ANTSTORE World of Ants

[DAREN]

hi i have a small colony of Formica rufibarbis which i bought from antstore and although they are doing well with the queen laying and more and more ants hatching each day, i have read that these ants enjoy a higher temperature than most british species. at the moment i have them at room temperature and was thinking they might benifit from a heat mat and if so what would be the ideal temp for them? also when giving sugar water what would be the best concentration for these ants? thanks hope somone can help

[JimmyVe]

No they don't need extra heating. Room temperature would be just fine.
They also live in Central Europe so follow a bit the out side temperature and they will do just fine.

You could give them sugar water or honey or nectar. In fact you could give them all kind of sweets. Check out the store, there are lots of them.

[tail__]

They usually live in open, sunny places under rocks or other heating device (pieces of plastic debris, for example), they also sometimes build small mounds for the same purpose, so the temperature in their nests in summer is more like in greenhouse than a typical human house. But generally Jimmy is right, heating isn't necessary for them. However, raising temperature to ca. 30C will probably make the brood develop faster.
I recommend using honey instead of sugar, it has many needed vitamines and minerals, while sugar is only bland calories.

[DAREN]

THATS GREAT THANKS FOR YOUR HELP

[miszt]

If she is in a test tube, I would not recomend increasing the tempreture to 30C, its important that she can escape the heat by moving around in the nest, which is impossible ina single test tube