ANTSTORE World of Ants

[ford-ute]

Hi all

in my area it is currently 43 degees c or 110 degrees F out side after working late last night i noticed thousands of ants out every where and all very busy (moving very fast) at about 2 am its currently 5pm here i believe that this is because they have gone under ground to regulate tempreature but are they also sleeping do ants sleep they must rest i guess but do the sleep is it important to the colony

im keeping my ants inside in the aircon and the room temp does not exceed 25 degrees C about 80 degrees F so should i put my ants under a heat lamp to get the temp up for about 6 or so hours a day during thier nomal level of activity in the out side so they go under ground and rest i am keeping them in a sand farm so should i heat the foraging area to send them al inside for a sleep

thanks for your help and have any one else noticed the behaviour

[SteveUK28]

tbh ford im not so sure.. but sayin that.. you should always try to make the habitat as close to what it is in nature.. so id prob use a heat lamp if it was me

[miszt]

If its a species u have collected urself then they wil need to be warmer, get urself a temp probe and see what temp the soil is, that wil give u an idea what temp they need. Of course it depends on the species and what depth they live at as to where you measure soil temp.

There are many reasons why they may be swarming outside, pherhaps they have found a good food source, or maybe moving nest

They dont sleep as such they wil b working on nest maintance in the relative cool underground, they may also b nocturnal

[JimmyVe]

Yes its always better to make it a bit like there natural habitat.

[ford-ute]

another strange observation is that the new queen i have found has set up residence in the old queens hole she dug even though she died and is still in the hole the new queen has gone in and does not want to move out ( not that i am trying to get her out ) but i thought that maybe because of the other queens sent she may not set up home there

[ford-ute]

just an interesting fact i just learned is that there is a ant species in australia and other parts of the world called "Ponerine Rhytidoponera" that dont have a queen the workers lay thier own brood and that how they reproduce they also have both male and female works which is also some thing different in the ant world I think the mating workers are special but they have many in a colony

[miszt]

Yep, they are known as gamergates, usualy there is one dominant egg layer which wil supres egg laying by other workers, there are often battles between workers, and the dominante gamergate wil often eat the eggs of lower workers

[JimmyVe]

In deed, also when the dominant worker dies the other workers fight to become the new dominant worker. If you keep these you have a ant colony until the end of days.

[badman]

a good question would be: Why do we all not keep these ants? They sound great! Are they too exotic?

[Phasmid]

a good question would be: Why do we all not keep these ants? They sound great! Are they too exotic?

They are not always available but when they are they can be quite expencive.
A few people do keep them though.

[ford-ute]

i guess that makes me luck that they are native to my area but from what i read they do some times have a queen or at first so if you can get one at the naptial flight is that the best way to start a colony of these ants or is it as simple as collecting a few workers wait to see if any lay egg if not just collect a few more untill you get the right combination of male and female workers that do start laying eggs (but not to take too many that you kill off the wild colony)

they are also quite an atractive looking and with thier metalic green

[miszt]

Its very difficult to raise many of these colonies from what i have read, workers are not always capable of producing viable eggs. Generaly the strongest ants stay in the nest, and the weaker ones forage for food (depending on the colony size), as these species fight between themselves for dominance, i wuld assume that it is the stronger workers only that can produce viable eggs, so the ones you see foraging wil b less\un able to raise colonies...this is just my theory however, not sure what research has been done into it, mayb give it a go

[ford-ute]

i will give it a go if i dont have any eggs from my queen in the next 2 weeks

unfortunately there is no really good info on these ants regarding how to keep them (all i can find is that people have ) so the set up for this and is just tryal and error ( humidaty level, temperature and whether they hybernate )

i have found out that they produce less male brood in winter

[JimmyVe]

If i'm not mistaken they live in you area (nature) so keep them at the temperature and humidity like it is outside in your place. If they can survive there they would also survive inside you farm. About hibernation, how cold are the winters over there ? And do you see ants in nature in wintertime ?

[ford-ute]

Im not sure if i see these particular ants in winter it autum now so i guess ill see soon but in this area it can get to about 8 or 9 C or 46 F on really cold days and maybe as cold a 1 C or 34 F on realy cold nights.

it never snows here and we dont get frosts

so guess they dont hibernate

I have not seen these ants in my area but i will go hunting if my queen has not laid any eggs soon i dont want to have to many colonies i should just start small untill i learn the ropes