Can/will bettas eat small beetle larvae?

[harleraven]

So I have a big colony of flour beetles I am rearing for an experiment. I was thinking after I have the data I need, it seems a shame to just kill them all. If bettas are likely to eat them, I could just keep the colony going and have a ready supply of fresh food. The larvae are about as big as this line _. Younger instars are even smaller. The adults are only about the size of these periods: ...

They are a laboratory strain, so they should not be carrying any disease, either. They have been raised on clean flour and yeast, so no weird chemicals.

[Laki]

Sawtooth beetles?? omg those are so disgusting.
I would feed one or two only a couple times a week. You don't want it taking over their diet, and you want to make sure the bulk of their diet is a good betta pellet. But I mean, live foods like daphnia, mosquito larvae are good and fruit flies and someone's betta here ate a spider once. lol

[harleraven]

No, wrong kind of flour beetle. I have Tribolium casteneum, the red flour beetle. They're not even in the same family as sawtooth grain beetles.

Yeah, it would not be the main diet. Pellets would be the main diet, but I know it is good to supplement with live or frozen food, and if I already have the things, I figure why spend money on live food if they'll eat it? LOL.