ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Frogger1]

I haven't updated this in a while but for anyone still following I have an update. During the last few weeks alot of new workers have been hatching out, workers were hatching every day but not as many have been hatching in the last week. I've also got atleast five new majors now with more major pupaes hatching very soon, also alot of smaller soldiers have been hatching out and there are now more than there were around a month ago. The colony has significantly grown in the last few weeks. The mites have almost been killed off aswell, the queen still has some on her but they're no doubt dying off and I cannot see any on the workers or soldiers now.

Some pictures of the nest and brood;







Thanks for reading.

[AntsNational]

I'm happy to hear that the mites are dying off.

[Frogger1]

Thanks Vasile, here's a pic of one of the newly hatched majors aswell, the biggest one I've seen yet, it's head is in the middle of the pic, couldn't get the rest of it in the pic but it's around 2cm.

[adam james]

Great to see them picking up now mate , Great job

I hope we still on for drone , queen swopping when the time comes

Regards

Adam

[Frogger1]

Thanks Adam, I'm still up for that! Not sure how much longer it would take to get new queens and males but it seems my colony will grow bigger faster with all the majors now storing all the food.

[adam james]

great stuff mate

regards

Adam

[Frogger1]

A few pics from today of some of the ants foraging,

[Frogger1]

The colony is doing very well at the moment, a lot of majors hatching, I have around 12 now and atleast a couple more a few days away from hatching. I expected it to take a while longer than it has for the population of the colony to increase as it has, I'm excited about how much bigger the colony will be in another few months!

[MajorSpud]

Frogger, not kidding: Start breeding crickets or roaches, you will need loads of them in a couple of months.

Example: Mine were a bit hungry today, since I did not feed for 24 hours, so I fed roughly 35-40 full size crickets, and within 16 min all were gone in the tunnels of their nest.

P.S. also glad that your colony seems to be thriving now.

[Frogger1]

Thanks for the advice MajorSpud, I have a colony of roaches so live food should hopefully not be a problem once they get more established and start breeding more. Also thanks for the example, that is a LOT, how large is your colony?

Thanks again!

[Frogger1]

Just some pictures,

[Frogger1]

The colony is doing really well, alot more ants and the nest is pretty crowded now with how many ants there are. Their appetite is alot bigger now and they're constantly forming pathways searching for food. The nest is also noticeably bigger now, they've dug a chamber at the bottom of the enclosure which they've stored most of their brood inside and the amount of brood overall has increased. Their nest is now about 1' deep with tunnels now along one side of the enclosure and looks as though they will be digging tunnels all the way around the setup. The tunnels they started digging now are just over 2' long so I was impressed to discover them last night when I took a look at the nest.

The nest as of last night.

I didn't realise the flash was on when I took this pic but the ants didn't seem to notice anyway. To the top left of the soil those are mould spores not clumps of brood, I was worried when they first appeared a while ago but the ants have just sealed them out of the nest.



The new chamber,



They also found their way into one of the artificial nests a couple nights ago, but the next time I looked they had sealed it off after using it to dump soil.



And one of the many majors,



Thanks for reading

[Frogger1]

To update, the colony is still doing very well, grown massively in numbers aswell as the size of the nest. The ants have more pathways around the setup now and regularly explore the artificial nests although they haven't decided to move into them.











^ A tunnel they made through one of the artificial nests and I haven't seen a bad mite for a LONG time now. I also haven't seen the queen for a good month now but they've also started to move the brood away from the front of the tank and I'm sure the queen is ok as the piles of brood get bigger and bigger all the time.

Thanks for reading.

[AntsNational]

I sometimes worry about the whereabouts of my Atta queen since the entire nest is covered in moist coco-fibre. As long as brood and workers are abundant, you shouldn't have anything to worry about. The queen's health is kept in check 24/7 when the colony is established. Great stuff thanks for sharing!

[Frogger1]

Thankyou for your reply Vasile!

I saw the queen a moment ago and she's fine. One thing I keep seeing in the colony though is that the ants seem to "confuse" themselves, whenever I see this it is when I put food in at night, which I assume because the temperature drops they're moving the brood and as usual ants will come out of the nest to get the food, but aswell as that hundreds of more ants carrying brood also come out.

This was happening when I saw the queen a moment ago and when I saw her she had majors and soldiers "escorting" her through the nest like if they were deciding to move nest. After around ten minutes it'll all go back to normal, the brood will be carried back to the nest etc. but do you think I should worry about this? I wasn't really worried about them just carrying the brood because they took it back, but with them trying to move the queen aswell do you think it's stressing them in some way? Half way through writing this I checked on them and they had carried all the brood back, but the queen was still being moved, very slowly though.