ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Sphecomyrmex]

It is possible to keep termites? How to keep these insects?

Thanks

[miszt]

Depends on the species, many require vast amounts of space, and allot of depth to construct their nest, a smaller growing species may be possible i guess, I dont know much about Termites, except they are arch enemies of Ants, so I'm afraid I'm on the Ants side, and dont like termites lol

[Sphecomyrmex]

More ants are inquiline in termitaria, they would be friend too

[badman]

Don't ants love termites? ( to eat) or do termites sometimes fight back?

[mpir]

Termites also have a cast of solders so yeah, they do fight back.

[Sphecomyrmex]

More ants (ad es. Pachycondyla and Dorylus) eat termites. Moreover, some species of ants are inquiline in termitaria. Camponotus specie C is very diffused in termitaria of more species of Termitidae. These ants defence termitaria and they fight with other ants that attck termites. Ants could be parassite too for termites.
Higher termites have two possible castes of soldiers: normal soldiers and nasutes. Primitive termites don't have workers, only soldiers.

I've found two queen of Reticulitermes lucifugus, and i anwered if would be possible to keep them.

[Messorus]

Termites are with Cockroaches, Mantids and Crickets and some other insect colected to Isoptera. Scientist thinks, that termites have better nest architecture than Ants, from my opinion yes, but Termites are in evolution back from ants, ants are just more eusocail.

We know two base categories of termites- advanced termites and below termites. I don´t know what was this sorted from, but here is one serious think- some genuses of termites have special castes, from which can be kept new queen/male or soldier and back! If I m not making a mistake, this castes are called pseudergates. Pseudergates are typical for Below termites. In each member of each termite specie are living ,,bacterias" which are helping to a termite with decomposition of cellulose. The head food of termites is cellulose from trees/wood and they can eat building wood too!

In South Europe are living species of Reticulitermes (lucifugus and others) and Kalotermes flavicollis (I don´t know about more species of this genus). Kalotermes are bigger, majors have more than 1cm I had read. Termites must be kept with not just a queen!- they need have a male/king in the nest too. Quee gets just sme sperms from him when they are copulating, and when she spend them, he will copulate her and inseminate her new sperms... So you need male for your queens. I know about 4 people/ant keepers, which had keept termites, but with no good results. Termites had died after some time, but my friends didn´t saw a queen in their colony so I m not really sure that if are termites not able to be kept in termicarium (lol) or not.
I know:
- they need bigger humidity, about 70% of soil humidity is allright
- they need much cellulose- wood for food
- with cellulose they must have some insects one time to week
- if you make a mixture of wood- soil and you keep termites in it, don´t forget to make some circulation of it, because termites can be attackted by bacterias and blights.....

So this about keeping termites... Good luck with your queens, but you will must get males for each them separately and be careful with giving them together, they must love together first

Sorry from my bad English

Messorus

[Sphecomyrmex]

Thanks very much don't worry, I've a male too
Reticulitermes are primitive termites that don't have queens and kings, but only anfigonic female and male. They have soldiers, and workers too. Kalotermes don't have workers.

Thanks, i will try to keep them

[JimmyVe]

I know someone who kept (tried to kept) them. It didn't worked out for him but you can always give it a go. (keep us informed about this )

[TiGGa]

Make sure you'll post lots of pics, so we can do the "ooooohs" and the "aaaaaahs".

[Messorus]

If you will keep a colony from them, contact me please, I will like to have this termites myself

[anquietas]

i myself have a termite colony and relly so long as you keep the humidity levels at the reight % and provid food they should do just fine. if your termites are subterriean termites then you must provide termite cemint aka mud so that they can make mud tunnles cuz if they say out of contact with moist soil for to long they will dry up and die and from what i know you dont have to get any reproductive termites to have a colony just get nymphs the more you have the better you chances are of them molting into a secondary reproductive pair this happens because unlike ants wich all workers are female termites (at least the ones i have) are equal ammounts of male and female and unless you have soldires (becomming a soldire is a terminal molting phase once they are there they cant go back) even if they are only workers the workers with the absence of a queen and king will start to molt into nymphs and the nymphs will start to molt into secondary reproductives meaning that they never got the the phase of there life were the gained wings and flue away but started to grow wings but then a secondary queen mated with a secondary king a there you have it a secondary reproductive pair to add to the egg and worker count some times a colony can become so big that the secondary pairs may even split off from tere parent colony and become there own indenpendent colony hope that helps sry for any spelling errors i just love termites ;p

[Sphecomyrmex]

Thanks ooo ))
Where can i found nynphs and workers?

[anquietas]

they at least for eastern subterranean termites nymphs should be in with the workers and i know these are not your termites but this site should help a little Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar i have read it like a hundred times ;p

[Sphecomyrmex]

What specie did you have? Here in Italy there have only two rare species...Kalotermes flavikollis have only soldier caste and workers are nymphs...but i don't know where can i found a nest...

How to realize artificial nests?