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Hi. I recently bought a Messor barbarus queen and some eggs and I'm going to keep her in a ytong nest with basin etc. Does anyone have any experience with these ants? What temperature do they need to be kept at? what does the humidity level need to be like? how quick does the colony grow? and what seeds do i need to feed them? I live in england so will the seeds i need be available to me? when do they hibernate? More info covering questions i havnt asked would be great. thanks :) sorry bout all the questions :P
Hey Lowth,
I am keeping messors atm so will try to answer all your questions.
1. They are southern european ants so normally live in high temperatures. Still given they leave underground the temperature is lower and even though the antstore says 25-30 i am keeping mine at 18-24, which is normal room temperature and they have no problems.
2. You will need dry and somewhat humid areas. The humid areas is for brood development and so fort. The dry area is for food storing. Since they are granivores they will store processed seeds in chambers. In order for the so called ant bread not to get mouldy it needs to be relatively dry.
3. Colony grows fairly slow ... you are looking into about 2 months from egg to worker and if mess up the queens food and she eats her brood you are in for some waiting. Hope you have some larvae or even puppaes :).
4. You need soft seeds (if that makes any sense to you). Until the first majors hatch yout workers won't be able to crack harder seeds. I use dandelion seeds i got off ebay from an UK seller. I can get you the lady that sells them. They are fairly soft and my queen and her two workers love them. As far as i know other ppl have had great success with dandelion seeds. Feel free to try other seeds and do tell us.
Still until your 1st workers hatch, sugar/water will do fine for the queen.
5. Can't say much about hibernation, haven't reached that stage yet. As far as i've read, they need little hibernation due the fact they live in a hot dry climate and the cold season in spain is fairly short. As such some ppl don't bother hibernating them, so it's really up to you if you want to simulate a full natural environment. No side effects from lack of hibernation of messors has been reported so far.
Post some pics when you can! We want pictures!
If you need more help just ask or use the search function. Loads of info posted around.
About the hibernation, lot of people say south European ants do not need one, wrong ! In nature they keep a short one from about 2 to 4 months. They can survive without hibernation but this in not healthy for the queen and workers.
Also give them insects, they like seeds but the eat insects to. (less than other species)
cheers :) i think i have almost enough info and pictures will be available soon ill keep ya posted :P Jus a few more things, wen would they need to hibernate? and how do i stimulate conditions needed for hibernation?
3. Colony grows fairly slow ...
I need to correct you on this. Colony grows quite fast. It is individual ants that take a bit more time to develop than for eg. L niger. My colony started out in spring with five workers and by now I have a colony 70+ workers of all sizes. Also first solders are starting to appear (for now only pupae) and it is really exciting. In the same time my Camponotus vagus colony only got up to 17 workers.
About hibernation. You can start hibernation sometime in mid October begining of November. Wait for the first workers if you will buy only queen. If you are new to ant keeping I recomend you start out with a small colony rather then just a queen. Hibernation is easy, put them in to a unheated room where the temperature in winter is about 10 - 15 oC. Make sure that they don´t run out of water as it will kill the queen and workers. You can put them out of hibernation at the end of February.
Good luck
My bad mpir :) can you post a picture or 2 of your soldiers?
My bad mpir :) can you post a picture or 2 of your soldiers?
I'd love to... it's just that my camera died or something. I put in a completly new set of batteries and and all I get is a "Change the batteries" note and then the camera turns off automaticly. :evil:
I'll ask my girlfriend's sister to lend me her camera or even better option: I'll ask Skippy to come over and make a picture of it. :wink:
One is already turning grayish so I expect it to hatch sometime next week. I examend it really good this morning and his head is bigger then the head of the queen. :shock:
OK ,I´ll come to make photo of your Messor soldiers ,when I´ll have time ;) :) ,this week no ,maybe at Friday :) .
Of course ... mpir live in Bratislava now ;) , near my home ,no in Tolmin.
Skippy
Hehe :)
Grayish? hmm when my puppaes are about to hatch they start turning brown :) if you can send a pic of the puppae before it hatches thatb e great but the soldiers si cool too :)
Hehe :)
Grayish? hmm when my puppaes are about to hatch they start turning brown :) ...
Well, yeah. First they are snow white then they get this grayish tone, then it changes to yellow with lots of red in it (I play with Photoshop a lot :wink: ) and as they are about to hatch they turn brown. Smaller ants turn brown completely, bigger ants keep yellowish - light brown head. When they hatch they are very light brown with much lighter brown head. After a week or so they turn completly dark brown - black. For now I have only one worker with dark red head. It is the bigest in the colony - but not for long, two huge ones are on the way. :D