ANTSTORE World of Ants

[miszt]

much bigger than i expected, 1 egg laying queen, 4 winged queens, 9 males and about 30 workers. will be doin a blog of their progress @ Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar if anyones interested, also as there are quiet a few queens n males i'm expecting nu colonys over the next year or so, depending how well they settle in

few crappy pics...(will get me slr out at sum point and do sum nice macro shots once they are settled in and the test tube is removed)

[miszt]

i bought the larger colony tho, am impatient hehe

[JimmyVe]

The winged ants dos not mean you can start new colony with them, they need to be fertilized, if there are males in it to they are not going to mate with the queen of the same colony (normally, there are always exceptions )

[miszt]

yep np, wil have a nu colony soon that i will join up with this one, but not for a while yet, i'm in no rush

[hypervelocity]

Hi all,

But in the breeding prosess the queens will only let the males mait with them if they can catch up to them in flying. So how will you make big enuf space?

[miszt]

big tank the plan is 2 have one large tank ( i have a 1.8m x 50cm x 50cm ) for the mating, once the queens and males emerge from the 2 coloneys i'l collect them up and add them to the large tank, give them a few days and see how many females loose there wings, then transfer them to test tubes n see wot happens

[miszt]

My colony has split itself accross two nest sites, very strange behaviour for these ants i think, most of the colony is nesting inside a fake plant base, there are about 6 workers, 3 queens and a few males in the seed caseing, i thought they might just be in the middle of moving again, but they've stayed like that all week now

Getting about 10 ants out at all times at the moment, less at night, but still very active, and there must be at least 30 eggs and 20 new young workers was expecting these guys to be pretty slow, but they dont seem to be lol

[JimmyVe]

Nice.

That is in deed strange, are they still separated now ? one part has 6 workers and 3 queens ? How many has the other part ? Where is the brood ?

[miszt]

It seems like the brood is in the main nest, although i cant be sure as they are both hard to see into, there are workers bringing food to both nests

[nepenthes_ak]

Usually ants go 40-50+ feet up in the air to mate, I'm not sure about Temnothorax but you might be able to mate them in your set up.

[sithmaster676]

it is very difficult to be able to get the right conditions for mating, like nepenthus said most males and queena fly high to mate, so im not sure if it is possible, but i wish you all fhe luck.
sithmaster676

[JimmyVe]

In my experience it is very hard to get the right conditions. Some species are much easier than other ones.

[miszt]

I've managed to simulate the conditions that they like to begin the mating flight several times, getting the temp inside the basin to 27 degrees with very bright light for about 5 hours, then letting the tank cool down slowly by moving the lamp away a bit, once the tank reaches 20 degrees they start to come out, and climb to the highest points of the nest and take off....but at the moment theres no where for them to go, most of the males have died now anyway, possibly all, the queens are still there, so will give it a go next year with the big tank

[sithmaster676]

the queens that were not fertilised most likely become large workers to help around the colony, unless your workers kill them.
sithmaster676

[miszt]

Colony is doing great quiet a few of the smaller workers have died in the last few weeks, but theres plenty of new pups developing and lots have hatched

they are hungry little things, any cricket i put in the basin is devoured within an a few hours, often with 10 workers pulling at it in diffrent directions.

They seem to love small moths aswel, a little sadistic i know, but i usualy remove the wings and leave it for them alive, as I like to see them behave as they would in the wild, they will happily kill a small moth in groups of 3-4, sumtimes they will drag it bak to the nest still alive and a small swarm of ~10-15 ants will 'jump' it and kill it, very suprised by this behaviour tbh, I had thought they where timid ants, but it seems not if they recon they can kill something!