Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
Powered by phpBB Social Network © phpBB SN Group
Deutsche Übersetzung durch phpBB.de
Time : 0.033s | 47 Queries | GZIP : On
Now the Tetramoriums are doing well , the volume of brood is increasing much . I feed them small house crickets killed by friezing and give in permanence seeds of sun flower after removing the husk they seems to love it specially one of the two colony's the other also but less . I don't know why because the volume of brood of the 2 colony's is about the same . Now that they have s.f. seeds they seems not to be very interested in honey water after the initial recruits the honey water is left with few or no ant interested , at the same time they continue to exploit the sun flower seed. Next time I will try fresh peanuts an other oily seed .There is some report that Tetramorium's , Monomorium and Solenopsis are much more interested by oily seeds and nuts than by sugar .
The Tetramorium caespitum , especially one of the two colony , like sun flower seeds much . I remove the
husk , the ants pierce the skin covering the seed and empty it from inside until there is only the skin left ,
most of the ants going back to the nest carrying a pellet a bit smaller than there head . When the colony is
big enough I will try to give complete sf seeds to see if they can pierce the husk without help .
It is necessary to be careful when removing the food left over : The Tetramoriums even more than other ants can be still inside the carcass to extract the last bits of food .
Yesterday I did give both colony's half fresh peanut ( by fresh I mean not roasted and NOT salted !!! )after removing the covers . They love it ! They like it even much more than the sunflower seeds .
One nest is 23°c or 24°c during the day and 21°c or 22°c at night. The other is at 25°c or 26°c during the day and 24°c at night . Both nests have a relatively high degree of humidity.
Both colony's have seen a sort of demographic explosion the last few days , especially the one who is warmed by the reptile warming stone :The brood is now much larger , the worker number have easily quadruple since I got these colony's and the workers of last generation are now bigger , some about as long as a Lasius niger (but much thinner ) . I think I had it right for the food : All the time half a peanut or a sun flower seed and a house cricket every day ( as they can eat in one day ).
Next winter I plan to have them hibernate at a moderate temperature like mediteranean ants with little food .
I give sometimes diluted honey , the colony warmed by the reptile warming stone seems not very interested ,
the other one like it and finish it within half an hour . I just gives a white, soft body meal worm instead of dead cricket to the biggest colony and it recruits , attack and kill it quickly for such small ants.
The two colony's have a burst of grow and reach 100 to 150 workers and around 200 workers respectively with much brood, so with much brood to feed they are very active and eat much.
The biggest colony formed now a covered gallery 3 cm long from the entrance of their nest to the pipe giving access to the arena using the sand-loam and some small peaces of plaster removed from inside the nest . The other colony simply covered the entrance with a small irregular mount ( formed largely of sand loam and trash taken from the arena box) containing a side way entrance gallery .
Both colony's are growing fast and are very actives .
I give them a droplet of diluted honey every day ,one chrysalids of tenebrion (the biggest colony 2 ),and they
continue " mining " full time into the half peanut . I give them also sometime a small cricket .
I asked a friend who have a good camera to come to take pictures of the ants nests and I am going to look how to make it appeared here .
The colony in cement nest warmed at 22°c or 23°c is growing much slower than the one in the plaster nest warmed at 25°c . It have about 150 workers and much less brood than the other one(about 300 or 400 workers I think) so now I warmed the nest with the warming matte at about 27°c .
I try to give a bit of variety in the food so today I 'll give the ants piece of apple instead of the honey water.
My biggest T.c. colony eat two Tenebrions per day as pup. It is much more easy because the Tenebrion pup is nearly immobile and much easier to eat. I try to estimate the population but it is nearly impossible. I think
nearly 800 workers now.
I am really surprised , it grow as fast as my Pheydole palidula colony two years ago (before it escaped).
The smallest colony eat only one Tenebrion pup every one or two days .
The largest colony is tunneling through the plaster even more than I expected especially where the plaster is weaken in the water cavity , they even cover it with the plaster they remove. It's annoying because I will
have to add water eventually so I demolish the cover with a few drops of water but a few hours after they have it rebuilt again . For the rest it is not a problem because the nest is placed inside a well escape proof arena.