Is there anyone who's working with Callosobruchus Maculatus? - (Mar/21/2013 )

Is there anyone who's working with Callosobruchus Maculatus? I'm having trouble culturing Callosobruchus. They always die.

Can anyone tell me your successful culture conditions, such as temperature, humidity, the way you collect embryos and maintain the population?

So far I never reared them but successful culture methods are available online: http://www.beanbeetl...rg/handbook/#CT
Anyway the reasons for a unsuccessful rearing can be a lot: inbreeding, wrong food, contaminated food (pesticides), wrong environmental conditions, diseases, etc. Also several reasons can act together of course. Especially the contaminated food is an often overlooked and serious problem when you don't have access to "clean" products, as insecticides have sometimes surprisingly long persistence times and some products (depending on origin) also high loads...

Thanks! We are using the organic black eye peas right now, so I guess the food is not an issue. Although I'm doubting this may result from the high humidity (more than 60%) at 30 degree incubator. I'll do an experiment to figure out next week.