ANTSTORE World of Ants

[SteveUK28]

I agree.. i have 7 new queens.. and i shall wait untill they have workers then keep 1.. or 2 and release the rest into my back garden.. unless of course some1 wants a colony on here..

[dodgydogman]

24th July
Been a couple of day, not too much has changed… I’m going away for 2 weeks on Saturday, what should I leave my ants? My sister will be home though but I don’t want to bother her. I am thinking about using one of my birdfeeders to give them water… should I fill it with plain water or sugar water? Oh yeah load of the cocoons have hatched (I mean it when I say loads) the population is up to…well its too hard to count but at a guess I would say 200-300. The test tube is completely black and I cant see the queen in the mass of ants. They devoured a house fly in a few minutes, it was amazing to watch.
So basically I need you to tell me what to give them for the 2 weeks… I am going to try and catch as many flies as I can but they are hard to get, can I feed them something easier to get than live food, like meat or something?
Ps I am going to Italy, should be hot.
Pps one of the 15 queens laid eggs

[edit]

Lol everytime i open the farm they go NUTS and zoom around climbing up the walls and picking up eggs n' stuff, its really annoying because I used to leave it open while I watched them...

[miszt]

Read the care sheet.

[dodgydogman]

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you mean that one? Ok I have already read that and it didn’t address any of my questions, that wasn’t a very helpful comment...
I will show my question in a clear way.
1.Should i put water or sugar water in the bird feeder (i read that ants also need fresh water)
2. What else is safe to give ants for food apart from insects, sugar water and fish flakes. (I am now giving them fish flakes )

Sorry for being rude.

Ps I "borrowed" some of my brothers crickets (for his lizard), put them in boiling water and are going to use them for food. They are rather big though, do you think they will manage? They are moving some of their cocoons into a small hole I made with a pencil (I mentioned this earlier) but the hole is quite small so only about 7 cocoons fit...lol. I know ants are supposed to be quite smart... im not sure if I own ants sometimes ...

[miszt]

should I fill it with plain water or sugar water?

the answer is in the caresheet

use whatever you want to give them water, if you are going away for two weeks, then i wuld recomend filling a couple of test tubes and bunging them up

ants will eat all sorts, however it is not advisable to leave food in a tank for 2 weeks, again, this is mentioned in the caresheet

[SteveUK28]

as long as they have plenty of water thats not gonna dry out in the 2 weeks.. and a test tube or 2 of sugar water then they will be ok.. just make sure you feed them up before you go with protein.. so give them plenty of them crickets.. i feed my ants every other day with a cricket.. and my large rubra colony gets around 4 a day.

[dodgydogman]

26th July
Ok im leaving at 1:00, i couldnt get a test tube (Where do you buy them? Does boots sell them?) but i am going to rush down to the pet shop to get a bird water feeder. The ant Pop is about... its really hard to count them now... maybe 300.

I think that 300 ants in about a week of having them is pretty good

They have ripped the heads off 2 of the crickets and are eating them inside out, so cool

I wonder if it is legal to take any italian ants back with me....

[SteveUK28]

well its not no.. But *Cough* you could post them back *cough* And they wouldnt be checked at customs
However you WILL need test tubes... Ebay is ya friend!

[dodgydogman]

Oooooooooooooook update... tommorow, gotta sleep now... stupid flight getting delayed 3 hours -_-, arrived at 4:30.
But so much has happened!
NO! SLEEP!
Eueaaah!!!
Fine small update… this is a pretty old thread, so this probably wont even get read…

10 August….or something
Ok my sis did an ok job at looking after them, but a very VERY messy job. when i got back the lid wasnt on the farm properly and the honey and water stuff was spilled everywhere -_-!!!! About 5 of my ants were exploring the world outside but i had to kill them the ants were swarming when i closed the cage and i would not have been able to put them back... and i was tired... and grumpy about the flight... so i couldnt be bothered... sorry im not bothering making my i's capital, i dont care right now... its 4:45


Lots of …’s... because i am writing this as i think

Not exactly formal, sorry.

[dodgydogman]

Sunday 10th August

Ok one think for sure is that they need a bigger tank... fast. I’m not sure how many there are. They are still living in the test tube I was disappointed to see. They are REALLY slow movers, I mean wow. They are literally on top of each other, just piled up inside the tube. There are also about 40 ants under a piece of foil and 20 ants just scattered around the farm. It is now not actually possible to take the lid off the farm without them swarming out. I have had to kill about 10 ants so far TT. The farm is a HUGE mess, with cockroach bits everywhere, dirt mixed with sand and two huge piles of cocoon mess. I will post images as soon as I can . Its pretty crazy, I want to make a ytong nest but it look really hard. I was thinking about getting some of this foam stuff, cutting chambers in it and sticking a piece of glass on it with bathroom sealant.

Also I brought a small colony of small red ants to England (hidden with my clothes). When I get hold of my camera I will post some pics in the ant identification section. I have been looking at some pics of ants, but my ants seem much smaller than any of them, and the queens (there are two) look different. it’s a tiny species.

[delete-14751]

If that is already the case you need a new setup soon. This species gets big soon (the colony i mean) they can grow up to 40.000 workers in one colony

I read the max size is 15,000 and on average 4,500-5,500 !?!

[SteveUK28]

Its takes a long long time to get to them numbers so you have nothing to worry about atm...

Forget anything made of foam it will never last and pretty much impossible to maintain humidity. Ytong nests are Simple to make, i really do not know why people keep thinking they are hard.. all you need really is a screwdriver and a bit of imagination and some patience and your done!!! Ohh and the glass and selant of course.

[KiamCameron]

Lasius niger can get over 100,000 workers

[delete-14751]

Are you sure? Whats the largest anyone has got an L.niger colony to?

[fox123]

where have you seen, that just by 10 ants you can open the tube. You must open it by 2-4 ants. It`s unpossible that you will get 10 ants if you wait so long!