ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Niko Holstege]

Hey everyone!

Since the 20th of May I am the proud owner of a Atta cephalotes colony which I ordered from Antstore. I live in the Netherlands so I had the ants delivered with a 24 hour service and they arrived perfectly on time and in good health!

I've decided to dedicate a little blog to this beautiful and amazing colony. I'll do my best to update it frequently, feel free to give comments/ask questions/give answers!

The ants (one queen + 50/100 workers) and fungus arrived in a small plastic box and were looking happy and very alive the day I got them. I've moved the whole colony including paper into their new home. The environnement consists of 5 interconnected plastic boxes, one living area, one foreging area and 3 other boxes for later expantion and climate control.
In the beginning I'd put wet granulates in some boxes to maintain a ~90% humidity level. However, the ants quickly found out the granulates were movable and started to drag the stones into their nesting chamber; very cool to watch, but not very desireable for the ants. They collected lots of them and were piling them up until dangerous (unstable?) mountains of stones were created next to the fungus and queen... Since brisque tiles (a good idea from Adam) are apperently very hard to get in my country I made a gypsum tile myself to replace the granulates and the paper they were still living on. I moved the colony yesterday and everything seems to work out perfect. The Atta's have been collecting food all day (it's really amazing to see them cut up leaves and fruits, drag them to the fungus and cut them up for feeding it!) and the fungus has grown a lot in size allready!
A fun fact; I've put some leaves from a rose plant in the foreging area the day I moved the ants to their new home. Apperently I missed a tiny little catterpillar which has eaten leaves and has grown a lot since than. The ants haven't done anything to it so far, I've noticed them walking on top of it but strangely they never seem to hurt it. Anyway, last night when observing the ants I noticed they found some droppings of the catterpillar and immediatly started to drag all the droppings to their nest and began feeding it to the fungus I've read in a paper or book or forum (don't know exactly where anymore) that Atta's also collect other insect's dropping, so I've decided to just let the catterpillar stay in the box for the time being.

Below you'll see the first picture of the colony as they arrived from Antstore (they were allready placed in their new container). I'll try to update soon with some overview pictures and more info on the whole setup!

With regards,
Niko

[adam james]

Looking great mate , I will be watching your blog with great interest

Regards

Adam

[Niko Holstege]

So, as promised I will give some more information on the setup. In the pictures below you can see the setup devided over the two pictures. I've given the boxes numbers. Box 1 is connected with a acrylic glass tube to box 5 and boxes 3 and 4 are connected in the same way. The whole setup is thus rectangular.

Box 1 is the nesting area where the fungus grows. Underneath the fungus is a leaf which rests on a gypsum tile which is elevated ~2 millimeters from the plastic box for drainage purposes.
Boxes 2, 3 and 4 are extra boxes for climate control and hopefully later expantion of the colony. Box 2 and 3 have a piece of a normal bathroom tile (upside down with glazed part to the plastic) which I made wet for humidity control. The first week the ants put all their trash in the nesting area, but since yesterday they moved a lot of litter to box 2. You can see they've also blocked at least some part of the connecting tube with cut leaves.
Box 5 is the foraging area. It's larger than the other boxes and also has a moist bathroom tile on the bottom.

Most boxes contain tiny airholes for ventilation.

The boxes are all connected with eachother by acrylic glass tubes which i glueed to the holes in the boxes with epoxy glue. The whole nest is enclosed in a bigger glass terrarium (120-60-80). At first the idea was to fill the ground next to the boxes with granulates for extra humidity. However, since the humidity in the colony is now at 90-100% I've decided to not do that yet. The terrarium also holds 2 lights, one low wattage spot above boxes 1, 2 and 3 and a higher wattage bulb above boxes 4 and 5. The lights are on during the day (the ants don't even seem to notice it).

I'll post a more detailed picture of the colony and fungus tonight!

Greetz
Niko

[Fraaap]

Good luck with your Atta

[Niko Holstege]

Thanks Fraaap!

Below you'll see some more picture of the colony. In the first two pictures you'll see the fungus and in the third you'll see a worker dragging a granulate to the nesting box when the granulates were still availiable to them. As you can see the fungus has been growing well and they've added a lot of leaves and fruit parts to it!
So far I've been feeding them with leaves from bramble, rose and dandilion and also provided them with pieces of orange, apple, cooked rice and a raisin. They don't seem to like te rice very much, but they really love the apple and rose leaves!

I'm really happy the colony is doing fine and seems to be growing. Everyday new workers hatch and I think I've seen the queen laying some eggs (though I'm not sure of that). However, taking care of them for the past 9 days raised some questions, I you have any idea on the subject, please respond!

