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I will start with a little about myself; I am 14, I have been fascinated by ants for as long as I can remember and have always wanted my own colony.
Feel free to chat and please answer my questions. Sorry it probably seems horribly clustered, this is my first diary and these are my first ants.
Tuesday 15th July
I ordered the colony from Edu-sci, as they are a UK company and I knew that the ants would be sent faster than AntStore (sorry AntStore). I was a little disappointed in Edu-Sci’s variety of types of ant farms but settled on Starter Set B.
Wednesday 16th July
My colony has arrived! That was fast. I unpacked my ants and the ant farm and proceeded to set everything up, I had read somewhere that it is good to keep my colony in the test tube until you have gotten about 10 workers. As my colony already had 16-18 (they are so hard to count…) I felt they would do fine. The Queen had a small pile of larvae, maybe 10-15.
I set up my farm, put a food dish and a water dish (with cotton wool to stop drowning) and added 1 drop of sugar water to the food dish, I made my own from water sugar and honey. Within 20 second of putting the test tube in and opening it, about 10 of the ants scurried towards the sugar water. I sat watching as they drank but became worried as a few seemed to be trying to pull its head out of it pushing with its legs trying to get out of the solution. This became more panicked as they started using each other to get out, pushing each other into the drop. I watched thinking they would sort themselves out. Soon they a couple stopped moving. I pulled them out with a cocktail stick and dried it up, replacing it with a cotton ball. If I had left them I would have lost maybe 6 or 7 of my ants.
A couple of ants seem to be acting strangely, they are just staying in one place up in the digging area, very strange, I made a hole with a pencil next to them (thinking they were looking for a place to dig a home, they proceeded to move in (not the colony, just the two ants…). I added some cocoons from a colony I dug up earlier. The cocoons are almost as big as my queen, the ants seem to take no notice of them.
Lol busy day.
Friday 18th July
That small bunch of larvae has turned into about 10 cocoons. I think the queen laid another pile of eggs but its too dark to look at them (they might just be some larvae). They seem to be taking some bit’s a pieces of food I give them, so far; 2 fruit flies, a small part of a house fly and a couple of grass seed.
Hehe I love giving them grass seeds and watching them take them into their test tube :D
This edit took out tonnes of stupid stuff i have said :oops: I bet I have left a bit though :?
Some basics: Eggs don't grow. The ant's life cycle is like this: egg - larva - pupa - imago (adult insect). In case of Lasius and other species of Formicinae subfamily the pupa is enclosed in cocoon, and these cocoons are commonly called "ant eggs" - this is of course false, ant eggs are very small. For sure not "about half the size of the queen" :) Please name the stages correctly. Larvae grow very fast, so it is quite normal they double their size in 1-2 days. Actually the larva stage is the shortest.
You can give the cocoons (not "eggs") from other colony, but is really not necessary, and it is not nice to damage other colony's home. And it seems you gave them huge, "royal" cocoons - so if something will hatch from them it would be new winged queens! It wasn't clever move. Of course they will be useless for such a small colony. Maybe the ants will simply kill them. Don't do anything until you really know what you do. In most cases it is the best to leave the colony alone, only making sure the ants have proper environment.
You can give the cocoons (not "eggs") from other colony
Yes u can do that, but u shall be sure that is worker coccons, and not queens cocoons or male cocoons, because like he said they will kill them, and they will not help the small colony. But I have just take 15 new cocoons from another colony, and it's works!(:
So u can, but u shall know what u are doing, and don't get any adult ants with them! Because if u do that, u will kill maybe our colony, so that is not good, but hope it's help what I just have wrote(:
Ok thanks for the advise, I looked it up and I looked at some photos of cocoons. Lol I cant believe that I thought that those were eggs, I will edit my diary, also the cocoons I got from another colony (which I am pretty sure are Lasius Niger) are two times as big as my cocoons. They are huge, should I take them out? I don’t want to bother the queen but they might be/probably are queens.
Also when I get my eggs I only lift up pavestones so I don’t have to dig up the colony. :grin:
Yes take the big cocoons out, but only if they are bigger than the cocoons your colony self have made!(: And u shall be sure that it's Lasius n iger cocoons, and not another ant's cocoons, because they will might kill our queen, and distroy your colony!(; - and hope u can use that (: But remember, be care full about what u do, and do never do a thing u don't know what is. (: And we will help and guide u here on Anstore's forum!(:
Sunday 20th July
Yesterday I was breaking up an old swing set in our back garden when I noticed that there were ants inside of it. I quickly got a box and poured the ants into it hoping to get a queen, instead I got about 50 ants 20 winged queens and about 200-300 cocoons. I removed the ants, cleaned out my food dish and poured the cocoons onto the dish. Soon my ants start looking all over the cocoons, going backwards and forwards. It wasn’t for a few hour before they started taking them into their nest, but they were still very careful, they would go around the cocoons as if looking for a particular one. When I woke up today their whole test tube is almost packed with cocoons. there is about half an inch left and the queen seems to be a bit cramped at the top right against the ceiling. I feel like I am cheating as already about 20 ants have hatched but are still white/yellow. Also I have a Q for u guys, I read online that the ants take a few hours to go black and their shells to harden, a few of my ants are almost 20 hours old and are only slightly darkening.
Ps. As I write this 3 more ants have been born. Lol I am sooo cheating :D
Pps. Another Q. What are my ants going to do when the tube fills up… in about 2 hours.
Rofl, all of the new borns are staying near the entrance of the tube and getting in the way of the ants carrying cocoons
For Lasius niger it takes 1-2 days to be completely coloured black.
When the tube will begin too small, they will look for a new living place. A test tube is intended to keep only very small colony, <100 workers, and it would take circa 6 months for a beginner colony to grow to this size without "cheating". 200-300 ants is surely too much for a test tube. So better make some serious nest very quickly!
you want to be carefull as i tried the same thing.. only to find it was males being born, if thats the case with you then i doubt your colony will be able to sustain them.
Hello dodgydogman and welcome to the forum.
I read that you have a Lasius niger colony. They grow fast so i don't understand why you are boosting them ? (adding cocoons) If you are so impatient maybe ant keeping is not your thing. You need patient to keep ants. I know it is all new and fun but you need to learn to be patient.
These ants do not eat seeds, so it is not necessary to give them grass seeds. It better to learn about the ants first before you keep them. Check out the Care sheet in the beginners section.
Ok guys, thanks for the advise again! My ants seem to be doing great, all of the ants that have hatched seem to be worker ants and they are also helping bring the eggs in :), I am sure the ants are going to be fine as my workers I have now seem to be doing a great job helping all of the ants out of their cocoons, my numbers are increase at an alarming rate (I have about 50 ants now), as for the spacing problem, all I can do is hope that they will move to the digging area when all the ants hatch.
Ps. I read online that they eat grass seeds but you have had more experience so I will stop giving them to them and also the eggs I gave them would have gone in the bin because we were throwing away the climbing frame, I just thought that recycling them was better. You don’t have to accuse me of being impatient. I am new here, my ants are doing great, I don’t see the problem.