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Kiam: Wild Colony?? (31. Aug 2007 18:16)

I am going to try to do a wild colony for like L asius niger im going to put them in the test tube and into a little formicarium or so or bigger and put it outside and the wholes are just big enough for the workers to crawl out so the queen has to stay in the tube and the colony can climb out off the formicarium and go hunt for food themselfs like a wild colony do you think it will work?

miszt: (31. Aug 2007 18:42)

this can be done, however, you need to provide them with a home that they dont want to leave, so it needs to be big enough to support a big colony, and safe :)

one way of doing it wuld be to use a farm, and have a very long piece of tubing connected that goes out of a window for them to forage, block the entrance of the tube (at the farm end) so that only workers can get out and not the queen.

I had sum success with this a few years ago :)

I wuld recomend letting the colony grow and establish for a year tho before you let them outside

4mykids: (31. Aug 2007 18:43)

Hello,

I actually did this by accident. I bought one of those 10 gallon glass fish tanks that has the screen you slide in and out of it. I thought it was escape proof until after a week or so I noticed a few ants crawling around the top - I thought it was a few that I had missed at first until I saw them going in and carrying out eggs - The queen was too big to squeeze out of the sides like the workers but after another week I opened it to check and see where the Queen was and there was only about a dozen workers in there with her and NO eggs.

They must have set up some satelite nests elsewhere.

Not much fun to look at I thought so I let them all go.

Kiam: (31. Aug 2007 19:24)

hehe Ill give them a bonus to :p a grasshopper and that:p and when they ever start to fly out then ill let them :)

They have quite alot off workers lol around 70 if thats good