ANTSTORE World of Ants

[mpir]

does anyone know how many workers you will have after 1 year,it must be a lot ?

Last year I started with a queen with 5 workers and no brood. By the end of the year I had 100+ workers. Two of them are very big solders.


Otherwise I feel like berating you guys. I´ve no idea how cold it is where you live, but M. barbarus is a South European species and in my oppinion shouldn´t be sent when the temperature in the night drops bellow 5°C. No wonder they are all stoned or barely alive.

[thomie]

I don't think it'll get that cold on the journey . When the ants are slowed down it's just good for shipping i guess :p .
I'm going to put Messor Barbarus in my dining room. The temperature is 13-20oC . they'll stay thear for a week or a little more. Hope they like it and wake up slowly. When the week passes I'll use my heating device to heat the ants to ±27oC . Hope it goes good this time Messor barbarus have got 6 workers and no brood. Hope she'll make lots of eggs .

[JimmyVe]

@ ratgreen: keep them a bit warmer +- 27°c that will shorten up the process. 22°c is to cold for them.

@ thomie: good luck.

[ducatiman]

mine are kept at 27c aswell,their test tube is connected to a y tong but they havnt moved in yet,there is a big pile of eggs and coccons,i inject there test tube with protien jelly every few days (i dont have to open the test tube up this way and it cuts down on stress) they seem to be doing great, much better than i expected

[JimmyVe]

Do you only give them protein jelly ?

[ducatiman]

no jimmy ,i give them seeds,protien jelly and honey water,they are a small colony ant the moment

[JimmyVe]

Ah okay, try giving them a insects once in a wile to.

[thomie]

I've put the ants yesterday into a heated room. In the room it's about ±14-20oC. They are much more active. I've attached a box with seeds and honey water, insects come soon. Some of the seeds are taken into the nest. Thear also is an dead ant outside of the nest. I don't know if it was already dead or if it just died.
Here are two pictures one of the temporary nest and one of the seeds inside of the test tube.

[mpir]

Do they like the honey water? I´ve never offered it to my colony. I did offered them different fruits that my other (non Messor) colonies love but they ignored it completely.

[thomie]

I don't know :p it's an very small colony and I haven't seen any worker walking outside of the nest. Because they drink a little bit of honey water i can't see if they like the honey water.
I guess if you don't give fruits to your colony they'll drink the honey water.

[JimmyVe]

My colony also never eat (drink) from the honey ore sugar water, so i stopped giving it to them.

[thomie]

I've just seen a little black dot in the honey water, maybe it fell of the roof or something like that, but i hope an ant placed it there .
Jimmy, what do you give to the ants as a substitute for honey water?

[mpir]

As far as I know Messors don´t eat sweet water at all. All they need is seeds and fresh water. And from time to time a bug or two.

[thomie]

I've seen a seed lying into the honey water. I guess an ant was trying to take it into the nest and lost it sticking at the honey water :p .
The ants also moved the ded ant further of the nest.
I''m going to give the ants a ded fruit fly, the ded fruit flies are about 3 months old but i guess that isn't a problem.

[JimmyVe]

Much species do stuff there thrash into the honey, they don't like sticky things nearby (in case the could get stuck). That is why you need to clean them once in a while.
It is better to remove the dead ant from the farm.
It is better if you give them fresh insects. (ore from the freezer)

I give my Camponotus substitutus this. I tried out much stuff but they seem to like this one the best.