ANTSTORE World of Ants

[highered]

Polyrhacis dives don't eat protein jelly, I've tried it with mine and they can't eat mealworms, though they were hungry they weren't able to penetrate them, and that is feeding them fresh never frozen mealworms. My Lasius niger had the same problem of not being able to eat mealworms.

[JimmyVe]

Be where in what you are saying. It could depend from colony to colony in what they like to eat or not, even from the same species.

Mealworms are to hard, you need to cut them in two. (i do that with all the insects i give my ants.)

[Skippy]

@Snide

They are licking sugar-cube as for energy , but they are not drinking honey water or any other kind of water. They probably drink small drops of water early morning from leafs and vegetation there , or in some parts of nest condensated on glass. Sugar as energy they´re getting also from Bhatkar mixture what I am making for ants sometimes. Do not be worry I wrote bigger article about feeding ants for Cen.Eur. keepers , but not in EN yet , so I´ve got some experiences about it

[SNiDE]

Haha ok mate, just curious. Today my ants have been less active, cleaned the basin out of all the dead ants, have had probably about 200 dead workers including winged drones since I recieved them on friday, is this normal of a colony of 1000ish? They are still moving nest. I have a feeling something is not right today, though i can't think what it might be, they are drinking honey and eating insects. I'm freezing my crickets and locusts now as they wont die, or those that do die rot too quickly to be sterilised and put in whole.

[Skippy]

200 dead workers??? omg , in what type of basin you´re keeping them? Can you show some photos? They are moving , because they probably do not like where they are. It is exotic specie , but they love not-wet nests. Maybe is so wet soil there , or no dry material to make some nest for them. But 200 ... when you´re normally feed them and they have not really small gasters , i do not know when is an problem then

edit:

ohh I found pictures on forum. Hmm , there is not soil in aquarium? So then is probably problem contra what I wrote firstly. Is not there too dry? - do not look on technical things what you put there. I think You have to get <5cm ground there, and put there some small vegetation into.

[donbilbo]

Well, it _could_ be ok. As i mentioned in another thread, if those guys in asia collect a nest they do it during daytime.
So lets say a colony has 10.000 ants: 100 queens, 1000 alates, 3000 workers working in and on the nest and 5900 workers searching for food etc. Now the nest gets ripped out of the tree and shipped to germany. During shipping they got no food, they try to rescue the queens for sure... But the colony is highly destabilised when you get it, its missing all the real workers, it got way too much queens and it got males that just need food and dont do anything. Also all the eggs and brood got eaten or died.... They try to kill all the males and weak ants to be abled to operate again.

[Skippy]

Ach ... so colony from nature hmm , true , when you cut only nest , there you´re getting mostly workers which are young and which do not know to search food yet. You can see it in formicariums, young workers has fear to get out from nest - they only waiting in nest for workers which are searching for food - and which are in nature. True how donbilbo wrote , firstly they will eat brood , then kill males ... and then you´ll see killing workers = not to eat them , but only kill to reduce population of nest +/- to population for what is available optimal food quantity. Queen´s egg produce is stopped for now probably - and will be estamblished at food income optimal. It works like economy of bigger company => no money = no production = kick non-skilled workers off work = bigger income = start production

when you all talk about so much queens there , how much queens is there then ?

[donbilbo]

How could one know how many queens there are if they are shipped in their natural nest... I removed the nest from one of my colonies and i counted ~40 queens.

[Skippy]

How could one know how many queens there are if they are shipped in their natural nest...

I am always counting it , I know it is not simple , but I always do it ... before getting them into formicarium

[SNiDE]

I have seen at least 3 queens, that said I have let them move nest completely in the dark. I wanted them to move nest to a specific corner of the basin where it would be easiest to maintain them from. The humidity is just under 80% and the temp is at a constant 25-26 degrees C. The 200 dead workers is a high estimate, I've collected probably abou 50 from the basin, but they are disposing of some of them in a corner that I haven't cleaned out yet- the number includes the winged males which they are killing off. I think egg production has stopped for now, whilst they re-establish and adjust, but there are still about *1000 brood in the new nest, and about 700-800 workers

p.s paulhdear- I have frozen all my feed (crickets + locusts) due to not being able to get any over xmas, and have been thawing them out in boiling water and then feeding them to my p.dives, which seem to like them as much as before. Are your crickets fresh? Can't think of any reasons that your colony wouldn't find them 'kosher'