Q: What do I do if I cannot find bugs?
One day later 
A fresh fruit fly!
A: Bugs are all over. Go turn over some rocks if you want to find them. Put some dirty
dishes outside and see the multilegged ones gather. The only time it seems difficult to find bugs is during the
winter. Ah, but during the winter many carnivorous
plants will also be resting, and will not want to be fed!
If you are trying to feed plants during the winter, are you forgetting to
respect their winter dormancy requirements?
All right, I should temper my previous remarks by noting that not all carnivorous
plants have dormant periods. Tropical sundews do not have dormant periods. The
commonly grown Drosera capensis ("cape sundew") does not need a
dormant period, either. You can feed these all the time.
Tasty!
Blood worms
Canned bugs
If you really are having trouble finding suitable bugs or insects, you can
buy them at pet stores. Crickets are good for large plants like
Nepenthes and Sarracenia. Meal worms are good for smaller plants. Some
people kill these insects by freezing them. This is fine, but Venus flytraps
will require a little coaxing to eat dead prey. Expert grower John B
has converted me to the use of dried "blood-worms." You can buy these at pet stores.
You put a dash of blood-worms on little Drosera and
Pinguicula, and they like it.
I do not know what a blood-worm is, even though I'm just one google away from knowing. The name is
disgusting. If you know what a blood-worm is, don't e-mail me. Just be quietly happy
that you know more than me.
You can also buy cans of cooked bugs that, while
intended for reptiles, are quite excellent for carnivorous plants. Your
best bet on getting these is to google "canned insects reptiles" or something similar.
I just did, and got all kinds of great leads for products.
You can buy
so many bugs that you can have a cooked-bug-party (a very popular thing
among the debauched California jet set, by the way).
By the way, a bonus use of bugs is that if you are really bored, you can
devise clever things to do with them. A former coworker is an entomologist and
every winter holiday season she and her buddies figure out lovely ways
to incorporate bugs into food. Yum yum! To the right you can see a tasty
rice crispy treat she made with meal worms. Did I eat it? Of course I
did. Hmmm hmmm! And as a result, I developed a special bond with my carnivorous plants that I
didn't before.
Page citations: Rice, B.A. 2006a; personal observations.
