ANTSTORE World of Ants

[amrik singh]

update,
I now give food and water only in the new frame tank but the Tetramorium's move only slowly to the new nest without any sense of emergency despite the fact that the old nests are not dark anymore and don't receive any water . About 80% of the colony is now in the new nest.
Many foragers are still in the old foraging area and the other destroyed colony formicarium despite the fact that there is nothing there to eat anymore.
The food intake of the colony is now one killed medium size domestic cricket and honey (or a piece of apple) every other day , 20 open sun flower seeds /a week .That's about 1/5 of the protein intake during the month of august . I still give as much food to avoid a massive breakout until the colony accommodation is totally secured .

[amrik singh]

Update,
The colony consume about one cricket and 10 open sun flower seeds every other day.It is now 24 days that the colony is moving slowly to the new nest .Now there is only two small piles of larvae left in the old nest with their attending workers.
As many workers transport larvae to the new nest others transport other workers in characteristic position above their head and a few in non characteristic position.
Very many workers are still going in the arena and nest of the colony they destroyed despite the fact that the nest is now dry and there is no food left there.
I am not sure of what happened to the brood of the destroy colony but I thing the victorious colony just took its brood to its own nest as in a slave raid .

[amrik singh]

Update,
These Tetramorium's are never panicking or fearful specially since the colony is big .Despite the fact that the light is now going into their old nest they have still number of workers with some brood left in it.
I am not able yet to have the temperature low enough for hibernation so the colony eat now one cricket every days and other food and ten de-husked sun flower seeds .

[amrik singh]

Tetramorium gr. caespitum do not like to climb but a colony to big for the tank or hungry is well capable of breakout putting soil or garbage on the oil and climbing in the corners without problem.
Before I used to keep Myrmica rubra :The plaster nests had to be changed each year because they had become dirty, specially the chambers that were not occupy at one time or another . Tetramorium 's are much cleaner ants : After 12 months the nests are still well clean .
The population of my big colony is now probably more than 15000 workers , impossible to count.
What happened with the small colony is still not completely clear to me :The brood have been taken like in slave hunting , many workers are dead but I think number are still alive mixing with the invaders and I do not know if their queen is dead or survived the invasion.
After the destruction (partial or total ) of the other colony and the emigration to the new nest I observed some mortality of the old larvae and some pupae but it is only a very small fraction of the brood.

[amrik singh]

Update,
The colony eat now mostly de-husk Sun Flower seeds (every day) and animal food only once or twice a week. Once or twice a week also sugar rich food ,most often a piece of well ripe apple .
There is again some brood mortality ,this time some smaller larvae. I don't know the reason.

[amrik singh]

Yesterday I posted on " YOU TUBE " a short video with the title "Tetramorium sp.E or T. moravicum (south Europe) Hunting" that I filmed in summer.
It show Tetramorium of my big colony attacking and killing a moth caterpillar that blunder near a foraging gallery entrance some distance from the nest . These ants were NOT starving but they love this sort of slow moving prey (They show no interest in fast moving prey).

[amrik singh]

Update,
As my Tetramorium colony is in my living-room I can 't give them a hibernation temperature as the room is always between 19° or 20°c and 22°c but still the activity is much less than in summer when the nest was kept at about 26° c .
There is much mortality among the brood ,I don't know why.
Now the colony consume around 10 sun flower seeds/a day and I give now as much animal food as they eat every day.

[amrik singh]

Update,
As hundreds workers foraged on the table and some did fall on the ground I wanted to confine them to their formicarium so when alone at home I stopped the heating , opened the windows so the temperature dropped to 14 or 15°c then the number of workers outside diminished by two thirds but many did still forage or rest outside their main nest. So at the end I closed the formicarium and collected hundreds of ants left outside with the mouth aspirator . I did also separate the small colony , under siege for months now , who still have hundredths of workers. I removed the old connection and connected it to a small acrylic tank to have the colony recover ( if the queen is still alive).
The invasion by the big colony did no look like killing many ants of the small colony at first , there were even few combats but slowly piles of dead accumulate . Most of the brood was stolen, the rest died because the defenders in the small "ant farm" were not able to bring in enough food. It looked like a slave raid followed by a long siege.
Now the large colony eat again 6 Tenebrion (meal worms) pupae or white larvae (having just shade their skin) per day.
They have also in permanence a piece of apple and de-husked sun flower seeds. The colony is really big (more than 15000 workers) and I am already planing for a nest extension .
Wile removing the old nest number of Tetramorium climbed on my hands and I can assure that the biggest workers can bite strongly and sometime even pierce the skin with their stinger.
Despite their weak stinger and venom these ants are very strong fighters because of their aggressivity, strong bite, body armour and large number who maintain some cohesion .

