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How to Clean a Foraging Area

clean foraging area outworld crystals tutorial tips

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8 replies to this topic

#1 Offline Crystals - Posted July 9 2015 - 6:46 PM

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How to clean your ants foraging area

 

 

So, you fed your ants and now you have a mess to clean up.  Somehow. 

This can be a lot more fun with aggressive species or species with a painful sting.

 

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There are many ways to clean the foraging area, the method often depends on how large the colony is and how many ants hang out in the foraging area. 

 

Here are several methods:

  • Tweezers to remove large pieces
  • Paint brush and scoop to sweep up the garbage
  • Suction (I use a dust buster)
  • Convince the ants to pile their garbage in something easily removeable
  • Detach foraging area from nest to allow for a thorough cleaning

 

 

 

Tweezers (I like the anti-static tweezers)

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Paint brush and scoop (works best with few ants in the foraging area)

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Suction

I use a dust buster with a homemade aspirator attached, and then use featherweight forceps to pick up ants that got sucked into the aspirator and put them back into the outworld.  Very good for quick cleans in larger colonies as the dust coats the aspirator and the ants can't climb out.

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Easily removable garbage pile 

Some ants will always pile their garbage in a lid, or containers in a distant corner.  Some ants pile garbage on tin foil with traces of old sugar water (as you can see in my very top picture).  Easily removable for cleaning.  My Lasius were kind enough to always dump their garbage in this pill bottle.  If there always seems to be hundreds of workers on or in these containers, raise the containers and most of the ants will go back down within a few hours (which is why the green cap in the top picture is raised).

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Detach foraging area from nest to allow for a thorough cleaning.

I will often just tidy up the majority of the mess every week or so. Once or twice a year, I detach my foraging area from the nest and give it a thorough cleaning.  I attach a second foraging and use feather weight forceps to move all workers in the dirty foraging area to the clean one.


Edited by Crystals, December 28 2017 - 3:56 PM.

  • dspdrew, dermy, drtrmiller and 5 others like this

"Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astound the rest." -- Samuel Clemens

 

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#2 Offline Herdo - Posted July 9 2015 - 7:39 PM

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This is very helpful Crystals, thank you.  I'm getting ready to build my first outworld so this post will come in handy. :)



#3 Offline dspdrew - Posted July 10 2015 - 7:10 AM

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Nice.



#4 Offline yen_saw - Posted July 12 2015 - 9:07 AM

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This is what i use for cleaning but i also bring this along for collecting ants.

 

vacuum_zps3g3ly06j.jpg



#5 Offline Crystals - Posted July 12 2015 - 1:54 PM

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I saw that online.  How well do they work?


"Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astound the rest." -- Samuel Clemens

 

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#6 Offline LC3 - Posted July 12 2015 - 2:22 PM

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Is there an ant in the storage thingee?



#7 Offline yen_saw - Posted July 12 2015 - 4:08 PM

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I saw that online.  How well do they work?

So far it works well on cleaning up waste and large ants.


Is there an ant in the storage thingee?

No that's just a mark. 



#8 Offline tomrules111 - Posted June 14 2017 - 2:46 AM

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This is what i use for cleaning but i also bring this along for collecting ants.

 

vacuum_zps3g3ly06j.jpg

 

where did you buy this from? need one asap



#9 Offline Crystals - Posted June 14 2017 - 6:23 AM

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where did you buy this from? need one asap

 

 

I am pretty sure that I have seen those on ebay, amazon and on aliexpress.


"Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astound the rest." -- Samuel Clemens

 

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