Another great escape

Monday morning was a moderately annoying morning for me. See photo:

Bin #5: Larvae 1, Aubrey 0. This is upsetting.

I found roughly 30 larvae in the carpet. I'll never know which bins they came from. This nullifies all my careful counting when I added crawl off to various bins, so thanks a lot guys.

Bin #3: Unhappy larvae

Some new environmental factors: I added water to some of the bins because the substrates seemed too dry. There must be sufficient moisture in the material for correct wing development. On the other hand, the time that I added a bit of water to the larvae feeding bucket I experienced the 1,256 in crawl off. 

Not every bin that received water experienced this response. And some of the bins that received no water did experience this. Bin #5 didn't get any water, yet the larvae were getting out. Bin #3 did get water. And not every substrate experienced the same response. A bin with mulch that received water had no upset larvae while other bins with mulch had dozens of stray larvae. It's enough to make me second-guess my note-taking. 

I have a hypothesis that I'm not really sure I can test. There is a signal that the colony sends out. A bat signal, scent signal -- I have no clue. Something triggered a common response in 20 out of 22 bins; an extreme response in 9 out of those 20. (I'm calling 20+ stray larvae extreme.) 

Dozens of them. Dozens.

As of tonight, they have settled down to normal behavior. It's typical for me to have one or two stray larvae per bin. I rehoused some of the strays from some of the most unsettled bins. They are now in a fresh #23. The new additions have burrowed down in the new bin. It is entirely possible that these green-lidded bins should be bigger to accommodate the pupae stage. BUT bin #22 had 140 prepupae added to it in the span of 9 days. (I didn't do that on purpose. I neglected to have my spreadsheet up as I took notes.) And yet, I had only 8 stray for #22 on Monday. Bin #22 is also set off to the side away from the tower of bins. 

So here's my thinking: there was a message sent out indicating that this isn't ideal, let's get out. After I thinned a few of the bins, the signal died down, and they calmed down. 

My goal is optimal pupae happiness. Contented pupae become flies which mate and lay eggs. All I have to do is find the epicenter of unhappiness. Isn't that always the case though?