ANTSTORE World of Ants

[phyr]

Basically I got these ants from Antstore (I am in the UK) and they arrived in a glass test test tube, I constructed a habitat for them using a large fish tank, a mix of soil, sand\loom and even a Ytong block so the they would have a choice were to nest when the outgrow the test tube. All seemed to be going well at first, the workers would leave the tube to forage around the tank. They seemed quite happy with the fresh dead insects i was feeding them and I even got a small Major that would come out and protect the workers when needed but then things started to go wrong.

The workers seems constantly obsessed with blocking up the entrance to the test tube with soil thus preventing the major from re-entering the next, he was the the first to die after a day or two of being trapped outside then slowly but surly the number of workers foraging seemed to get less and less untill there were no workers at all, I decided I had to know if the queen was still alive to I took the tube out and had a look, she was still there but with no workers left at all! I am not sure if she had laid any eggs but there were none present when I looked in the tube. Anyway the sand\loom was exceptionally hard to decided the best couse of action was to get the queen out of the tube as she has obviously been unsuccessful in raiding her brood in the tube.

So the current situation is the queen was randomly running around the tank for about an hour last night, she seems to have settled down now and gone into a deep hole a made in the soil and has not immerged since.

Can anyone tell what has gone wrong or what is likely to happen to my queen? I have been very careful with the setup of the habitat and the temp has remained a constant 26 - 28 degrees, humidity has been low and the ants have had as much food as they wanted. This is not my first time keeping ants that require high temps and low humidity as well and they all survived and grew very large.

I feel quite sad for my queen as she seems at a lose end now, oh and one more thing worth noting, I could not find any dead ants in the tube, I am not sure what has happed to them? Did she eat them?

Thanks
Sorry for the long post.

James

[FLechdrop]

Wow.. maybe the sand/loam mixture got TOO hard and prevented the ants from going in/out the test tube? They couldn't get out to forage anymore so they were aten by the queen as an emergency food supply.
Just a scenario..

[Peter]

she may die as this was what happed to my Queen from antstore:

it was all msot the same is ur story only tihng is ants 2 weeks of keeping the Queen alive she then die as she could not get the food easy (still dont know why its out side her door)

the best thing to do is what im doing with my newly mated queens, put her into a glass jar with somthink for water supply, then cover it over with clingfilm putsome small holes in and every 2 days take her food thats in there out and put fesh in and do the water

( this has worked very well for me as all my Queens have layyed eggs and some of them have minmi ants with them ants will soon go into the big tank) hope this helps

From Pete

[phyr]

I am sure the ants could get in and out and but they seemed to keep blocking it up so much they seemed to find it very difficult to get any food into the test tube nest but they were managing to get most things in so I left them to it.

When I decided to remove the queen from the tube the loom\sand mix was very and required me to smash it with a nail in order to remove her from the tube, you can understand my reluctance to do this when many ants were in the nest.

Thanks for you advice Peter, I will place sugar water and tap water for her in the hole and see if she decides to lay some more eggs. I read that queens that have already started one nest will not start another but I am not sure about this.

I am waiting for one of the experts from antstore to comment on this as these were very expensive ants and I would like to know why they have all died.

I have read alot of conflicting views on the humidity these ants require as well, on the antstore website it specifies the humidity as "DRY" however after posting my original message on other forums I have been told they like it damp 70 - 80%. If so is the antstore website wrong?

Please could someone from Antstore post with their views on this.

Thanks
James