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I just found a dead soldier being carried away by some workers, one that I had seen the other day which didn't look good as it's abdomen looked a little deflated, but I took it out and it was crawling with parasites! I've put these ants bodies in a little tub too keep the parasites in there, then once the Hypoaspis arrive I can test them by putting some into this tub. I will capture some workers aswell, put them into a tub aswell as my other soldier into a tub of it's own as that one too has mites and release some Hypoaspis into the tubs too see what happens with live ants.
On another note, looks like I have some cleaning up too do,
http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l623/Kentuckyfrogler101/IMGP0346.jpg
The mites eat the dead ants in the refuse pile, I have these with my Attas as well. Do not be worried about those kinds of mites.
:)
Hey Vasile,
These mites my ants have, no doubt are parasites, they are different too the ones I believe you are reffering to that feed off of leftovers etc. and when using magnification too look at the ants you can actually see their mouth parts latched onto the ant, like a tick. After a while they start too get more bulbous from feeding off of the ant and then the ant gradually gets weaker and dies. I'm not worried about the other mites as I see them as being beneficial but these parasitic mites are a real problem.
Harley
These are most likely grain mites as I think I stated earlier. Most likely an Acarus sp.
Oh right, maybe I'm getting confused but are the grain mites the white ones? As the ones latched onto my ants are black-brown kind of colour and behave differently too the white ones.
I recieved my Hypoaspis today and put them straight into the setup. I'm not sure how long until they start consuming other mites but they're very active, covering alot of space and I'm hoping the mites will 'cling' onto the ants or the ants keep rubbing the parasites off of their bodies and get picked off by the Hypoaspis. Also during feeding time, I saw a soldier hiding in the entrance of the nest which looked twice as big compared to the soldiers I see every night, maybe it's a newly born one? I was hoping it would come out of the nest but instead it turned around. :p I also saw another soldier with a 'dented' abdomen, maybe the parasites are causing this as I can't imagine it being anything else. Nothing much has happened today but I shall update soon....
The Hypoaspis seemed to have had an effect but not on the parasitic mites. Obviously I expected the foraging mites to get picked off but I'm wondering if the Hypoaspis can actaully get to the parasites with how much the ants move about. The ants have moved the bits of substrate the Hypoaspis come with into the entrance of the nest to build it up more so I'm hoping some go deeper into the nest and find the queen as I still have no idea if she's doing ok. Some more ants are bound to hatch soon though, a sign of this is two workers were carrying two other workers that looked as though they have just come out of the cocoon. Anyone know why they do this? It was just the two workers wondering aimlessley with these two new ants and I also remember them doing this when I first got the ants, the seller didn't even know why.
I am about to lose some more ants due to the parasites, starting to consider removing the queen but I'm not sure about it. Has anyone tried to raise a colony from just one queen and no other ants? I would try to get some brood aswell but I'm not sure whether the parasites would feed from the brood. Any advice appreciated, I think the colony one day soon may just collapse because of the parasites.
Hi Frogger,
to raise a colony from just a queen is almost impossible.
The bottleneck is here the hatched first generation of workers will probably not be enough to feed the queen and to care about the next generation of workers at the same time.
Hey MajorSpud,
I'm not quite sure what to do then, I feel trying to raise the queen on her own may be the best thing to do as ALOT of my ants are now infested and it seems to be only a matter of time until the colony dies off. What if I were to remove the queen but maybe save alot of the eggs? Also If I were to remove her and she was infested, do you have any advice for removing parasites from the queen? Before I got the colony unfortunately I didn't know of the parasites, if I did I would've tried a more sterile setup but then I guess it wouldn't make a difference if the ants were already infested. I'll leave them for tonight anyway and see what happens tomorrow...