ANTSTORE World of Ants

[LeonofLondon]

my Pheidologeton diversus workers have all died since ariving the other week. My queens have been walking around the tank and they wont eat so i have put them back in there test tube with a dead fly and plugged it with cotton wool and placed them in the airing cuboard can anyone tell me if this was the best thing to do and offer me advice on keeping this colony alive and funtioning.

[uta]

Hello LeonofLondon,

Oh, I' m sorry, that you have problems with your Pheidologeton diversus workers - that they all died! Unfortunately, in the start phase there are often problems, how you can read again in the ants-reports.

If you have bought them in the Shop Boppard, I would like to recommend you to take contact with the Shop.


Good luck and

greetings

[damondeionno]

Leon

You must make sure that the queens have access to moisture. I would suggest keeping the cotton wool slightly damp. Nothing kills ants faster than a lack of moisture. The crucial thing here is humidity, rather than just a bowl of water. If your workers died suddenly I would suggest a lack of damp substrate was probably the problem.

I would also suggest that you remove the dead fly. I haven't kept pheidologeton diversus but have rarely seen queens take insect food - and it will decay. Did you get any food from antstore with your order? At some point they will need protein to start laying again, but to keep them alive I would suggest just a grain of white sugar, and I mean one grain. It will absorb moisture from the air and the queens might feed. If they eat the first grain, you can add a couple more until they lose interest.

As I said I'm no expert on P. diversus, but the advice I've given should give you the best chance of keeping your queens alive until someone with a bit more expertise with this particular species turns up on the forum.

[LeonofLondon]

ok ill remove the fly. The original setup was always moist the humidity was always atleast about 75% the workers just seemed be fine walking around tending to the queens and eggs then I would find them dead and also I think the queens must of been eating there eggs.