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will 118 degrees F kill darkling beetles and mealworms?

16 years ago

In a previous post I mentioned I bought a bag of mealworm castings to use as fertilizer and soil amendment and it contained live darkling beetles, which are the adult form of mealworms. I didn't want to use it for my garden or potted plants because of the risk of infesting my garden with a new pest. So I put the bag in a black plastic garbage can with a tight fitting lid and set it outside in the sun and put a thermometer inside to see how hot it got. The highest temperature so far was 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Do you think that will kill the beetles, mealworms, and eggs? I didn't see any live ones today but maybe they buried themselves deeper in the castings.

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