ANTSTORE World of Ants

[TheWoolman]

I recently brought a Myrmica colony from Antstore with 26-50 workers. Things have been going great, minimal died during the shipping (3-4) and with the use of an LED light the colony swiftly began moving into the ant farm I brought them. And within 1 hour all but 3 workers have left the test tube and entered into the farm!

[TheWoolman]

Connected the out world using tubing. However none of my ants seem to want to go past halfway of the tube. Dos anyone know why this could be happening?

[TheWoolman]

Problem fixed by reducing the angle of the tube! The ants usually go into the outworld in ones or twos. Unfortunately I'm finding quite a few carcasses of ants scattered around, about 5-6. I hope that this is just stress and the mortality rate will soon drop

[TheWoolman]

Deaths seem to have stopped!

The ant are useless at carrying mealworm! The have to carry it across a twig the links the outworld to the tube back to the formicarium and every time a place a mealworm on the end of the twig they will carry it for a couple of second before...tumble! down to the ground!

Yesterday one ant was carrying out another dead ant from the nest but when he was walking to the garbage pile he crossed an apple slice, and like a dog who had seen a better bone he immediately dropped the ant and began to munch on the slice!

[TheWoolman]

I wanted to show you my setup! It is an Ant Store starter kit with a few modifications!

[TheWoolman]

So my ants recently trolled me!

So I had one side of the nest where the ant had dug a few tunnels.

But I became curious of what they built on the other side. So I looked at the other side to see their work, if any, and I saw an ant city with massive tunnels and lots of them!

I haven't seen the queen in a while (ever since she moved in) but I am hopeful that nothing bad has happened!

[TheWoolman]

I don't really know if the views this thread gets are people just flicking through or reading. So can someone actually talk, apart from me (obviously).

I s you guys are reading I will try to get some closeup photos of my colony!

[TheWoolman]

Thanks!

Nice to know people read my forum! Tomorrow will be some close ups of my set-up and ants!

[Beniger]

Cool. Yeah i wonna see some pics. I will put up some more pics of my Messor the day after tomorrow.
I like your set up? Is your formicarium in the wall? Looks like it.

Gg Beniger

[TheWoolman]

Camera difficulties pictures out on Sunday

[Catman1976]

Looking good TheWoolman, i have a M. rubra colony and boy they are busy little things. Have you tried cutting the mealworm into smaller pieces? I find placing the mealworm in the freezer for a mintues makes the job easier, also try feeding flies and small spiders.

[TheWoolman]

Sorry no pictures, however still wanted to update.

The colony is flourishing an now have big stacks of brood ranging from pupae to eggs!

I have switChed up my feeding ingredients and now use crickets and sugar water. They seem to love the crickets more than the mealworms due to the weaker exoskeleton and I used sugar water just because we were running low on honey.

Strange behaviour, I have seen the queen come up to where the workers have subdued the prey and she sort of just wonders around.

But anyways the colony is great, no promises on photos but I will try!

[AstroAmbitions]

Hi TheWoolman!

Thanks for sharing your experience with this species! From my experience of Rubra's, the queen(s) tend to have a wonder every now and then. I still don't know why. Perhaps it could make a good study? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they venture out of the nest to find food when the first brood are developing and they just do it out of habit, who knows!? I wouldn't worry though. I look forward to seeing more pictures of your set up!

-Astro