Day 2 of the Hungering
Checked on the fly nursery today. No adults yet.
“They’re pupating,” I told the spider children, “Any day now.”
“We hunger,” hissed the spiderling between the veil of its legs, one glittering eye glaring out at me. “We will be fed. Any taut sac of fluid-filled flesh will do as well as another.”
I bowed and retreated. More flies for the horde will spawn soon. I hope.
Just letting you know: Facebook is down. Just trying to spread the joy. :)
I remember similar narratives in your cephalopod days, Dr. M.
It’s just not the same. I miss them.
Try to avoid tautness.
Beware!
The Arachnid Queen, La Belle Dame sans Merci, Thee hath in thrall.
Abandon all hope.
Tried the incandescent bulb incubator trick?
Hell, even pipe freeze blocker tape might help.
The bulb, I’d consolidate the incubators within some insulation, bulb on to raise and maintain temperature, then cut off within the desired temperature range.
It’s an incubator, not a frigging biosphere. I grew pneumococcus under those very real analog conditions with a bimetallic thermostat.
And that was in junior high school (nearly got expelled, as one idiot breached handling/containment procedures. I suspect my suggestion of building a hydrogen bomb gave them a reason to not be idiots…
As I’m unsure of the fly species, I can’t speak to illumination cycles length, polarization of light or spectrum, as some species do have sensitivities to each/all.
Is there any way to feed them non-living food? Or are all spider digestiib systems like the time travel mechanism in Terminator, things travelling through it must be covered with living tissues?
I know some arthropods inject digestive fluids into the victim before feeding are spiders the same?
Why not try Bloodworms ,not the marine ones ,I mean the larvae of the non-biting midge fly?
Don’t know if you have them in America ,who knows ,you could end up with bright red spiders .
It’s likely too late for this round but this is what I use to raise flies for our students. It’s simple and not too expensive but helps even out temperature fluctuations. You can even raise the temperature closer to 25C and accelerate their development a bit.
https://www.carolina.com/flies/insect-culture-incubator/173150.pr