the ones we bought this spring lasted until last month. We keep them in the fruit cellar, where it's pretty cool. The key (and I've been doing this for about three years) is to pick through them every week to remove the dead. Waxies get gooey when they decay and contaminate the rest. They do shrink in size over time, but are okay to use for tipping jigs.

The mealworms stay in their muslin bag in the fridge. I also pick through them and put the dead or dying out for the birds. Mealworms just dry up, so they still have food value for birds. I've been using these mainly for sunfish and they're almost as good as crickets.

Now it's that time of year when we're picking critters off the vegetable plants and collecting those stalk borers that Crappiepappy told us about a few years ago. Can't beat free bait. To whoever it was that asked, around here waxworms go for about $2.50/30 in a cup. - Roberta

[Moose1am]

I was the one asking. Maybe I should count the number or bee moths that I got inside my cup. I got some free samples from the Grubco at the first Teezur Crappie fishing tournament held for Dave Summers. I was able to keep those waxworms and bee months for a pretty long time. I stuck them in the aquarium room which was around 75 deg F. I also picked out the black or dead bee months as they were ugly looking things when they died.

I was putting them in the small beer refrigerator at first but I didn't want to stink up my beers. Once I stuck some night crawlers in a cup inside that frig and the beer can's got a foul smell to them. Beer was ok but the outside of teh can's had to be washed off. So now I don't keep anything live or dead in my beer and coke small room refrigerator.

The other day I was scared when I heard a loud noise like a popping sound coming from inside the fridge. I was sitting at the computer with the refrig to my left and within easy reach.

I found that a diet caffine free coke can had burst open and frozen coke was all over the inside of the refrig. I had to clean that mess up and then turned the temp dial down inside the refrigerator. I checked the temp inside this refrigerator and the thermometer said 4 deg C. That is above freezing as zero deg C is freezing or 32 deg F. I like to keep my beer icy cold but not so cold that the coke inside the cans freezes and explodes the cans.

We buy 500 or 1000 waxworms and super rmealies from Grubco at a time. Crappie fishing has been slow this year, so I'll wait a while before ordering more waxies, but the ones we bought this spring lasted until last month. We keep them in the fruit cellar, where it's pretty cool. The key (and I've been doing this for about three years) is to pick through them every week to remove the dead. Waxies get gooey when they decay and contaminate the rest. They do shrink in size over time, but are okay to use for tipping jigs.

The mealworms stay in their muslin bag in the fridge. I also pick through them and put the dead or dying out for the birds. Mealworms just dry up, so they still have food value for birds. I've been using these mainly for sunfish and they're almost as good as crickets.

Now it's that time of year when we're picking critters off the vegetable plants and collecting those stalk borers that Crappiepappy told us about a few years ago. Can't beat free bait. To whoever it was that asked, around here waxworms go for about $2.50/30 in a cup. - Roberta

[crappie66]

Waxworms/beemoths about $1.50 for a cup of approximately 50.

[Moose1am]

I sure am glad I asked this question as my bait shop owner is charging a lot more for a lot less. I just counted the bee moths in the cup I bought for $2.00/cup and there were only 21 bee months inside the cup. And two of those had died and turned black.

How many does Grubco put in their box? I bet that there are more than 20 bee moths in the Grubco boxes. I need to order from Grubco next time to get a better deal. I think I will check out the Grubco Web site again and find out some more information on his prices and quantities.


I don't really use bee months that much. I got this box or got the idea that I needed these bee months because I had a big bluegill in my aquarium that I wanted to feed the bee moths too. But that bluegill developed a disease that at the top of his nose off and I had to destroy him. Put him out of his missery as the sulfur medicine and the other meds that I was trying to use to cure his nose rot were not working. I had to take him out of the tank before he got the other fish sick. So far the other fish look ok. I got the idea that I needed the bee moths by having that bigger bluegill. Now the only bluegill I have in so small that even the bee moths are too big for him to eat. I caught him on a #18 fly last week at the stip pit's launch ramp while trying to catch some bait. I took my fly rod along to have some fun. I caught the other bluegill (7" long) on a fly rod at Birddog pit. Birddog pit is one of the few pits in this area that has good water quality. It was not subjected to the coal mining and is not hydrologically connected to the Ohio river like the other stip pits. So it's water's conductivity is much lower and there are large areas of lilly pads growing in the shallow waters of this pit. The bluegill grow pretty big in this area but the launch ramp consists on only gravel and you need a four wheel drive vehicle to be able to launch a big boat. But a kayak or one of those two man boats are perfect for this small pit.

I am going to have to cut the bee moths in quarters to make them small enough for this baby bluegill or sunfish to eat them. LOL The baby sunfish does like hony ham thin sliced and chopped up into tiny bits. But he refused to eat the hot dogs I cut up and feed to the fish.

Waxworms/beemoths about $1.50 for a cup of approximately 50.

[crappie66]

That is about the average price of beemoths whenever I go to a bait shop. I actually don't really use beemoths that much since they fall off the hook too easily, one small nibble and you must rebait. I use spikes year round, crappie love them, bluegill love them, actually all fish love them.

About 10 years ago there was a dead deer on the side of the road up by the lake, so I rode my bike down there were a scoop and a 5 gallon bucket. I held my nose and started scooping tons of maggots out, I filled the bucket about half full of those stinky things. About every hour we would throw out a scoop or two off the end of the dock. That night I caught so many crappie off the end of the dock along with more bullheads that I cared to catch, usually I don't catch any crappie off that particular dock because it is only 6 or 7 feet deep.