ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Wildbird]

Hi All

Well the Queen from Mizst Arrived today, the first panic was the dent in the box, fortunately the test tube was intact it was the polystyrene that took the kicking. I hope the queen was not to badly shaken up by the experience. She has a few eggs with her although she was eating one, so I guess ants also get the munchies after having sex

My first question is do I take the cotton wool stopper off of the the end so that she can move into the foraging bit of the Mini ant farm, I was going to put the ant store special food out for her. A drop at the edge of the test tube?

Perhaps this would save some of the eggs?

My second question is will the habitat part of the ant farm be big enough for her to move around in? Without being unkind she is a bit chubby and I am not convinced she can turn around in it.

I am guessing about 5 weeks until we have workers??

She is a nice looking thing and although not very active she seems well enough

As always all comments and hints welcomed

Thanks

Paul

[Varban]

Hey Wildbird,

Congrats on your new queen . You can take out the cotton wool and put the tube in the foraging arena. I'd recomed using some a small dish with sugar+water and put in the test tube. I use the blister from aspirin. Just cut out one aspirin container and use it a small dish for sugar water.

It's normal that she might eat some eggs while others develop. She might even feed eggs to the first larvae. Still to avoid this just give her food and she should stop.

She doesnt move much to save energy. So don't worry about that. Also she will be fine for moving around in your ant farm as long as she can fit in. In fact once she moves in the ant farm she wont move much at all. She wil just be an eggs laying machine.

Oh don't try and force her out of the test tube. Once the 1st workers hatch they will decide when its time to move out. Make sure the test tube is covered as they prefer a dark place. Feel free to uncover it once in a while to see how she is doing.

I assume you got lasius nigger so 5-6 weeks for 1st workers seems about right. If you have a different species it will be longer or shorter

Oh fyi if you have lasius niger they will take ages to move out. But wait until you have a few workers first before we give you eviction tips

Hope this helps if you have other questions feel free to ask.

[miszt]

you should have ~10 coccons, which will hatch within the next 10days max, i doubt she was eating the eggs, possibly, but i suspect she was actually unwrapping sum coccons, to reveal the little white workers (look very carefully, you should b able to make out legs n eyes etc on sum of the larger white blobs), which take ~7-10 days to turn black and start walking around. Also most the queens I had had about 10 larvae and 20+ eggs

Ants are suprisingly flexible, and she should b able to turn around in a space as small as 6-7mm

I'd recomend giving her a tiny drop of honey, then put her sumwhere dark n warm(ish, not to hot!) for 2 days, then you can think about attaching the test tube to your farm

dont expect her to move very fast out of the test tube, but u can speed it up by keeping the farm nice and damp and dark, and the test tube well lit (but not in direct sunlight...otherwise you'll cook them)

Good ol' Royal Mail eh? I recently recieved a queen in the same kind of packaging...completly snapped in half! was very happy that she was in a plastic tube not a glass one or she'd b dead now!

[miszt]

if u have anymore questions, u'l get plenty of answers here good luck! I dont think you'l have to many problems, l.niger are pretty easy to look after, n your first workers will be scampering around pretty soon

[Pugberto]

Great to hear you got your queen my ones eggs are beginning to turn into larvae but at count she has roughly 20 eggs and 7 larvae. A lot for a Lasuis Nigers first ever batch I must say.

[miszt]

I have been feeding the queens a high-protien jelly with lots of vitamins/minerals and amino acids, most of the queens have huge batches of eggs, one in particular now has 17 coccons, ~10 larvae and over 30 eggs! they really are going for it and they where only collected about a month ago

[Wildbird]

Hi All

First of all the good news, she has laid extra eggs and the dab of ant food I got from Antstore was eaten with great gusto. She has lined up all of the eggs next to the cotton wool and spends her time tending them.

Some of them have turned brown however and she has placed them at the end of the test tube and I am assuming these are dead.

She is in a test tube, which is in the foraging basin of the mini ant farm, whould it be getting to cold for her eggs or the cocoons?? during the night? I only ask as she will have no ability to incubate them (I assume) and I would hate for the eggs to die

Also at what point should I put water in there, she is currently using the water that Miszt trapped in the end of the test tube as it soaks through the cotton wool.

Cheers

Paul

[JimmyVe]

Hi Paul,

If i remember wright we are talking about Lasius niger here ?

Don't worry of them getting it to cold during the night, they will do just fine. If the water dries up in the tube you have to give them a new tube wit fresh water.
(We discussed this topic already here, http://www.antstore.net/viewtopic.php?t=6214, this was a question how to replace the cotton, but if you read further you will find how to connect a new tube to the old one.)

[mpir]

Hey

Great to hear your queen is doing fine.

If you keep the mini farm indoors at the room temperature the eggs should be ok. In winter when the temperature drops only larva will survive, eggs and pupae will not survive the winter.

It is very difficult to put "water in there" without hurting the queen or brood. So better idea is to put a second tube and let the queen move on her own.

Good luck with the new queen and happy ant keeping.