ANTSTORE World of Ants

[kashmir79]

sterile sand, any sand, as long as you boil it.

and its a bit early to start warming her up, id would say mid febuary is when messor's wake up from hibernation, not january.

january is mid winter, its not officially spring until march (22nd to be precise hah)

and messor's only have one Queen in a colony, any others will be killed.

if you let her sleep until then, then shel become an egg laying machine for the whole summer.

thats what im doing with my 5 messor Queens

[SteveUK28]

if ur planning on having her nest in the sand then ur gonna need a sandloam mix, Antstore is ur friend here..

[thomie]

Yeah i bought a little bit 200g.
But becouse of the high send costs (€10 for more than 1 kilo) i didn't order much .
I'm going to search for similar sand. The sand i receaved looks a bit like white (cement) sand with loam both i can order in my town. I'll just give it a try

[JimmyVe]

In deed sand-loam mix would be best.
Like kashmir said, they only have one queen in a colony.

It is in deed early to wake her up, but i think in this case it is better to do it, so she would have workers soon to take care of here. There is no brood with the queen so it is going to be awhile before she is going to have workers.

[thomie]

I just watched the queen, she moved strange and it looks like she's kind of stoned.
She just fell on her back (she looks very weak).
I'll just let her rest (maybe she got much stress of the shipment??).

[SteveUK28]

ohh that dont sound good at all i hope she will be ok

[miszt]

I just watched the queen, she moved strange and it looks like she's kind of stoned.
She just fell on her back (she looks very weak).
I'll just let her rest (maybe she got much stress of the shipment??).

may well be, leave her some where warm, and dark, and dont disturb her for 24hours, hopefully she will recover

is the test tube sealed or bunged with cotton wool? sealed test tubes can result in narcotic paralysis, as a result of to much carbon dioxide, ants appear dead, but may not be, open the test tube, and give her some air, then plug the test tube with cotton wool

[ratgreen]

I'm in the exact situation i bought a messor queen with no workers and there are 3 eggs and it arrived today, so the verdict is to warm her up from hibernation and feed her honeywater yes?

[thomie]

The sealing is the same when i received it (i opened it once yesterday to add some honey water)
I bought a fence (don't know the good English word ) is it better to seal the testtube with the fence?
The test tube is inside a shoe box with a heater. In the shoe box there is also another specie, is it a problem that the ants (maybe) smell each other?

@ratgreen, your queen looks more promising than mine. (i don't got eggs at all) Just drop a little drop of honey water inside of the test tube and heat it slowly to 25oC (i'm going to heat her to 25oC in about 2 week, slowly turning up the thermostat)

Thx for the replies (much more people over here, Dutch forum is death),

Thomas

[kashmir79]

have you not read what i said ?

they look stoned or dead because its the middle of WINTER, all ants get like this when they hibernate. the Cool temperature slows them down alot, and sometimes knocks them out, but dont worry she should be fine.

just leave her for a couple of days, them more you look at her and keep disturbing her your going to stress her out.
stress can kill Messors quite easily.

[JimmyVe]

It could be that she is still recovering from the trip ore she is not good awake. Like kashmir said, they need rest, give them time to recover it is not a guaranty that they are fine but these species are very sensitive to stress so...
Fresh air would be nice, if you can give it to them its fine. I always place my tubes into a box (out world) leave the tubes open for fresh air and use some PTFE on the box so they can not escape.

I don't think it would be a problem that they smell each other, as long if they stay in there own tube.

[thomie]

Thear just happen something horrible!
My thermostat had a failure, it just kept the heating element on. When i watched my nests tomorrow the thermometer said it was 50+oC.
Both ant nest (1.5year Lasius Niger nest and the messor barbarus nest) are death!
I've test the thermostat system for ±1month! I just used it three days in my nest and now it got the error!! .
Now I've got to start all over again .

[miszt]

o no thats bad news thomie

[SteveUK28]

Sorry to hear that Thomie

[JimmyVe]

That is really sad Thomie, i hope you have better luck next time.