ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Andie]

Hi all, i bought this very small colony about 2 months ago with maybe 10 workers. They are in a small arena until they can establish themselves with a few more workers. There are at least 15 pupae at the moment. Although they have made some attempt to construct a nest, they only seem to make small additions. This maybe because there arnt many larvae or its just not necessary perhaps as the colony is to small.

Two night ago i noticed the workers moving all the pupae into the drinker and taking bits of dry grass inside to build a new nest, i had forgot to fill it with water and they were able to get into the drinker. In the morning they had moved back into their original nest. Perhaps that was a warning to me to keep their water topped up.

I'm feeding them with Fruitflies and cut up blue bottles and roaches, they also enjoy sugar water.

[SteveUK28]

Beautiful photos pal, keep us updated!

[Andie]

Cheers Steve.

The ant in the middle has its gaster curled down like a puppy with its tail between its legs and the other two were dragging it about by its legs. It was released after about 15 minutes of what appeared like " bullying" then it just wandered aimlessly around the basin. So why did this happen ?

[SteveUK28]

Strange behaviour... Cleaning perhaps..

[Andie]

Finally something that resembles a nest made from the dried skeletons of sycamore leaves.

[Andie]

Few more pics

A group feeding on a house fly



I put a small 7w heatmat on the side of the arena by the nest and they quickly moved their brood to the warmth. The glass gets quite hot but they seem to enjoy it.



Finally spotted the queen.

[Andie]

A great food resource for these ants are fruit flies, i put in a a few hundred a week that have been frozen. Live fruit flies seem to be ignored but once they are dead they are readilly accepted. Its great fun watching them eagerly carrying them to the nest.



Another strange pass time is for them is to carry their dead around the arena. They spend alot of time doing this so perhaps looking for a suitable place to deposit them, or maybe just more room is needed

[Andie]

The ants are continuing to grow in numbers and now estimate over 200 individuals, they have just about outgrown their arena, so i am going to try and hold them in a 45x45x45 exoterra. I have woven a basket nest made from clematis and i'm going to try and interwind this into some bamboo to give a natural effect ( pics to follow when completed. )
They are feeding well on meal worms and the pupae providing they attack them when first given otherwise they are ignored perhaps because they begin to take on the identity of the ants from their odour. The adult beetles are pretty much ignored. They will take down adult crickets and roaches within 10 minutes.
Just for the record, i have'nt smelt any odours comming from the arena as pointed out in some threads of this species, even after proding the nest to try and gain a reaction.

The nest still on the plastic tub the ants arrived in.

[bugsy]

If you only got them in May with 10 workers then they are growing fast. The conditions you keep them in must be spot on. How much do feed them on a weekly/daily basis?

[Andie]

Presently i'm giving them 2 milk bottle top full of sugar water every three days, some i suppose goes due to evaporation but after 3 days its all gone.They will take an adult cricket or a roach every day and a few mealworms a week too. Everything goes. Maybe i'm giving them to much but they are constantly active night and day and never seem to stop and are always doing something. Like trying to escape

I just done a count using a photo and marked each one and got 273 , probably counted some twice and a few dead ones but the ammount dosent include the ones in the nest.
Forgot to mention that i have also seen 3 males wandering about.

[bugsy]

Well if their taking it then keep giving it to them I suppose. I'm going to increase the amount of food I give my Camps, I might see a major quicker too. How are your Camponotus species coming on?

[baumarkthammer]

Milk bottles full of sugar water? What an absurdly giant unit of mesurement is that???
Do you litteraly give them like 2 litre full of sugar water?

The males you have should be normal at that stage of the colony, Polyrhachis dives gets first males quite early.
The nest look great.

By the way I always was quite sure that Polyrhachis doesn´t have pupae in cocoons...

[bugsy]

x2 Milk bottle tops, by tops he means the lids from the bottles, no mention of 2 litre.

[baumarkthammer]

Ah sorry I got it totally wrong. I thought that he was saying that he gave them bottles that were full to the top.
The two litres were a guessed of how much two bottles would contain.

I just thought that it would be unrealistic to give a ant colony that much food. Thanks for the explanation!

[Andie]

Milk bottles full of sugar water? What an absurdly giant unit of mesurement is that???
Do you litteraly give them like 2 litre full of sugar water?

The males you have should be normal at that stage of the colony, Polyrhachis dives gets first males quite early.
The nest look great.

By the way I always was quite sure that Polyrhachis doesn´t have pupae in cocoons...

just the bottle tops/ lids although if i used 2 litres i wouldnt have to keep filling them up lol.

Cocoons, or is that the wrong terminology ?