[amrik singh]

The colony is kept at the room temperature now between 20 and 23 degree Celsius and de nest is well humidify but still they drink a lot of water (about one full small test tube /a day) the population have grow a lot and must be at least 20 000 workers strong .They start again to eat much . The new accommodation is well brake-out proof ,not a single ant got out, but it is already to small for the colony : The nests are already overcrowded . The brood mortality problem is over and all the deaths of the colony , brood and workers , are now concentrate in one small hill in the "outside world " tank.

[jbc]

Nice to hear!

Can you add a pic?

[amrik singh]

I did already try but this time I had problem doing so with the size of the picture upload . I 'll try again today or tomorrow.

[amrik singh]

The new (4 month old) accommodation is already to small for this about 20000 workers strong Tetramorium colony.

Here are the pictures of the formicarium and arena of my Tetramorium colony . It is well breakout proof but it is already to small .
The colony is now about 20 000 workers strong , I think , eat about 5 fat wax worms and 10 sun flower seeds /a day + sometime honey or a piece of apple . I do not warm the nest any more because the colony grow to fast .the room temperature vary now between 21°c and 23°c .
The rooms in the plaster nest are 2 cm to 2.5cm deep and 5 mm to 8mm high and the galleries about 5mm diameter . The smaller itong nest is modify by reducing the diameter of the galleries with plaster and escavating two 1cm deep and 5mm high widening at the rear of each chamber with the effect to multiply the habitable surface by two or three.
Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures: I reduced the size to much.

[amrik singh]

What size a monogyn ant colony can become ?
We know that a Lasius niger colony attain 6 000 to 8000 workers , a Lasius flavius colony more than 10 000 ,a one queen Myrmica colony between 300 and 600 workers maximum and count of wild Pheydol pallidula colony give around 6000 workers but sometime we hear (right or wrong ) about much bigger colony.
Tetramorium caespitum colony in England average about 14 000 workers . Apparently one queen Tetramorium gr. caespitum colony can attain about 30 000 workers but a Russian site speak of 80 000 maximum.

[amrik singh]

This year in my area there is an exceptional production of Dandelion flower and seeds so I harvest much dandelion seeds and give at once to my Tetramorium colony. They love it . They like it even more than the wax worms .They recruit massively and collect all the seeds in a record time like true harvester ants.
They seems very particulars in their choice of seeds.They are not interested in any small seeds for birds that I did buy from the shop . The only seeds that I did buy and that they like (after removing the husk ) are sun flower seeds and peanuts.
It is maybe because these are relatively soft and oily.
Seeds of dandelion, heat and clover and maybe some other seeds constitute the biggest part of dry weight ingested by wild colones

[amrik singh]

Hi,
As the Tetramorium colony need some more space I connected yesterday evening an " acrilic island " with a small plaster nest to the main tank . First one or two scouts advanced slowly 10 or 20 centimetres in the pipe, recruited others , about 100 more advanced in the pipe until they arrived at opening then they stopped . Two or three explorers return to the front of the"troop" now about two hundred strong and increasing in number . The crowd of ants advance slowly , invading the island and the nest until it was full of hundred of ants moving in all directions . Then I gave them a small wax worm and some dandelion seeds .
I regret what I done now , I think it was a mistake because many workers are falling in the water , several times I had to fish them out with a stick but now number of ants have settle in the nest and it does look a bit quieter outside. I will not give food in this island any-more and I am thinking of what to do to solve the problem.