ANTSTORE World of Ants

[adam james]

Soil is moist not soaking and eggs are well tended and shiny , I never let the chamber dry and there is high humidity aswell. They are kept like my pair I had last year and they lived about 4-5 months before dieing , after reading that document you showed me I can understand why now,

Adam

[adam james]

The termites are doing well , some better then others. Firstly I was rather excited the other week due to my large species of termites had there first nymph. Later that day it vanished , more then likely eaten by the adults. After that no more eggs hatched which I thought was strange but in my smaller species a nymph had emerged , followed next day by another

The week before this hatching I had been on holiday , While on holiday I had two new species arrive to me, they settled in well , a small species and a large species , well unfortunately a few days later the large pair died so I thought it a shame to waste there large egg pile and gave it to my smaller species. When I got back home from holiday I removed the egg pile placing it with my other larger pair as they were of the same species to the eggs. I think I must of had the odd egg mixed in from the smaller species so hence this hatched and got eaten.

The large species are doing well and still all four are tending the egg pile and grooming each other. I have had great excitement with the smaller species which I am going to refer to for now as microtermes as they seem a pretty close match from what I have read and seen of pictures of the alates.

The microtermes now have 6-7 nymphs and more will soon be on the way. The kings and queens are all taking it in turns cleaning and feeding the nymphs and it will not be long before the first workers and soldiers arrive.

One of the adults tending to two nymphs.

Recent video

[youtube]oXabXDwlhzY&feature=c4-overview&list=UU60javMmgejklEkoEXfGpZQ[/youtube]



Adam

[adam james]

Well guys a few weeks ago my termites finally died , they never let the nymphs mature and always ate them so without workers and the possibility of getting there gardens up and running they failed.

Will try again next year

Adam

[adam james]

Hey guys , so a few weeks ago I received my new termite colony. The colony travelled as well as could be expected and upon arriving I left the box open to warm up and for them to settle down. After awhile I removed the packaging and slowly opened there container. The mound was inside half a coconut shell which helped protect it during transit. but even with this as a support the mound inside was cracked and slightly collapsed. I used a combination of artist paint brush , insect pooter and fine plastic insect tweezers to remove the gardens , workers and nymphs to the new setup. Once I moved all I could the rest was placed in the foraging area where I hoped they would meet the rest inside my setup and move in. They did indeed make a trail into the setup after a few hours and by the morning all had moved inside

My setup , queen chamber + two chambers for fungus gardens

The colony slowly settled in and started modifying there chambers, most corners were mudded up with the clay I had used to paint a layer over a slim ytong tile I had placed in each chamber. The queen chamber was a ytong block , carved in a circle to fit snug then I carved out a round queen chamber taking notes on design from a real queen chamber I had to copy.




It took nearly a week before the colony would forage properly. Foraging was instigated at about 6-7 pm in the evening , and corresponded to lowering light levels , due to my foraging area being lit by a light only a few workers and the odd minor soldier ventured out side the nest. The workers had opened a small hole on the side of a prefab mound I had made for them. It was when I put a red filter over my light that a few workers came to the hole entrance, It wasn't long after that more antenna could be seen twitching at the hole. within ten minutes the hole grew larger and it wasn't long after that a sudden stream of workers came scurrying out. this line to and from the nest carried on for most the night.

The workers seem to favour dead wood and also seem rather partial to dry dead oak leaves. They cut up tiny pieces of the food before returning to the nest with there load. They then store this material in small piles within the nest where it is then eaten by the many workers.

One of the many food piles, this one resides in the queen chamber.







The colony came with a few fungus gardens , roughly each was the size of a 5p coin, one was slightly larger in size. Each was packed with the many nymphs including quite a number of piles of eggs. Only one reproductive adult was present in the colony. It is most likely the other was killed during transport and then eaten as there was no sign of the remains. It became evident after a week that this reproductive was in fact the king. The workers feed and occasionally groom this reproductive, that and the fact not a single egg has been seen laid by it confirms the king status. Had it been the queen , it would of received far greater attention form the workers that and eggs being laid would of been noticed.


The colony came with many egg piles , together they number in the thousands, it is optimistic to believe that hopefully a new queen will be raised and kept back for the colony. If not then it is believed that one of the workers can regress moult back to a nymph stage to regrow as a secondary reproductive

One of the many egg piles, strangely there also seems to be a number of black eggs appearing in the piles.


After one week of settling in the termites had almost eaten through the fungus comb , it had shrunk to such a sate that most nymphs now moved into the queen chamber where they clinged to the walls in groups. It was in the queen chamber that the first signs of ne growth was observed, slowly the workers began depositing drops of faeces in a small pile , within a day this became a pea sized fungus garden. As if noticing this a second new garden was started , on the outer edges of one of the receding gardens, slowly the gardens are growing again. So hopefully with this foraging and adding of faeces , plus the many eggs that are due to boost the growing population this colony will thrive.

Queen chamber , many nymphs reside here, plus the new fungus garden growing nicely to the right.







here's a short video of my colony, will do a more updated one soon




Adam

[AntsNational]

WOW! Fantastic! Such a beautiful colony. Please keep us updated!

[adam james]

Cheers Vasile , thanks mate , I will indeed

[baumarkthammer]

Your pictures really make me want to keep termites quite bad. Like a child that sees another child play with a football that he until than had no interest in.^^
The setup also looks brilliant.
Please keep this updated!

Regards
Kaj

[adam james]

Cheers Kaj , I will do indeed , thank you for the comments

Adam

[AntsNational]

Hey Adam,

I think the black eggs must be new eggs? Usually termite eggs are yellowish to brownish when they're freshly laid but they turn white just before the nymphs hatch. I don't think it's anything to worry about.

Cheers!

[adam james]

Hey Vasile , Macrotermes eggs are either white or a slight creamy honey colour when laid by new queens, they grow in size and are a brighter white usually just before they hatch. The eggs have no reason to turn black as nymphs are white Currently there is no queen or laying adult in the colony so these eggs cannot be black due to be newly laid.

Adam

[baumarkthammer]

Do the eggs really grow in size?
That would be very strange since insects only grow in size when they shed their skin due to their exoskeleton and I always assumed that the eggs of termites also got a hard shell?

Maybe it is just dead eggs, I imagine that termites are not capable of eating their brood just like ants do sometimes.

Regards
Kaj

[adam james]

Hello Kaj , the termite eggs do indeed grow in size before hatching usually in my observation the day there due or day before, also they appear bright white , like the nymphs in colour. The termites do indeed eat there brood when it dies , they also eat the dead workers and nymphs should they want too.

reagrds

Adam

[Riffshooter]

Hey, adamjames where do you get your termites from?

[adam james]

Hello mate , replied to your Pm

Adam

[lossanmu]

Keep us updated more picture!