ANTSTORE World of Ants

[amrik singh]

The two colony's have a burst of grow and reach 100 to 150 workers and around 200 workers respectively with much brood, so with much brood to feed they are very active and eat much.
The biggest colony formed now a covered gallery 3 cm long from the entrance of their nest to the pipe giving access to the arena using the sand-loam and some small peaces of plaster removed from inside the nest . The other colony simply covered the entrance with a small irregular mount ( formed largely of sand loam and trash taken from the arena box) containing a side way entrance gallery .

[amrik singh]

Both colony's are growing fast and are very actives .
I give them a droplet of diluted honey every day ,one chrysalids of tenebrion (the biggest colony 2 ),and they
continue " mining " full time into the half peanut . I give them also sometime a small cricket .
I asked a friend who have a good camera to come to take pictures of the ants nests and I am going to look how to make it appeared here .

[amrik singh]

The colony in cement nest warmed at 22°c or 23°c is growing much slower than the one in the plaster nest warmed at 25°c . It have about 150 workers and much less brood than the other one(about 300 or 400 workers I think) so now I warmed the nest with the warming matte at about 27°c .
I try to give a bit of variety in the food so today I 'll give the ants piece of apple instead of the honey water.

[amrik singh]

My biggest T.c. colony eat two Tenebrions per day as pup. It is much more easy because the Tenebrion pup is nearly immobile and much easier to eat. I try to estimate the population but it is nearly impossible. I think
nearly 800 workers now.
I am really surprised , it grow as fast as my Pheydole palidula colony two years ago (before it escaped).
The smallest colony eat only one Tenebrion pup every one or two days .

[amrik singh]

The largest colony is tunneling through the plaster even more than I expected especially where the plaster is weaken in the water cavity , they even cover it with the plaster they remove. It's annoying because I will
have to add water eventually so I demolish the cover with a few drops of water but a few hours after they have it rebuilt again . For the rest it is not a problem because the nest is placed inside a well escape proof arena.

[amrik singh]

The colony in the plaster nest warmed by the warming stone eat two tenebrion pups ,two decorticate sunflower seeds , honey water (as much as they can drink in one hour) every day .
The colony in the cement ( reconstitute stone) nest eat only one tenebrion pup every two days and seeds take several days to be consumed and about 1/3 of the quantity of honey water consumed by the bigger colony .

[amrik singh]

I must make a small correction about what I had said 10 days ago : The smallest colony is warmed by the new warming matte at about 25°c since 10 days ago (not 27°c).
After unsuccessful attempts in the past I try again to start colony's of Solenopsis fugax (or S. monticola ?)
with two queens and I procured also one small colony (one queen and her first workers).
I try not to make the same mistakes than before and if successful I would like to open a new subject
for Solenopsis.

[amrik singh]

The main food of my two Tetramorium colony's is mostly Tenebrion pups and sun flower seeds that I buy from animal shop and give after removing the husk . Before the biggest colony was exploiting the seeds on the spot
but now they drag each seed in the tube (going to their nest) where they gnaw it .

[amrik singh]

The biggest colony is in the plaster nest 6+1 (sold by Antstore ) . The main nest of 6 rooms is covered by a light proof plastic cover that I lift sometime just to have quick look in the nest, no problem . I pierced the
arena-room with two passages of about half a cm diameter and kept it as a supplement room covered with a red foil, but it does not work . The Tetramoriums are covering the window from inside with mood . It seems that the red foil (of soft plastic) does not work for Tetramorium so I am going to cover it with a black foil .
Sorry I wanted to say mud or dirt .

[amrik singh]

Here some pictures of nests covered to keep dark. Note the warming stone on the Tetramorium nest . The cable is covered with a ring of anti evasion very effective sort of oil that I use also on the far side of the dish instead of puting water.

[amrik singh]

As you can see the Solenopsis are still in the test tube and under . I think there is about 6 workers ( one have drowned).

[amrik singh]

There about 500 workers I think ( not 800) but much brood )not bad from 41 to 500 in two months. The room on the lef twas covered only with a red filter so they covered the glass from inside.The passagefrom the nest entrance to the arena tube used to be covered but they changed it and now the sand-loam is to dry .

[amrik singh]

[Creature]

Please dont make a new Post for every picture that u upload. U can
attach more then just one picture to one post

[amrik singh]

Note the sun flower seeds and Tenebrion pup.