I might just end up doing that, i can probably get more out of the fridge/freezer than a winecooler. I thought the fridge was too cold for most of the bugs other than butters, but now i'm realizing that's not the case.
Any success keeping bsfl alive in the fridge or is it cold? They're pretty nutritious from what i've read and my guy loves them.
I have my fridge set at around 48-50 degrees which is quite a bit higher than one would typically have their normal fridge for food set at. 48-50 degrees keeps all of my chow, cooked hornworm food, vegetables, and fruits nice and fresh, but it's not too terribly cold for insects I keep in there. At least not in my experience.
I've kept butter worms in there 24/7 for weeks with no problems.
I stunt the growth of hornworms when I have them every time by placing them in there for a day, taking them out for a day, placing them in for a day, out for a day, so on and so forth. Never had any issue doing that either.
As for black soldier fly larvae.... I've never tried that honestly. I always place mine on a shelf at room temperature and let them all turn into flies because my chameleon loves the flies way more than he will ever love the larvae. I'm sure it could be done with no problem though at the temp I keep my mini fridge at. 50 degrees is cold enough to keep things fresh for longer periods of time, but it isn't too terribly cold to kill most of the insects we all use.
The fridge was a good investment though. I used to keep all of my chow and veggies and everything (besides insects) in my regular fridge. I got tired of digging through all of MY FOOD to find the INSECT FOOD though. Not only that, but keeping insects in my regular fridge at roughly 35-40 degrees would be too cold for the insects.
My breaking point was when I kept buying hornworms and lots of them would grow too fast for my chameleon at the time (he was still a baby). So instead of making a cheap cooler with a frozen water bottle like some people do, I just invested $100 in an energy-efficient mini fridge. Now, everything that I use for insects is kept in it to prolong shelf life. The freezer part is a tad small, as it is with most mini fridges, but at 26-28 degrees, it works great for storing my bee pollen (which never expires if kept in a freezer) and my dry hornworm mixture too (which I keep in the freezer part only because the other bags of chow are too big to fit!). I've also made some fruit and veggie mixtures and frozen them into ice cubes and stored them in the freezer part for use as a gutload at a later date.
Great lil investment. And for some reason, if you ever stop keeping chameleons or reptiles one day and have no use for a mini fridge to store your chow and such, well then you have a nice lil fridge to keep soda or snacks in!
