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Fire: Size of Ytong nest for Lasius niger (22. Aug 2011 11:17)

Hello,

I am starting with keeping ants, caught a queen of Lasius niger in the wild to begin with. For time being she is happy in her test tube, but I am about to build a more permanent residence for her from Ytong - I plan it to be a L type formicarium, with a vertically placed Ytong nest and horizontal arena. I am a bit unsure how big Ytong board I should use for this species - the colony will be small to start with, but on the other hand I do not wish them to overgrow the nest.

I am thinking of board of either 20 × 20 cm or 20 × 30 cm, but any advice is greatly appreciated.

Many thanks!

J.

Markus: Re: Size of Ytong nest for L. niger (22. Aug 2011 11:33)

A nest with 400cm² is able to house thousends of Workers of Lasius niger,
the size of the nest depends on the size of the colony!
Little tip for vertikal nests: chambers should not be higher and deeper than 1cm,
more tipps here:
http://www.antstore.net/viewtopic.php?f=135&t=13950
http://www.antstore.net/viewtopic.php?f=135&t=14015

Fire: Re: Size of Ytong nest for Lasius niger (22. Aug 2011 12:33)

Markus,

thanks for the pointer; that are some impressive projects! And inspiring, too. My German is pretty poor, but the pics are self explaining.

I plan to use an 0,8 mm drilling bit the make the nest, and seal some parts of it with sand or some other material that the ants will be able dig away easily if and when they need some extra space. I plan to have the nest and arena in a single sealed unit, so it will not be easily scalable.

Jindra