ANTSTORE World of Ants

[fac383]

Hi all,

Just received my Formica sanguinea. I've kept niger and flavus in starter sets before and wanted a change in tempo.
Queen arrived with about 15 alive workers, and about 8 dead. Unfortunately most of the dead are the fusca slaves. Is this gonna affect my colony? theres only 2 fusca left.
The queen looks strong and healthy which is good. I've got a large basin set-up with wood logs, pine needles and sand/loam mix flooring.
Currently ALL workers are inside one of the hollow logs, and the queen is still inside the test-tube.
I guess there's nothing really to worry about, especially if the queen finds somewhere nice to go during the night.
My issues are with the sand/loam mix. In the drier areas (which sanguniea are meant to like?) they seem to get covered in the sand and struggle to walk in it. Is this normal?
Secondly, should I mositen the loam/sand under the logs for the fusca to dig? Will my sanguinea help them?
Thirdly, not many mentions of this species on the english forum, are they unpopular? and is it frowned upon to think about , one day connecting a fusca colony to the basin? I guess the answer is yes (even though Darwin done it!).
I may just collect some wild brood from my local forest.

Any thoughts?

Thanks and regards
R

[mpir]

Hi

I once had a Formica colony and I've had lots of problems with them. Eventualy they all died out.

I think the sand is sticking to ants because there is loam in the sand. As they walk in moist parts of the basin water then glues loam to them. Or maybe I did not understand your problem very well.

Most probable reason why there is not so much talking about Formicas on the forum is that in lots of European countries Formicas are protected animals. So it is illegal to catch them or to sell them or even to keep them at home.

Good luck and post some photos of the basin.

[JimmyVe]

Hi fac383 and welcome,

turns out this was wrong information (about another species) so i deleted this post.

Good luck fac383 and happy ant keeping.

[Gaster]

Thats not correct. (Rapti)Formica sanguinea is not protected in Germany, neither in other European countries.
They don't need the slaves to survive. In nature they raid Serviformica colonies to make slaves, but when the colonies are at an appointed size, they stop raiding slaves and the colonies become clear Raptiformica colonies without any slaves. In caption this can be just after the parasitical foundation. So if you don't have any Serviformica colonies on-hand, you can keep Raptiformica without them.
Also Raptiformica workers aren't as useless as Polyergus workers which have only one job, to raid new slaves. They can do everthing a Serviformica worker could do.
In the German part of this forum and especially on www.ameisenforum.de there are nice reports about Raptiformica and Polyergus, its a great pitty, that this isn't written in English...


Regards

[fac383]

Thanks.
I was just a bit puzzled that, ants as big and strong as these workers, couldn't walk properly in the sand/loam mix. I've added a carpet of pine needles to the foraging area, to help them out.
They've chosen to make a nest out of a pile of leaves within the hollow log, rather than dig in the soil, but I think the Rapti's don't bother digging do they? all of the Serviformicas (there were 4) have died. The Raptiformicas look good though.
I chose to set-up, so that I'd probably not be able to keep track of the queen. There have been about 6 out of 16 workers constantly foraging, until today, when none of them have come out. i'm not worried though as I can still see then running round, underneath the pile of leaves.

best regards fac383