Low cost artificial diet for rearing the greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella L. (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) as a host for entomopathogenic nematodes.

Abstract

Four low cost artificial diets for mass rearing the greater wax moth, Galleria mellonellaSubject Category: Organism Names see more details L. were compared to the natural food i.e. honey-bee-wax. The results showed that diet 1: (Wheat flour 350 g, corn flour 200 g, milk powder 130 g, backing yeast powder 70 g, honey 100 ml, and glycerin 150 ml), diet 2: (Wheat flour 350 g, corn flour 200 g, milk powder 130 g, backing yeast powder 70 g, honey 100 ml, and sorbitol 150 ml) and the natural food (bee-wax) produced statistically equal numbers and weights of G. mellonella larvaeSubject Category: Miscellaneous see more details. However, the costs of these two diets were only 55.5 and 44.25% of the cost of the bee-wax, respectively. These two diets were the best in conversion of consumed food into final weight of produced larvae (7.43 and 9.25 g of consumed diet/g of produced larvae for diets 1 and 2, respectively). G. mellonella larvae, reared from these two diets as well as the bee-wax, produced statistically equal numbers of either S. carpocapsae or H. bacteriophora. This work contributes to make the mass rearing of G. mellonella less expensive with no adverse effects on quantity, quality of produced wax moth larvae or their suitability for rearing entomopathogenic nematodes.