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jamezs5: Mites Eating my ant's legs please help! (2. Aug 2005 18:14)

Hello, My name is Steve and i have been keeping ants for just under a year now, I recent moved my ants to a new farm with child's play sand in it and i noticed some type of mite/insect that is Very tiny has begun to lay small dark brown/blackish round eggs on my ants and there larva/pupae and the creatures also eat the ant's legs they eat the leg till it is thinner than a human hair from the bottom up it appears i am desperately looking for a cure for this as it is killing my colony the queen is not badly damaged yet but if it continues i know it will kill my entire colony. i have removed the colony from the farm and thrown away the sand they are now in a plastic water bottle with no soil or medium at all i could use any suggestions as to what i should do to kill the mites eggs and any mites that may have been transported with the ants to the bottle. i was thinking about trying to find a predatory mite from a plant store that would kill the mites on my ants but I'm not sure that will work
any one have any ideals or have this problem in the past?
plz help
thanks you
-Steve S
jamezs5@yahoo.com

*Edit* the egg's are layed all over the ants body hundreds of them covering every part of the body how can i stop it from transfering to the clean nest? is there a way to kill the ones attached to the queen itself with out killing the queen?

Martin S.: (2. Aug 2005 23:01)

Mites are difficult to fight. Sand heat up without ants in the stove or with formic acid treat.

greetings
Martin

Cephalothorax: (9. Aug 2005 20:03)

If the Queen was clean, I would have tried to isolate the ones "taken over" by the mites. If the Queen is already isolate I don´t see much chance to healthen the colony... Like Martin said it´s best to heat the sand until 200 degrees Celsius, and of course cool down, until filling the formicarium.
If a colony is being tanken over, you should immediately isolate contaminated workers and treat them like the sand (kill them). Sounds hard but is necessary! If the queens once is taken over, they´re assumed to die...
if I knew something, I would help you! :pai: