ANTSTORE World of Ants

[SNiDE]

Hi, I bought (about a month ago) a Myrmica rubra colony in a glass setup, a feeding area (quite large) tubed to a nesting area. The nesting area has been completely covered and dark, and damp, since they were put in the setup a month ago, but only a few stray foragers have gone in there, they refuse to move, and are gradually dying off. Recently i discovered all their brood are gone..
They always have fresh meat, from salami to moths and bugs, always fresh water, i take the bodies out, but they refuse to stop dying. Down to about 20 - 25 individuals now, any help would be great..
thanks.

[KiamCameron]

Do you feed them any honey ?

[miszt]

Is the nest damp?

It may be that the nest is not damp enough, if there is no brood, there will be no way to replace dead workers, it may be that the workers are dying of old age, but you are noticing it more because theres no replacements

[SNiDE]

I have been putting water into the nesting area once a week using a pipette- i found 2 dead workers in there, and occasionally one will bimble about in the tubing, but other than that they are sticking to the test tube. They seem abit more lively today after dragging a live moth and devouring it- it was actually quite disturbing. I shall try giving them honey aswell.

[miszt]

Snide you absolutly must give them sugars, the insects are used only for feeding the queen and brood, without sugars your workers are starving to death, yes give them some honey or sugar water ASAP!

[JimmyVe]

In deed, almost all species need some sweets, especially these ones. The love it very much.
Why did you wait so long to contact us (someone) ? There is plenty of information about these ants here and if you cant find it you are always free to ask.

[SteveUK28]

Snide i give mine slices of fruit, even left over apple cores. They also have a test tube with sugar water and tablets cases with honey.. not to mention the odd drop of honey and sugar water i add to bits of fruit. as miszt says to keep your workers alive and well they NEED sugar.

[SNiDE]

I have been giving them sugar water every 2 days aswell as opened satsuma slices... still no brood present in the tube

[SteveUK28]

what about insects?

[JimmyVe]

Is there a queen in this colony ? Where did you get them ?

[SNiDE]

yeah there is a queen. I got them from edu-sci, they were in the post for about a week and thus were very shaken up and lots of dead ants, there were about 35-40 workers still alive when i got them (this was due to royal mail and not edu-sci). They did have a brood, and were feeding on sugar water and blue bottles/moths. I have cleaned alot of the dust that came with the sandy-stone type grounding for the feeding area as the dead ants were all covered in it. I think the problem with moving the nesting area is that the tube that connects the two areas is quite high up, and even though theres a slope for them to climb I think it's unnatural for them to climb into a nest, if that makes sense. At some point I'll try and get them whilst their all in the tube, bottle them up for a few minutes and put new grounding in and put a tube that goes under the grounding so it seems as though they are going underground, as I have seen on other setups here. I will keep you posted

[SteveUK28]

a little word of advice snide, dont buy from Edu again. They are not the best place to get ants at all. I have a contact who can get very good rubra colonys.

[JimmyVe]

I'm not sure about this but i think your queen could also be dead. You say you had brood when they arrived, but now not any more. it could be your queens also was dead (from the shipping). Some queens are not bigger than the workers (from this species).

[SteveUK28]

i do agree with jimmy.. very hard to tell my queens at first as they are very small

[SNiDE]

damn.. I read that myrmica rubra can have multiple queens, any advice on whether/how to do this? Or whether just to let these workers live out their remaining time in peace (if the queen is dead) and start again, I guess