ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Daodejing]

I work away four days at a time (although i have quit this job as of today so will be home full time from now on lol)
I left my ants in the capable hands of my mother, who i explained all the ins and outs of feeding and adding water, and also checking if they are ok, ie peeking at the nest.
I come home, after two nights, short trip, to find she has drowned them :O
She said she spilt some water into the nest, but thought the sand would soak it up, which it did, then it collapsed on the queen
This is the second year of my Formica sanguinea colony and has just started a boost in numbers. This one small hitch has cost them dearly, now i have 4 left :'(
I am unable to decided what to do, should i get a queen of the same type or try another?
I did like the Formica sanguinea, they were quite good characters and fairly easy to look after.
do they take well to ytong nests if i was to get another queen with several workers?.
Thanks for any input, just a little lost and down about the whole thing.

[MorbidMike]

Sorry to hear of your loss .

I am keeping my F. sanguinea in a Ytong nest and they are doing great! It is really a good option. I work 5 days a week quite far from home, so I have to leave my ants alone for 5 day intervals each week. I made a rather large water reservoir to keep the Ytong a bit moist (1 moist chamber and 1 more dry chamber), so that the Ytong wouldn't get dry after 5 days. I use those bird feeding reservoirs with honey-water solution to make sure they always have something to drink.

The main problem is prey, if I give them 10-12 crickets on one day, they will kill them all and eat only 4... the rest would be left alone at the entrance of the tube to my Ytong, and not get eaten. So I just give them 4 crickets... and when I get home again I give them 4 crickets every 5 hours (unless sleeping of course) so that they will eat them.

I would really suggest F. sanguinea again! They are the coolest species I have had so far. But if you really want easy ants if you leave home for long intervals M. rubra still does it IMO. I can leave them without food and without refreshing their water for 2 weeks and still no deaths. Gotta love their survivability. I am not going to try this with my F. sanguinea but something tells me they will not survive that . And if you liked F. sanguinea you would do well to get them again, after all you have experience with them and if you like them there is no reason not to get them again!

edit:
Make sure your colony is big enough for a Ytong before moving them into one. You can also go and dig up a nest in nature close to where you live... they are fairly common (in the Netherlands and Belgium at least) and that will also get you past the hard 'small colony' phase . Just make sure it really is F. sanguinea and not F. rufa/polyctena.

[SteveUK28]

Yes i agree.. I would get them again if you like them.. It really is a shame. I keep all of my ants in a ytong nest.. except 3 spec. Myrmica rubra are a lovely ant and i would recommend them too.. But it is entriely up to you friend

[Daodejing]

Yeah i think that i would like to get these ants again

I have read that there are some of these local to me, Thetford Forest, in England, but are hard to find.

And it seems they are unavailable at the minute from antstore so i have to wait for the breeding in august time i guess.

I also wondered, as they come with some 'slave' ants, is it possible to get more than 5 or so slaves with the queen?

I shall now be trying to build or buy a ytong

are yours with the nest on the top and the glass covering that? and seperate to foraging tank?

for now i bought myself a corn snake, and my lasius nigers are very happy, Tons of them, lol.

[damondeionno]

They are hard to find in Theford forest. If you do find them, I don't think you should dig them up. They are much less common in the UK. As far as I know, the slaves are Formica fusca, so if you find some nest of these (Thetford Forest - I've seen plenty) then you can steal some brood and give them to your Formica sanguinea queen.

[MorbidMike]

Yeah i think that i would like to get these ants again

I have read that there are some of these local to me, Thetford Forest, in England, but are hard to find.

And it seems they are unavailable at the minute from antstore so i have to wait for the breeding in august time i guess.

I also wondered, as they come with some 'slave' ants, is it possible to get more than 5 or so slaves with the queen?

I shall now be trying to build or buy a ytong

are yours with the nest on the top and the glass covering that? and seperate to foraging tank?

for now i bought myself a corn snake, and my lasius nigers are very happy, Tons of them, lol.

Yeah, mine have a Ytong carved out, with glass glued on top of it, and a tube to a seperate foraging tank. I find it an easy setup to make, but having the Ytong inside an aquarium, and the aquarium being the foraging area, is definitely a better 'space-efficiency'.

I do not know how many slaves Antstore gives, I think it would be a good idea to get a colony of Formica fusca yourself, so you can take some of their pupae to support your queen. According to damondeionno they are common in your area so perhaps you can dig up a nest of those? (I prefer to dig up a nest as a whole and keep it yourself than just digging a bit to steal some brood, and like this you will always have a supply of your own.)