ANTSTORE World of Ants

[hypervelocity]

Hi all, i will tell you my expireance with 1 Lasius flavus queen i named Melody.

Ok then, i got this colony from antstore about 25,october,2006. It containd 1 Queen and no brood.

I left the queen in the test tube in a very dark, cool area for the first few months. The queen layed some eggs so i put some tin foil around the tube and put her in a warmer area for a few more months.

after there were a few lavae, i started changing the tempriture for day and knight, the queen started to look unwell for a while and i started to worry. I put the queen back to a warmer tempreture ant the lavae pupated to my amazment!!!

af the the first workers hatched (about 3) i set up a basin i bought for a move. I filled the basin 3/4 wiht sand and loam mixture with a layer of sand on top, i also wet the sand with water. I put the tube with the tube in the basin and removed the cotten bung. After a few days i placed a small dish of honey water in the tank so that the ants could have some food.

I watered the tank onece a week and removed the food after mould started to grow on the remainders. The ants were also filling the tube up with sand and more pupas developed.

After about 2 monthers there were about 12 workers and there was a small mound forming at the enterance of the tube. I also put some solid food into the tank and some more honey water.

Once there were about 20 workers the ants moved into the mound they built, so i removed the tube making shure there were no ants or brood inside of it.

Since then i have not seen more that 1 ant forage, (these ants have evolved to forage inside the nest and so they will only be seen in the maiting flights or nest distruption, but also they forage when food is scarce.

I keep the ants at room tempriture moast of the time and only put the tempritur doun if the weathers hot. also i have never had to hibernate these ants befor so i am new hibernation.