Mass Rearing and Biological Characteristics of Galleria mellonella L. (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) Using an Artificial Diet

Abstract

Galleria mellonella L. is an important pest of honeybees. The primary objective of the study is mass-rearing Galleria mellonella using a modified artificial diet. Globally, Galleria baiting technique with larvae of the greater wax moth, G. mellonella L., is the most commonly used method for recovering entomopathogenic fungi and infective-stage juveniles of entomopathogenic nematodes from soil. Therefore G. mellonella was mass reared at laboratory condition using modified method of Birah et al. (2008) by artificial diet. The mean larval duration for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th instar was 3.2 ± 0.08, 5.2 ± 0.13, 6.1±0.39, 5.6 ± 0.26, 7.4 ± 0.13, 7.6 ± 0.21, 8.5 ± 0.47 days respectively. The mean pupal period was 8.1 ± 0.29 days. The total developmental period was 73.56 ± 1.27 days. Mean fecundity was 680 ± 42.5 numbers, larval weight was 19.98 ± 0.91 mg for 7 days old larva, 376.48 ± 6.52 mg for 14 days old larva, mean pupal weight was 393.33 ± 6.81 mg and adult emergence was 91.15 ± 3.97 per cent.