As for separating skins and dead worms or beetles... like was said i blow the majority of the skins off the top. to separate the dead stuff I remove all water sources for a day or so, sift everything out (live, dead, skins I missed) return bedding to container, put a couple potatoe halves in one side of container, pour all of the sifted stuff into a pile on the other side, wait a couple of hours, most of the worms/beetles have left the pile for the potatoes or have buried in the bedding, skim the surface to pick up all the dead stuff. This leaves very few live worms/beetles to pick out of the mess.