ANTSTORE World of Ants

[womoma]

This is my Lasius niger Diary
Please feel free to comment, make suggestions or advise!!
I will post any questions in italics...
Thanks for reading..
***

Early July 2006
I had not kept ants in a while and almost forgot about them when in early July I saw a large bug crawling in my garden.
I went to look at it, and it was a queen!

I put a little soil, maybe 2cm in a jar and placed her inside it. She burrowed into the bottom.

Nothing interesting happened for some weeks.

August:
I didnt want to disturb her, but I checked every now and then to see she was still alive. In late August I noticed she had some eggs!

26th September:
I had a look at the queen and saw a little worker beside her at the bottom of the jar, very happy!
Using an artists paintbrush, I carefully moved them into their new home- a picture frame [20cm X 12 x 3] with a tube fitted on top, going in about 6cm, filled with sand/soil mix.
I was worried that the eggs and larva had been scattered, but the next day they had all come together in the same place, and to my surprise, there were more workers than I had thought, 6 workers in total!


28th September:
I think the young colony will need some food so I put a dead fly in the tube, it comes out about 6 inches from the nest area. They didnt find it.

29th September:
The ants didnt venture up the tube to find the fly, even though the entrance to it was near the top and in a tunnel area.
I used some fine wire to push the fly down the tube and into the nest area.
The next day the fly was gone

1st October:
Colony size: 6 workers, healthy queen, many larva.
I am worrried about feeding the colony and keeping the nest area moist, so I am considering drilling another small hole in the top of the frame. Any ideas?

Also
I am thinking of adding a seperate feeding area, at the borrom of the tube, but maybe I will need to coax the ants down the tube by putting food offerings further and further from the nest, within the tube?

***

[JimmyVe]

Hi Womoma,

Maybe its is not a bad idea to drill another hole.

Starting colonies don't come for out of there nest to search for food, once they are at strength they do. so if you put the food not so close anymore, they will find it.

maybe you better start a discussion of it ?

[womoma]

2nd October.

Today I fed a little honey water down the tube into the nest, they all went crazy to drink it. They are definatly hungry for honey!

It wasnt clever though, because I guess honey water can form mould in the nest area, so I wont do it again, and I hope I dont get mould!

So Im working on a little island to feed them. It will link to the tube.

It is made from an indoor minature fountain, similar to this one:

but with a flat rock in the middle.
The tube enters the side and comes up in the middle of the rock so the water around the rock will prevent escape.
Ill try to get a photo soon.

I will connect it soon, I really hope they will be able to find their way down the tube to the island soon after that.

I will also soon be adding a small hole on top of the nest frame so I can keep the nest moist.

The queen is at the front of the glass, in full view, with about 5 eggs and about 5 larva. There is also 6 workers.
I wonder if people who collected queens in summer have a similar size colony?

[JimmyVe]

Looks nice, normally it is going to work (i guess )

i captured two queens of Lasius niger in late June, they both have about 20 workers and lot of eggs and larva.

[womoma]

thanks for the reply Jimmy. Seems like my colony has gotten off to a slow start. Hopefully it will be ok.

3rd October

Ok well I made some slight adjustments [dont worry!!- I wont be often making adjustments, its pretty much perfect now!]

The indoor fountain was leaking so I got rid of it. Instead I removed the top section of the nest frame altogether and placed it standing on a nice island [a brick in a casserole dish, like this one:


So now Im really happy with the setup. Its a casserole dish, with a brick in the middle of the water, on top of the brick is a tile and on it is the nest standing vertical like a building. Everything is rock solid thanks to silicon.

The ants have already been exploring outside the nest and now I can keep the nest moist and feed the ants on the tile. They already took some honey.

So now that the nest is moist again, and the ants seem happy, Im looking forward to hopefully a nice little colony.

[JimmyVe]

maybe you can place some pictures of the hole concept ? I would like to see it.

[womoma]

i dont have a camera right now but ill try get some pix soon.

[JimmyVe]

oke that would be nice.