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bryguy97: A Million Questions About Termites (15. Apr 2010 20:39)

Hi,

I'm thinking about keeping termites, so I'm just trying to get info about them. Here are my questions:

Is it a good idea to start a colony with only nymphs?
Does the queen keep growing until she dies?
Can a secondary reproductive become physogastric?
How long does it take for a nymph to molt into a secondary reproductive?
Is it possible to keep termites in a (very moist) dirtless nest?

I just want the answers to these questions, not, "Don't keep termites, they could destroy your house!", because I know that and I will be very cautious with them.

Thanks for any answers!

baumarkthammer: Re: A Million Questions About Termites (15. Apr 2010 21:23)

I hope you know that not all termites are wood eating. There are very many termites that are very small fungus gardners that specialiced on very little plants and things like that.
Those questions are very hard to answer and you maybe should ask them in another forum, I don´t know if there is a termite forum but you maybe should search for one.
The ones that eat wood aren´t keepale at all. The nests are as big as small houses and there are millions of workers. The smaller ones have nests of the size of a football and i can imagine that they are keepable. But anyway they are much harder to keep than ants.
I know that this doesn´t answer your questions but i wanted to mention that.

bryguy97: Re: A Million Questions About Termites (15. Apr 2010 22:26)

I know that they can have gigantic colonies, but leafcutter ants can have colonies with millions of workers, and plenty of people keep them. I will be keeping a native species(eastern subterranean termites), so if the colony gets extremely large I could just let some workers go... waaay away from the house :D . And the nest I'm going to use will be expandable, so it can house a very large colony. But lets not get off the topic... does anyone have some answers?

bryguy97: Re: A Million Questions About Termites (16. Apr 2010 17:27)

All right... I just found out that secondary reproductives can become physogastric (which is awesome :D ). But still, does anyone know if it would be a good Idea to start a colony with only nymphs?

bryguy97: Re: A Million Questions About Termites (18. Apr 2010 21:54)

Also, does anyone know if termites from temperate regions need hibernation?