ANTSTORE World of Ants

[sam2000]

Hi boys and girls,

I am glad to see my colony of lasius niger grow so rapidly having started with only 1 queen + 8 workers at the beginning of the year! However I have a problem adding water to their nest as they have decided to build chambers above the soil level rather than tunnelling down. I guess I probably added too much soil to the nest. Obviously when I open the lid to the nest ants run out everywhere! As you can see from my pics the ants have built their nest around a piece of cotton wool I put in there, originally soaked in water in an attempt to coax them from their test tube! Anyway it worked and they moved to a chamber they originally built under to piece of cotton wool.

Anyway does anyone have any suggestions as what I should do? The only this I can think of is to destroy the chambers and remove the piece of cotton wall in an attempt to make them tunnel down. But obviously I do not want to do this, especially as there are many larvae in the large chamber at the top of the nest!

Thanks in advance, I look forward to any suggestions as to what I should do! Sam.

[miszt]

Dont add any more water to the cotton wool or the tube for a while, and put the farm sumwhere warm for a while so that the farm starts drying out, they will start to move deeper into the nest to find moisture

make sure they have a source of water tho incase they dont dig fast enough, have u got it connected to a basin?

definitly DONT remove the cotton wool and allow the chamber to collapse, although they may survive its not worth the risk for the poor lil things!!


posting from 02:33 pm
you could very carefully use a pen to start a tunnel deep into the farm, sumwhere close to the current chamber, they may find it and deciede its a good start for there deeper nest

Edit Uta:
@miszt: Please use the edit-function! Thank you!

[sam2000]

Thanks for your reply miszt.
Sorry I should have said they have tunnelled down but there are no chambers lower down than the ones shown in the photos, and all the eggs, larvae and cocoons are stored at the top of the nest. So hopefully they will move them further down the nest when the soil begins to dry out. Yes they have a supply of water in the arena, attached at the other end of the nest, so they should be fine.
Once again thanks for your reply, very helpful. Sam

[Varban]

That is weird indeed. If you have an easy accessible water source you can dry out the farm. They will bring water from outside for the nest. Although I am not 100% sure this is a good idea so someone support me or slap me in the face?

[miszt]

Its not that strange tbh, they will choose the depth of the nest depending on various factors, moisture/temp/soil, and its quiet common to see large mounds made by l.niger containing chambers and pathways, all depends on what their enviroment is like.

If the nest drys out completly then that is not good at all, even with a water source outside the nest, the larvae and eggs need a certain level of moisture to survive, but i am guessing that this farm is to wet at the base, once it drys out a bit they will move down into the nest as the top will dry out allot