ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Formicking]

Hello,
I am looking to start my first ant colony this year and I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice. I am going to try and keep a lasius niger colony as these are the easiest to keep and also can be found in my local area. I would be collecting a colony of about 1 queen, 20-30 workers and eggs ect. This is where your advice comes in you see I already have a foraging area but I am about to buy a nesting area. I do not mind using the slimline ant farms but I would like if I can to use something a bit different. I do not want to use y-tong for my first nest but I have had a look through the antstore website and found things like:
shop/product_info.php/info/p1673_Acryl-four-chamber-nest.html
shop/product_info.php/info/p1056_magnet-cave---large.html
could someone please tell me if there is anything wrong with either of them and which one is probably the best. If they are really useless I will just use the slimlines but ideally I would not like to. Thank you for your replys!

[SteveUK28]

Firslty hello and to the forum

Ok, to start with i would put what you collect into a test tube till they get a much larger colony. But if you really wanna go down the setup route straight away.. then id have to say both of those items wouldnt last too long.. especialy the four chamber nest. Lasius grow pretty darn quick. Your miles better off with the slimline nest.. But i personnaly always use ytong..
Anyways best of luck

[Formicking]

Thanks steve,
I will probably go with the slimline but I was wondering how you set them up in the correct way and also how do you connect them to the basin my basin only has holes in it?

[McK]

Looks great, but I do wonder how you are going to collect a queen with 30 workers?
Digging up a Lasius niger colony _with the queen is a very though job and fails almost every time.
The best you can do is catch a queen during the nuptial flights and let her raise a colony.

[Formicking]

Hi McK,
though I have never actually kept a colony I have been out to capture colonys before and I have a high level of success which I think is very important as you do not want to disturb more colonys than you have to.

[gabranth]

don't dig up ant colony's expectantly ones that only have 1 queen in them buy it from a shop or post in Marketplace to get a colony

[McK]

Don't forget that if you capture a queen and a couple of workers there's a possibility that you accidentally killed a colony with thousands of workers.
The queen has gotten used to having thousands of workers (try do to some reading about the different stages of colony founding), at this stage she basically does nothing else but lay eggs and getting constantly fed by her workers, if you take away the latter she won't be able to go back to her previous behavior of the colony founding stage.
Also, you can never know how old the queen is, you could easily catch a queen that's over 10 years old and isn't able to reproduce a lot of new workers.

Think about it, there are so many things that could go wrong.

[Formicking]

Fair points there guys I will order them from offline. Does anyone know how to set up a slimline ant farm though as I do not really know what to do?

[McK]

Well, you can take a look at the pictures of Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar, maybe that'll help.

[Formicking]

Thank you McK I see that you need the base layer and then the sand but I was wondering how do you keep it moist? Also what is that hose for?

[McK]

At the bottom of the nest I've put a lot of little stones which absorb the water, I also poured water in the farm before I filled it with sand.
If you don't take the lid of too much, the nest will stay moist for years to come.
The green hose is used as a fail safe if the nest gets to dry so I can refill the water at the bottom of the nest, but I didn't have to use it yet.
The other bigger hose is to connect the nesting area with the foraging area.

[JimmyVe]

Hello Formicking and welcome.

Its nice to hear that you are going to start with an easy species. And that you first ask for advice before you buy/capture the ants.
If i where you i would make a tube (test tube) and capture a queen during mating flights, its not that hard and you can watch the colony grow from 0. That way you also have plenty of time to make a good farm. You can keep the colony in a tube for a few months without any problems.