ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Frogger1]

Hello all,

I recieved a colony of these yesterday, it consists of 1 queen & 2000 workers. They're being kept in a 4'x2'x2' custom made tank with about 1' deep of soil, rotten leaves, twigs and a couple artificial nests which seemed to have been ignored by the ants. Once put in the tank the ants came out straight away and a soldier seemed to be scouting the tank and I think it started two highways, after these two highways were created another one started near the front of the tank and they were taking bits of live food back but were also burying some of it near the the tube. Some of the workers stayed at the test tube building soil up around the entrance of it and made a smaller entrance. About 2 hours after these highways were made, two of them stopped, and one became less active but was still going, this highway soon became very active and the ants later moved the nest under a pile of leaves. There was some massive brood being carried to the new nest and I seen a couple big soldiers but unfortunately didn't get to see the queen. Now today I found the new nest seemed to have very little activity with only a couple workers coming out every couple of minutes to go some where else, watching these workers they walked about 1' away from the new nest to where there were hundreds of workers digging under another pile of leaves. At the moment they have stopped foraging but i've been told they may stop for a couple of days. This is all i've seen from yesterday to now, they are still digging at what I think could be a new nest but I will update if anything more happens. Also here are some pics of the setup, also some of the larvae, in some of the pics the ants cannot be seen but i'll try my camera to see if I can get it to focus on them.



In this second picture you can see the test tube, and to the right of it are the pile of leaves they moved to last night. But now they're currently working on the hole just below the test tube.



Here's the picture where the workers are carrying the big larvae, it took about 3 or 4 workers to carry each of these.



Thanks for reading

[Edit:Mod]

[Frogger1]

An update on the colony, they now have their nest at the front of the tank. They've been working on it since friday and it's about 8" deep at the moment and getting deeper everyday. I have a little peek behind the cardboard each night and last night saw a chamber where all the soldiers were sat. I tried to get a picture but the camera didn't like just red light and I didn't want to put the main light on while looking into the nest. They are taking alot of food aswell, they had a couple mealworms last night and some small crickets tonight and took all of it into the nest instead of burying it outside this time. Whilst feeding them tonight I also noticed some newly hatched workers wondering near the entrance of the nest, they can't be too long hatched as they were almost pure white. Also i'm not sure if this is normal or not but i've seen about a couple workers each day carry brood around the tank and back to the nest. Another upate in the next few days......

[Frogger1]

Another update, deep in the nest about 8" down is somthing quite large. I think it may be a hatching major due to the size but the hole at the front of the tank is to small to see for definate what it is. At the moment the colony seems quite healthy, the feeding response is extremely aggressive. All food is being taken except for mealworms so i've stopped putting them in, but with roaches 200 odd workers aswell as some soldiers swarm within minutes. I'm quite happy with how it's going so far, i'll do another update soon...

[Frogger1]

The colony is still doing well, food still being taken, and I realised mealworms were left outside the nest as they're too big. The ants seem to leave anything bigger than the nest entrance and cut it up to get it into the nest. I spotted a group of very large larvaes but the chamber they were in has now been covered up so I can't see in anymore. They're becoming more active around the foraging area, which isn't too far from the nest. I also haven't seen many dead workers carried off in the last week so I think the new generation may have hatched out.

[adam james]

Pics mate , more pics lol , Glad they are doing ok mate , hope they carry on to do so.

Regards

Adam

[Frogger1]

Thanks Adam I tried to get pics but my camera just wont focus on the ants, very annoying, the only ones I would have a chance of getting photos of is the queen or large soldiers. I'll try get some pics if the big soldiers come out to help with the food.

Harley

[Frogger1]

The best pics I can get, you can make out the soldier in both of them. I swear this soldier is the same one i've seen hunting with the workers for weeks. I hope if the colony gets bigger maybe more soldiers will hunt with the workers. It'll be three weeks this thursday coming that i've had the ants.

[adam james]

Hey Frogger , good pics , Think you will need a macro lens . Thats great that you have had them 3 weeks , they should be getting near the point of success. Keep us updated , glad there doing great so far.

Adam

[Frogger1]

Thanks Adam, wish I had a better camera haha I'll post updates again soon, definately by thursday.

Harley

[MajorSpud]

Yeah, willbe great!

[Frogger1]

Thought i'd post another little update, I had started feeding them blue bottle flies yesterday which they were taking in the nest whole. Today they've decided to take them away from the nest to the foraging area and cut them up smaller to take back to the nest. Also not sure if it's just me but the workers seem slightly bigger than when I first got them......

[Frogger1]

Another quick post, earlier I decided to clean up the foraging area. There are mites there which i'm not too worried about but there's also somthing else living there. It looks like some kind of larvae, about 4mm long white body with a jet black head. I have noticed little black flies flying around in the tank, could this be larvae of them? Also will these flies do any damage, if so how do I get rid of them?

Any advice will be appreciated.

[MajorSpud]

As of currently I do not know of any harmful flies for Pheidologeton diversus [PD] colonies, just check if the ants attack the larvae, if not, you can always remove them


Edit Uta

[Frogger1]

Ok thanks for the info The ants weren't taking any notice of them so I removed the larvaes I could find. It makes sense that they're larvaes of the small black flies as there are more of those flies. They just seem to be picking at the left over foods, but i'll try to clean the foraging area a little bit more often.

I put this in an earlier post too, about the foraging area becoming more active. In the last couple days there have been alot more workers in the foraging area, i'm wondering if this is a sign of growth within the colony? Or maybe they're just more settled. Either way I can't wait until more soldiers appear to hunt with the workers. Not sure about this either but the nest entrance is on top of a slope, which leads down to the foraging area. Between the nest entrance and foraging area is a leaf a little bit out of the way from their path, but I usually see quite a bit of activity of workers appearing from under this leaf, it has made me wonder if they're expanding the nest and making another entrance?

Thanks again for reading

[MajorSpud]

Hi Frogger again,

PD are extremely active diggers, and they will very much likely have dug a tunnel system already which greatly outsizes the current space demand for the colony.
They will have multiple entrances, allowing them to pour workers to literally any space where food is desired. - movement below ground is safer than above