ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Fleur]

Hi everyone,

After watching this video:
Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar

I'm doubting my decision to start my own colony. If they really get this big, no way I'm going to start this. I've heard that there's not that much known on the growth of colonys bred in captivity without any natural preditors.

That's why I have this poll here. I want to know if anyone has a colony that's older than 2 years and approximately how big it is.

So after taking the poll, please post:
- Species
- Colony size
- Colony age

Thank you!

[Ant27]

I have my Lasius niger colony 2 years, and there are about 500 ants in 2 farms.

Greetings,
Martin

[mzfckr]

myrmica rubra, 30 workers, 6months(from 4 workers)

[darradar]

I have Camponotus cruentatus, 1 year old in May, started with 1 queen and 8 workers, so in almost a year i have now id say maybe 50-60 ants, they dont sit still to be counted, but for sure around that number, these are a slow growing speciese which is great for me...

[tail__]

Lasius niger, 9 months, ca. 90 workers now, expecting 100 more during next month (pupae) and maybe even 300 in May (HUGE pile of eggs). Started from single queen, I even did not need to go out to find her, she flew into my flat Small size of Lasius workers has a good side, even grown-up, large colony of 10.000 workers don't need too much space.

[Wedge]

[right]http://www.ants.org.uk/_Media/nest-july-07_large.jpeg[/right]
[font=Tahoma]I don't know the real age of my colony as I bought the entire paper nest direct from AntStore.

I've had my Crematogaster rogenhoferi colony for about 7 months (August 07) and so I must have gone through 3 or 4 generations of ants.

I can guess that I have multiple queens, maybe, and I can see 200 ants oftentimes, although there will be plenty of young workers within the nest I know.
[/font]

[JimmyVe]

Here i go, i never write down when i buy ore receive ants and i don't count them, but i can give you an idea.

Camponotus aethiops 1 year - 30-40 workers
Camponotus fallax 6 months - 10-20 workers
Camponotus ligniperda 1 year - 20-30 workers
Camponotus vagus 6 months - 20 workers
Formica fusca 2 years- 100-150 workers
Formica cunicularia 1 year - 10 workers (had a bit of problems)
Formica rufibarbis 2 years- 100-150 workers
Formica sanguinea 1 year - 50 workers
Lasius cf. mixtus 6 months - 50-100 workers
Lasius flavus 3 years - 200-300 workers
Lasius niger 3 years - 500 workers
Manica rubida 1 year - 50-100 workers
Myrmica rubra 3 years - 250 workers
Camponotus lateralis 6 months - 150-200 workers
Messor barbarus 2 years - 100-150 workers
Pheidole pallidula 3 years - 500-1000 workers
Camponotus blandus sp. 2 years - 200 workers
Camponotus substitututs 2 years - 200-250 workers
Camponotus sp. 6 months - 10 workers
Camponotus rufipes 3 months - 10-20 workers

Like i sad, i could be wrong with a few months and a 100 workers, just an idea.

[miszt]

hehe *imagines trying to count all his ants*

[Skippy]

Camponotus sp. Thailand ... 1 queen 700 workers ... 4 years

[Fleur]

Wow. Thanks JimmyVe, that's really helpfull. I now see that the ligniperda doesn't grow incredibly fast (or atleast doesn't seem to). But I'll wait for some more people to post their numbers before I finalize my decision

Keep it up!

[miszt]

Have to say Fleur, am very impressed by your research into this, so many people come on here having already ordered a species, with absolutly no idea what they are getting into, and its very frustrating!!

If you are interested in ligniperda (bearing in mind they require hibernation) you may also like Camponotus herculenus, they are beautiful ants, and pretty slow to develop, i have a polygyn colony (2 queens) and only 6 workers in 12 months, I'm expecting to have about 15-20 workers by the end of summer, and next year around 30-40, they are a pretty big species, the early workers (first generation are always allot smaller than subsequent generations) are about 1.2cm, the queens are very big, about 2.2cm, they have very formidable majors, that can be close to the size of queens, but these wont appear until the 3rd year i expect. Egg to Worker development is slow, around 12-18months, but they lay lots of eggs my brood after 1 year is (estimate) about 20 eggs & 20 larva, and some coccons, I'm expecting more eggs to be laid of course this summer, but bearing in mind that first gen workers only live for about 18months, i dont expect them to be around next year

max colony size for C herc is around 6 thousand ants, which would easily fit in a 1mx1m tank, but that takes 5-10 years, and allot of food!

[Fleur]

Thanks. I just feel like: if you're going to take on the responsibility for living creatures, you need to be sure you can take care of them. Because they depend on you.

Offtopic: I bought my hamster last year, thinking I knew what I was doing since I've had so many when I was a kid. After buying her and thinking I was doing well, I discovered on a forum simular to this that her cage was way too small (she is a dwarfhamster and has a cage made for ferrets atm ) and she needed more proteins and a sandbath. I got her all that and ofcourse, she wouldn't have died without these things, but it just goes to show that in order to take the best care of your animals, you need to talk to people with some experience beforehand.

I'm going to look into those herculenus and see how I like those. Thanks for the tip! Let's talk about it some more in my other topic though.

[mpir]

I have Messor barbarus and after about a year now I´m at about 150 - 200 workers. One queen. At about the same time I also got Campnotus vagus - beautiful ants - I have 14 workers and about 15 - 20 larva from last year.

If you are worried about the colony getting to big I believe that by limiting proteins you can slow down the colony growth.

Good luck

[badman]

my herculaneus seem to escape a lot less than my ligniperda too

=> edit Mod
Post from 8:52am

herculaneus and ligniperda, have had both for 9 months.

herculaneus 8 workers
ligniperda 2 (3 died a week after arriving)

no new workers yet but many larvae and caccoons. (at least the ligniperda have, the herculaneus are subterranean)

[cocodtim]

Lasius Niger
I have them since yesterday
1 Queen