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Thought i'd post another little update, I had started feeding them blue bottle flies yesterday which they were taking in the nest whole. Today they've decided to take them away from the nest to the foraging area and cut them up smaller to take back to the nest. Also not sure if it's just me but the workers seem slightly bigger than when I first got them......
Another quick post, earlier I decided to clean up the foraging area. There are mites there which i'm not too worried about but there's also somthing else living there. It looks like some kind of larvae, about 4mm long white body with a jet black head. I have noticed little black flies flying around in the tank, could this be larvae of them? Also will these flies do any damage, if so how do I get rid of them?
Any advice will be appreciated.
As of currently I do not know of any harmful flies for Pheidologeton diversus [PD] colonies, just check if the ants attack the larvae, if not, you can always remove them
Edit Uta
Ok thanks for the info :) The ants weren't taking any notice of them so I removed the larvaes I could find. It makes sense that they're larvaes of the small black flies as there are more of those flies. They just seem to be picking at the left over foods, but i'll try to clean the foraging area a little bit more often.
I put this in an earlier post too, about the foraging area becoming more active. In the last couple days there have been alot more workers in the foraging area, i'm wondering if this is a sign of growth within the colony? Or maybe they're just more settled. Either way I can't wait until more soldiers appear to hunt with the workers. Not sure about this either but the nest entrance is on top of a slope, which leads down to the foraging area. Between the nest entrance and foraging area is a leaf a little bit out of the way from their path, but I usually see quite a bit of activity of workers appearing from under this leaf, it has made me wonder if they're expanding the nest and making another entrance?
Thanks again for reading :D
Hi Frogger again,
PD are extremely active diggers, and they will very much likely have dug a tunnel system already which greatly outsizes the current space demand for the colony.
They will have multiple entrances, allowing them to pour workers to literally any space where food is desired. - movement below ground is safer than above ;)
Thanks again for the info :D It's three weeks today, everything seems to be going fine, they're all still carrying food into the nest, carrying stuff out of the nest. I was going to add they aren't touching the honey water, but i've seen them drink from it today, aswell as that they seem to purposely be putting bits of soil in it, any idea why? Also not sure if I should be worrying, but I seen a worker 'harassing' another worker, also seen a worker latched onto the back of a soldier, when I say latched I mean biting and holding on. What could this be? I've heard about gastors being attacked if the colony is dehydrated but they have been drinking the water, they get a mist every other day so I don't have any idea about this. When this was happening the soldier also didn't seem to care, the soldier just carried on dragging food back to the nest. Any advice once again appreciated!
The insertion of soil into thehoney water is caused by the fact that pd likes to "lick" the dried honey off the soil, and they store it in their nest this way, but use it not very regularly.
The latching of soldiers is quite usual, but I have not been able to source the reason of thisa up to now.
Biting Gastors off is also something which happens from time to time, especially in smaller to medium size colonies. I can only give the advice to keep the whole nest area almost wet, not only moist. Mine seem to be preferring soil which is soaked with water for storing their larvae there.
Best
MajorSpud
Thanks again for the advice MajorSpud! :D I'll make sure to give the nest area a mist every day, it's very hot at the moment so everything is drying out faster. They are still doing everything as usual, they've taken eight small crickets already for today. They've also started a new pathway. Also about the honey water I did wonder why they carried bits of soil back to the nest from there, just I decided to clean it out today, guess I shouldnt've done that as I got rid of the bits of soil from the honey water. Ohwell I know for next time, Thanks again :)
Well there has been alot of activity today, aswell as the new pathway started eariler, the ants have taken eight small crickets and five small roaches today! They've been digging all day, carrying old pieces of food out of the nest and other things.
Another thing i'm hoping I could get advice on, is about mites. There the mites that live in the foraging area eating the old bits of food, I wasn't worried about them at the start but they've grown in numbers to the point where you can see ALOT of them on the surface of the soil. I wouldn't worry if there weren't many of them but how can I lower the numbers? I'm aware of remvoing food more often but are there any other ways?
Well today the colony has been very very quiet so not really anything to write about, i'm not sure why. Four more days and I have had them for a month! I'm also desperate for advice on the mite situation! Would Hypoaspis Miles be safe to use with ants? Any advice appreciated!