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After more than a year of thinking and thinking (not lying, check my join date) today was the day: my colony arrived!
Here are some pictures:
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa143/camoth/26e509f2-cf48-4a3f-beaf-33fb884f17b2.jpg
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa143/camoth/51e80878-b010-4689-b4f3-32430a4556af.jpg
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa143/camoth/2507d8b9-4363-4ba6-8dfa-78c413cb26b2.jpg
I ordered a queen with about 15 workers. They all arrived in perfect shape. I had managed to catch two flies (ordinary fat things) just before their delivery. So I put those in the formicarium and a small drop of the honey extract as well. As soon as I opened the tube they went straight for the flies. I was really impressed, they ripped that thing apart! (okay, I did mush them a bit to make it easier to eat). I always thought they were more attracted to sugary food, but man, they really love those flies!
Some of them went for the honey and I loved watching them run back to the queen and feed her the honey (atleast, thats what they seemed to be doing to me).
The queen seems content. Washing herself and moving around a little bit from time to time. I'm really happy with my colony and hope they will grow and prosper. I'm just wondering if it's a problem that they carry everything into the testtube? Meaning they carried a whole fly (not kidding) into the tube. I thought I had to remove left over food, but how do I do that if it's right next to the queen?
I'll be placing them in my bedroom in a dark place for a week now so they can calm down from the trip and really settle in. So no pictures for a week, but I'll keep you guys updated. Any hints or tips you can just post here and I'll be gratefull for :grin:
don't worry about the food in the tube, they will probably eat the rest of the fly or put the larvae on it to feed then they will discard it.
The setup looks great. Keep us informed of what happens.
Thank you guys for your replies!
Indeed they discarded the corpse of the fly this morning by tossing it out of the tube (lol). I took it out of the formicarium.
I have now given them a fresh fly and fresh honeydew.
They are in a dark room now so it's a little harder to see, but it looks like there are a lot less workers than yesterday :( Or maybe it's just because they are so hard to see. I counted at least 4 still wondering around and the queen is also doing fine. I'm not too worried.
nice updates, i hope you keep this going. its been about 10 hours now, i am hoping you have a little time to sit and watch the ants (try and find those missing ants)
Thanks mjbowman07! As a matter of fact; I did spot a lot more later today. Turnes out they have been moving sand into the tube during the night time as well. That made them harder to spot. And they're now almost all inside the tube, cleaning and feeding the queen and taking care of the eggs.
They moved the new fly from this morning into the tube and I can hardly recognize it since they've been nibbling away at it so much :grin: .
My local pet shop gave me a few larvea for free to try and see if they take it. So far they haven't, but that might be because they're still full. I'll leave my chopped up larve in there until tomorrow and see if they want it. If not: I already caught and killed a nice fat spider this afternoon which I'm keeping in the fridge and will give them tomorrow.
I'll keep you guys posted!