ANTSTORE World of Ants

[CrustyAnts]

This summer I am planning on starting my first ant colony. When the mating flights take place I shall find a fertilised queen. But I am not sure to what to do after this point. I have read from some sources that I should put her in a test tube and keep her in a cold place over the winter until she lays eggs in the spring but I was under the impression that I should put her straight in to my tank were she shall dig down and start a colony straight away as that what they do in the wild , right?. Could somebody please clarify this for me. Thank you

[baumarkthammer]

Letting a queen found in the ground is a very complicated way of starting your first colony.
You never know how she is doing and you have to water the ground and wait for some month which is very boring. It also is hard to tell how much to water the ground so that the queen doesn´t drown nor dry out.

The easy way is to put her into a testing tube. You see how she is doing and don´t have to do anything with it until the first workers are there. Lasius species even can live with colonies as big as 200 ants in a testing tube and in my opinion it is best if they do but most people move them before they reach such a big colony, everybody has his own opinion on that.

I assume you know how to set up a testing tube for a queen?

It depends on which species you caught whether or not to put her in a cold place.
Most ants found in the year of the flights. Some Formica fusca queens (aswell as the queens of some other Formica species) sometimes found in the year after their flight because their larvae and eggs can´t hibernate. However even they mostly found in the same year exept if it is reall late in the year or it is to cold.
So I would rather put a freshly caught queen into a warm place, like 23°C or something like that so that their brood grows faster.

[CrustyAnts]

Thank you for your reply . So once the first workers are born should I move them to a there final larger container?


-Sorry if I am a noob

[baumarkthammer]

It depends on you. I always keep the young colonies in testing tubes until they have more than 50 workers because a queen with only a few workers can easily dissapear in a larger container so that you don´t even see whether they eat or not. So my opinion is to keep them in the testing tube as long as possible bacause so you can see if they have enough brood and whether or not you have to feed them more.

But if you want to move them faster you can of course do so. Most people do so I believe.

[DigiSERBIA]

Keep them in a test tube as long as they have space, if they run out of space,connecting a rubber tube for garden with two exits one covered up for ventilation and the other one connected to another test tube after they fill that up just open the ventilation exit and let them out in their final container

[CrustyAnts]

So I can feed the small colony with protein and stuff whilst they are in the test tube? Also would it be likely that they will hibernate whilst in the test tube as well?

[DigiSERBIA]

Feed them choped up protein food,i use Blatta lateralis and i cut the bottom half of the body and slightly squish it so the juices come out,and i remove out the brown/black fecies because i think they wont eat it,it looks complicated but if you want to sucseed at feeding trust me. When they are small they even cant eat a roach if it isnt cut up they just leave it to rot. When they are finished after 2 days just remove it with a ear stick and clean it a little bit with the other part of the ear stick that is soaked in water and give them a freshly cut bottom half of a roach That is how i do it and it is clean and they eat the juices

[baumarkthammer]

You can put the testing tube into a empty box with a lid of some kind. Like those boxes you buy ice in.
Connect the testing tube and the box with dosh and open it.

That is a pretty clean and easy way to bring up ants. I always do so. Of course it isn´t the only way to do it.

If you stuff food into the testing tube it will start to get very dirty in no time. So better prepare a little box for them.

[DigiSERBIA]

I clean the test tube with cotton buds, and i put my test tube in a box and the queen and workers went to dig out in the sand which is 0.5 mm thick and suddenly when they realized that they cant live in the sand instead of returning to the tube they all died at once