Ideal humidity: I've read a lot of blogs, books and websites about the humidity of the Atta's and all seem to agree that they should be kept pretty humid, in a range between 80% and 100%. I was wondering what the natural humidity of a Atta's nest is, and what you think is the best humidity for a non-natural environnement? So far I've kept them at about 90%, but I really would like to provide them with the best and most natural conditions!

Fungal growth direction: So far the ants have been feeding the fungus mainly from above, so a a consequence the fungus has started to grow up/in a vertical direction. Do they always do that? What should I do when the fungus reaches the lit of the box (in about 5 cm) and should I do anything to support the fungus to keep it from tumbling over eventually?

Does anyone know a site/blog where they show pictures of Atta's eggs? As I mentioned above, I think I saw some new eggs, but it would be nice to have some comparing material

With regards,
Niko

[adam james]

Hi Niko i will answer your questions for you

Humidity is about 50-80% try not to get it too high 90 % is near saturated and will cause problems if it gets over this.
The fungus garden is always dieing and it dies from the bottom so slowly in goes down and new growth is added on top. as it grows it might topple over but the ants will sort this. once it reaches the top of the container the ants should start building it out sideways. Also i do not know of the blog you mention but i will explain the eggs. You will find it hard to spot the queens eggs because the workers lay eggs aswell these eggs are fed too the queen along with the fungus. Her eggs will usally only be spotted if you see her lay them or see a bunch of them being carried away into a fungus chamber.

[Niko Holstege]

Hey Adam,

Thanks for your reply

Isn't 50% humidity very low for Atta's? Most things I've read so far talk about higher humidity levels, however, I'll try to keep mine at 80% from now on, they seem to do fine with that!
And on the tumbling fungus, luckily they've started to add leaves to the fungus from the sides too now. If they continue this direction the fungus will be against the wall soon so it probably will not fall so soon anymore.
And thanks on the eggs; I know about the trophic eggs from the workers Do you know if they look the same as the ones produced by the queen? Too bad I can't find any pictures for now, I really thought I saw the queen laying some eggs yesterday, and saw workers taking them away from her abdomen, but they seemed really small (my Camponotus ligniperda's eggs are huge compared to this ones!), so I'm not sure they were eggs of just other stuff. I haven't seen any eggs in the fungus chambers, but, if they are really small it would be hard to spot them between the fungus... Well, maybe if your lucky you'll manage to make a photo with your new macro-lenses some day

Greetz!
Niko

[adam james]

Hi Niko , i meant keep the fungus garden humidity in between 50 % to 80% that means 50% is the lowest before the fungus garden suffers and 80% is ok but over this you risk mould and too much condensation build up . You will find as the fungus grows it is easyer to regulate humidity and once its filled the container you will no longer need to add mositure as the leaves will have enougth in to keep humidity up .

Also the queens eggs are very small , if you seen the eggs come from her adomen then yes that will be her laying . The reason Atta eggs are so small is that the queens lay such a large amount when they get upto there laying peak. It means they lay alot more. You will tend to find most species of ants that reach huge populations like Atta have queens that lay alot of tiny eggs.

Adam

[Beffie]

Wow, really nice ants. I have a colony Acromymex, so I will follow yor experiences with much interest. You can also find some information about leafcutters on antforum.be. I have had a colony Atta sexdens (see my blogs overthere), unfortunately the queen has died...

Good luck with these interesting ants!

[Andie]

Hi, you were looking for some pics of eggs, well here's a pic of some eggs from my A. cephalotes laid yesterday. I didnt see them being laid but to many from anything else ...



Hows your colony doing ?

[Niko Holstege]

Hey all,

Thanks for the comments!
@ Beffie, (nice name btw ) I've read the blogs at Antforum.be allready a long time ago! Unfortunately the site is not so active as it used to be anymore... But thanks for the link, your blog was very interesting to read again ...to bad your queen died How are your Acro's doing? What species do you have?
@ Andie, thanks for the picture! Haven't seen something like this yet, but since there are new larvea and puppa they must be somewhere for sure...

The colony is still going strong by the way! Sometimes they are not attending the fungus as much as I thought they would, they also seem very picky concerning their leaves. It is however still growing and lately the inner chambers of the fungus (the once I can see with a tiny flashlight) are being filled with new larvea and puppa! There was a little problem with some springtails (collembola) though; all of a sudden lots of them were walking around in the waist area :S I've cleaned the whole box and after a week they seem to be gone again. I've never seen them near the fungus, so I guess they will do fine. I'll try to upload some new pictures soon.

Grtz!
Niko

[AntsNational]

Hello Niko,

How is the colony doing?

Cheers