Checked status of wax worms in the two 12 well plates that were either exposed to P. larvae or BHI broth. Most of of them were dead by now (first exposed them 36 days ago). The plates have been incubating at 30C for that time period.
There were 12 replicates of each treatment (P. larvae & BHI), with six on each of the two 12 well plates. I determined which life stage each of the wax worms were at when they died.
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Interestingly, one of the larvae (wax worm) and one of the moths was still alive in the BHI treatment group. None were alive in the P. larvae treatment group. I am continually baffled by the seemingly sporadic longevity of these insects. Both treatments resulted in similar amounts of moth life stage development wax worms after 36 days. More wax worms died during the larva stage in the BHI group, which is odd, but likely due to handling issue and not a reflection of the BHI broth itself.
In the future, I'd like to perform this experiment with earlier instar wax worms and an increased concentration of P. larvae. This experiment was performed as very much a crude pilot study as I had an abundance of wax worms at the time and also a broth culture of P. larvae on hand. It is interesting to see that a higher concentration of P. larvae may be needed to see an effect on the wax worm's survival, if there is one at all.
//EWW
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