ANTSTORE World of Ants

[bigbibble]

Hi I was wondering will males and females of the same colony mate with each other and then start a colony in captivity. I am planning to use lasius niger and campontus lig. or herc. Thanks for your replys!

[miszt]

Some species do, most do not, you would need to collect the queens and males and keep them away from the colony, or the mated queens will be killed for all those you mentioned, setting up the right conditions to get them to make will be hard tho, and you will probly have more luck (although not much more lol) using males and queens from diffrent colonies

[bigbibble]

So is it hard then? also do the ants have to hibanate to produce males and females and what do you mean by it is hard to set up these conditions for mating. IF it is seriusly hard to do this in captivity I will not do it has anyone else got any advice?

[miszt]

camp and lasius niger queens mate in the air, so they need to be able to fly, they are very sensitive to humidity and tempreture (note that they fly just after it rains on a hot day )

I wuldnt bother personally, no harm in trying I spose tho

[bigbibble]

Thanks miszt can you or anyone else suggest an easier spieces. I would be using a basin to mate them in if anyone has any suggestions please tell me

[mzfckr]

but how the antstore breed them?

[miszt]

some species can breed

[Phasmid]

@mzfckr: antstore and other offerer most likely catch wild mated queens or import queens from other countries.

i always thought that if you managed to get your alates to fly, then they will automaticaly find a mate, regarless of how high they are lfying if at all.

i once managed to get my red ant qeen to fly but there where no males to mate with.

[kashmir79]

cant you just go to a nest and wait for the queens to fly out with the males then look around the floor and pick a few up.....sounds much easier to me then faffing around trying to get them to mate....

[JimmyVe]

Most shops catch wild mated queens yes. It is almost impossible to breed them yourself.
Sometimes it works but in most cases it is just pure luck if it does.

[mpir]

If you really want to get them to mate then get yourslef a colony of Monomorium pharaonis. They are very incestus. Incest is their way of life. Down side of this is that average life span of a queen is few months.

Good luck

[tail__]

The other downside is that if some of them escape (which is easy considering their size) they can infest entire house. Short life of the queens isn't a problem for them, because new queens breed easily. They don't need new queen to start a new nests, only few workers with young larvas, which grow then into queens, which lay male eggs, mate with their sons and start making thousands of workers.... and then they invade your neighbours, who may be a bit unhappy with this. I wouldn't try this species in any case