ANTSTORE World of Ants

[ratgreen]

can anyone recommend a thermostat reasonably cheap. that i could use for my messor barbarus?

[thomie]

it's hard to find a good thermostat. I've maked one by my self but it wasn't working good, it cooked my Messor Barbarus and Lasius Niger queen over 100oC and almost set the nest on fire. Most of the heating systems have a button you can turn to lower the power of the heating device, but this doesn't give you good control of the temperature.
The best thing you can do is going to a electronic shop and ask them what they have in stock. I've bought a Velleman kit.

[ratgreen]

kk, yer i tried to make a thermostat from a kit i bought , didnt work as soldering a little tiny chip was almost impossible and i gave up after a while. it was from maplins and it was perfect as it went up to 30c and all the way down to like 5 or something and ran on 12v. but oh well

[thomie]

Yeah mine thermostat had the same 5-30
I've got this one:
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I used S39 (anti fat) but it's not good for chips etc :p, guess that's the problem with my thermostat.
I fount it easy to assemble the kit! I'm goint to try to repair the kit. I've heard from a shot that its verry hard to find a error but i'll try it :p

[ratgreen]

yer thats it, did it work, can you solder well then?

[thomie]

No it didn't work . But making it was really easy! Thear is a good description enclosed, i also have a bit experience with soldering.
it didn't work because i used the S-39, its possible that the S39 conduct two points when the S39 heated up. The thermostat worked well for 3 days and ten it heated up to max. I've tried it again and then it heated up to max at 1 day. I'm going to solder every thing again and hope the conducting points will go away. Then i test it for a week and when it's working i'll place it at my Messor Barbarus nest.

[ratgreen]

lucky,mine half worked as you could hear the relay clicking, but it did it straight away. but oh well.

[thomie]

Yeah that happend also to me :S . The relay clicked then i turned it off and wait a few minutes turned it on an after a hour of 4 i guess it starts clicking again. And after 2-4weeks i try to use it inside my nest and it got the error .
So don't use it in your nest when the relais is clicking, i've heard from the electronic shop that the clicking indicates an error in the system!

[ratgreen]

its ok now, my dad gave me a propagator with a thermostat on it and i keep my queen in there,and its kept at about 26-28c since my last post one of the eggs has changed into a larvae so now i have 1 larvae and about 7 eggs. picture in a second.

[thomie]

Owkey
Your lucky that you could lend the propagator .
It looks like your nest will be successful.
My nest is still in 20oC because i want to test the thermostat till i trust it. That's why my queen hasn't laid any eggs :S , but the workers take seeds into the nest so thear happens something .
The ants don't take insects ... I hope it's because of the temperature.

[Antlord]

My Messor barbarus colony (queen and 4 workers) has not taken one insect so far, I have got them since 21 january of this year
but the colony is going well 1 worker has hatched so far and there are plenty more to come .
So I don't think you should worry, it's like you say when the temperature rises, they will become very active and the larva will need there protein
and you will have to feed them allot of insects .

[ducatiman]

my messor barbarus didnt eat ant bugs for a while untill there was about 8-10 workers,they took a spider and a fly today .i think they eat bugs when the demand for protien is there,dont worry they will eat soon

[ratgreen]

its annoying because she wont eat anything, i hear this is normal, is there a way of feeding the larvae yourself? such as if you got good hands(which i kinda do) could you like get a little bit of protein honey(protein with honey instead of jelly) and get a cocktail stick and dip it in the protein honey and then lightly tap it on its mouth? then after like 3 seconds wipe the larvae clean, so it don't suffocate.

[JimmyVe]

You can not feed the larva yourself. hehe
don't worry the queen has enough reserve to feed the first larva until they hatch.

[SteveUK28]

ROFLMAO @ feeding larva yaself.. thats a funny one.