ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Vijxik]

Hello, everyone!:) Recently i bought two Myrmica rubra queens, along with a worker, 4 larvae and some eggs. However, after 2 weeks, i found no more eggs, only 4 larvae left. I'm wondering if the queens are so hungry that they ate the eggs?(but i did feed them with some insects and honey water), and does anyone know how to improve the efficiency of the queens? (coz my queens didn't lay any eggs so far)..
I will really appreciate if you can give some suggestions. wish everyone a pretty day!

Greetings,
Vijxik

[Catman1976]

can you post a pic of the setup. How long have you had them? What insects have you been feeding them? I feed my 2 colonies with separate containers of sugar-water and honey. M. rubras like moisture.

[Vijxik]

Thanks for you reply. i just put them into a common setup - a test tube with cotton and water. my queens just arrived 2 weeks ago, maybe they need some time to rest. and i feed them with some fruit flies (twice a week) and honey water/fruit juice( three times a week). could you give me some nice suggestions about it? thanks .

[joshjw]

I'm not entirely sure but you could raise the temperature a bit as long as its not above the safe range or feed them more protein.

[Vijxik]

Hey Josh, i did feed them with protein like bugs, and it seems that they prefer some honey water; what's more, the current weather in the Netherlands is appropriate for them... strange thing.....anyway thanks for your idea.

[Sojave]

In the last months, we have to read a lot of food problems.

The mainproblem was most of the time missing proteins. Nearly all species need it in great amounts. Users with strange foodtests or people who give them only sugar water is quite often lately...

Flies are the best, insects with hard protection are often uninteresting. A lot of bugs arent so good. Small colonies arent capable to open them.

Sugar water, mixed sugar water with honey (try different sorts) and insects.

We can read a lot uncommon food, but dont try that. It could kill your ants. The best example are apples from the supermarket, often sprayed with a lot of chemicals.
Also in a lot of posts we can read, that a variation of testfood was accepted and transported into the nest. That doesnt mean they eat it and would be in the nest until it learn to walk

So, insects (flies) and sugar water (honey) are all they need as food.

[Vijxik]

Hey Sojave, thanks for your reply, that's absolutely useful! also that's what i have been doing these weeks, hope they will have some reactions as i did the right things for them.

[Vijxik]

What a surprise, today i saw two eggs on one of the larvae!!! thanks for all your helps guys!:) xxx

[Sojave]

One thing came to my mind. But i cant remember how it was: The larvae of Myrmica rubra, do they eat alone from parts of the insect on themself, are they transported onto/next to the insect and eat themself or are they feeded by the workers directly?

I am not sure and cant find it. But its not so important, as long as you give them normal flies ect, they could handle it.

[Vijxik]

Hey, Sojave, thanks for your remind. yesterday i fed them with a fruit fly, and the queens and the worker ate together, i saw the queens put the food in front of the larvae, so they might be eating.

[Eretikas]

This might be not the most appreciated reply and kinda cheating, but when I had my colony I did gave my ants some larvae and even eggs from another nest, they were in the garden and to be exterminated anyway, so I used an improvised tool such as this one http://www.antstore.net/shop/tools/misc--tools/suction-exhaustor-tube-100x32mm-400.html and stole everything I could. My ants took them as their own and thus I got a good boost of workers.