ANTSTORE World of Ants

[nortino]

Hi all. I've had a colony of Pheidole pallidula for a couple of months now and I wanted to share a bit of my experience so far.
The overall setup of the ant colony is like this:



The vertical formicarium on the left has moist sand in it, with a tube going from there to the island on the right. The point of the tube going round and round the trunk thing is to stop it being too steep for the ants to drag food from the island back to the nest. This setup seems to work reasonably well, with the ants having dug holes in the formicarium, and they seem to forage quite happily on the island. They are quite prone to fall into the water though and I've lost a couple to drowning. In fact, early on I even found the queen floating in the water (I nearly had a heart attack) but she was fine after I fished her out and put her back in the formicarium, and I then blocked the tube to the island for a while until the colony had dug more tunnels in the sand and got more firmly established in the formicarium. The queen hasn't been back to the island as far as I know!

Here's a close-up of the island - not too much to see. I try to keep it dry to discourage them from digging a nest in it:



I initially received about 20 workers (probably about half of whom were majors) with the queen, and now the colony is down to about 12 including the queen what with drownings, and a few other accidents. However, they seem to have dug quite a lot of tunnels already:



Anyway, about a month ago I saw the first eggs. Initially they seemed to have them all in the sort of cave they have dug out of the spoil heap at the top of the main tunnel:



Here you can see both majors and minors around the eggs, with the bum of the queen visible.

So I'm quite keen for the eggs to develop, since the existing workers are slowly being depleted. Here's some questions:

1) How long do eggs of these species take to hatch? How long do they spend in each stage (egg, larva, pupa)?

2) Will the eggs hatch without a heat lamp? I don't do anything to heat the nest at the moment. I live on the south coast of the UK, and the ant farm is in my flat, and it is summer, but it's been cold in the last few days, and I'm worried it will kill the eggs.

3) I feed them on bread soaked in honey, crushed almonds (they seem to like them), woodlice and moths. They seem to love protein, but I thought I read that the adults only need carbohydrate and that protein is for the larva, so I'm a bit confused. Should I be feeding them anything else? I tried to make up a batch of the Bhatkar recipe, but they just seemed to ignore it.



4) What will happen if all my workers die before the eggs hatch? Will the queen be happy to struggle on alone? Will she leave the nest to forage, or will she die without workers?

Thanks.

[JimmyVe]

Hi nortino, i shall try to answer your questions.

1) how long from eggs to larva I'm not really sure, about 2 - 4 weeks depends on the temperature. from larva to pupa to workers about 4 weeks to, also this depends on temperature and food.

2) The eggs will hatch but i probably take longer. This species like a temperature from 20-30°c in summer, they are from south of Europe.

3) Try to feed them much of insects i give mine all kind of insects, flour maggots, cockroaches, grasshoppers, creek awl, maden, spiders, mosquitos, etc.... also give them honey or sugar/water mix or nectar or something else sweet. and make sure they can also drink water.

4) it that would be the case, the queen will probably die to, she is only one time capable to start a colony herself.

Do you keep the nest moist ? This species like it a bit moist.
the nest looks fine but if the colony grows you are probably need to find a bigger nest.

[sithmaster676]

i would recommend using some form of heating as like jimmy says this species is from southern Europe and will like hot temperatures for most of the years, what you could do is get a heat lamp to shine on part of the nest but you could also buy a heat mat and place it on the side of part of the vertical area so that they have a warm bit and a cold bit.
also do you cover the nest area with card to prevent light from entering to make it more natural?
Sithmaster676

[nortino]

Thanks guys. Yes, the sand in the nest is very moist (apart from anything, if it were too dry the tunnels would collapse) and I monitor it to make sure it stays that way, but it doesn't dry out very quickly because of the small surface area exposed to the air.
I don't cover the front of the nest area to keep the light out; I got a book by Bert Holldobler and Edward Wilson called 'Journey to the Ants' that says ". . . most ant species adapt well to light at ordinary room intensities, carrying on brood care, food exchange, and other social activities in an apparently normal manner". I know the queen in particular is not keen on being in the light, but in any case the rear of the nest is pushed up against the wood at the rear of the cabinet, so the rear of the nest is in darkness. Some of the tunnels are up against the front of the formicarium, and therefore exposed to the light, but they have also dug tunnels that are up against the rear of the nest and so in darkness (the keep the eggs there).
I peeked at the eggs again today and some of them look bigger (starting to elongate), but it's very hard to see because the eggs are so small. It's been more than four weeks since I first saw them, but I think they're probably developing more slowly because of the cold weather.

[miszt]

i think there is a flaw in the island design, that means that once ants fall in the water, they have no hope of getting out again, i'm sure a sloped edge on the island would be allot better for them, as they can more easily get back onto land, I was going to use an island for my nylanderi'z, but didnt for this reason

[miszt]

island looks kool tho, nice setup

[nortino]

Yeah miszt, you're right about the island, once an ant falls in it is very difficult for them to get out (although once I found a minor walking around the OUTSIDE rim of the island, so presumably she managed to 'swim' across and clamber up the other side, but I never saw it happen). I was thinking of adding something to help them get out again and your post has given me an idea. Maybe I could add a sloping piece of wood something like this:



Might not look all that great though. I'll try it out tonight.

[miszt]

culd work, the wood wuld get rotton eventually tho, another idea i had was attaching a lip to the inner section made out of sponge (like the sponge used in the drinking trays on here), wuldnt have to be big, just enough for them to get a grip on

[Biolog1]

Cool setup, Nortino! Good work!

[miszt]

I've setup an island with sloping edges using a plate and a glass dish, the plate as quiet a large indent on the bottom, so holds the sand nicly, and the sloped edges go into the water very gentl, although theres only ~1cm of water, so definitly need to keep toping it up reguly....no casulties yet tho also serves as drinking water as the ants can reach it easily

[nortino]

Thanks Biolog. Have you got a photo of your new island miszt?