Joey, the beetles don't fly off, they just die after they've laid their eggs. We raise them in the house and have never found a mealworm around the house. We also have used oatmeal and it works fine. Any kind of fruit or vegetable will work just fine also. Mealworms are scavangers and will eat about anything. They're about as hard to raise as worms. I use a 7 gallon plastic tub and raise about 20-25 a day. I've had these going so long that I forgot how long it took to get them going. It's maybe a month or two. We just get old fruit from the grocery store for free.

Norm Kopecky