11 replies to this topic

[AntsInSpace]

Hi guys,

 

So drones and princesses leave the nest to find mates, but I'm wondering would a queen produce these two castes all year round, or a specific time, I'm guessing a while before the nuptial flight ? 

Further more, if they are only produced a while before nuptial flight, and these ants hatch, do they immediately leave the nest or wait a while until it's 'the right time' ? 

[VoidElecent]

When a colony is as large and stable as necessary, the queen will begin to produce eggs that eventually become "alates", usually before the species' nuptial flight season. These male and female reproductives will remain in the nest until conditions are suitable for a flight.

 

For future reference, you could very well have a published a single thread with more than one question.

[AntsInSpace]

Alright, what would you say is large and stable ? (take note how this question could have its own thread, and people browsing would see the thread title and think ah I can help there or hmm next.. but i'm not, causing me to lose out on possible answers because people don't know a question that they can answer resides in this post). 

So hopefully you can elaborate a bit more on what you mean by large and stable as necessary. 

Also thank you for the information on the queen ants decision making. 

 

If I think about large and stable as necessary, the only thing that comes to mind is, are they doing positively well, instead of dealing with too many problems, like insufficient food being found, insufficient workers alive at the moment, temperature changes and then the nuptial flight comes up soon but they've got too many problems so they'll skip it.. But would the queen actually skip it ? 

Edited by AntsInSpace, April 21 2018 - 6:56 AM.

[Martialis]

Alright, what would you say is large and stable ? (take note how this question could have its own thread, and people browsing would see the thread title and think ah I can help there or hmm next.. but i'm not, causing me to lose out on possible answers because people don't know a question that they can answer resides in this post). 

So hopefully you can elaborate a bit more on what you mean by large and stable as necessary. 

Also thank you for the information on the queen ants decision making. 

 

Queens don't really do any "thinking." They are only reproductives, not a queen in the human sense.

 

"Large" and "stable" means when it has grown to a size at which the colony is mature. This varies between species. Stability has to do with the accessibility of food and other resources to the colony.

 

 

A thread title such as "A few questions about the habits of ants" would be acceptable, as it states that there are multiple questions. 

 

If anything, making a thread for each question will actually decrease the amount of time people are willing to spend answering your question, especially when many could be grouped together under one topic.

[AntsInSpace]

What is your definition of a mature colony ? and what steps would need to be taken before the colony is considered mature ? 

 

Okay so for princesses the larvae require more food in order to become princesses, so I take it in that sense, if there isn't enough food then they won't be created. but that doesn't seem to be the same with drones. From what I understand their diet is no different than that of workers, only they're unfertilized which seems to be easier on the queen. So I think this part is relevant to the maturity of the colony.

 

Yes a thread title with a few questions etc would work, but individual threads work too. I'm not here to compare which one works best, only that the current method works for me and that I believe a thread with multiple unrelated questions would not provide the insight I need hence multiple threads allows me to see how many people viewed a thread, if a lot of people viewed it with no responses then it means I'm not going to get an answer on that. If I jam all those questions into one thread well who is going to want to answer all of them. And the responses will get confusing like which question is this person answering. Yeah no. If the system works why change it. 

[dermy]

 

Yes a thread title with a few questions etc would work, but individual threads work too. I'm not here to compare which one works best, only that the current method works for me and that I believe a thread with multiple unrelated questions would not provide the insight I need hence multiple threads allows me to see how many people viewed a thread, if a lot of people viewed it with no responses then it means I'm not going to get an answer on that. If I jam all those questions into one thread well who is going to want to answer all of them. And the responses will get confusing like which question is this person answering. Yeah no. If the system works why change it.

To be fair, if you put accurate terms into the either the tags of the thread, and the title of the thread you can easily make a thread with multiple questions. This makes it much easier to answer them all in sort of a numbering fashion like:

 

1- Question

Answer to Question 1:

 

etc.

 

This way people do not need to keep flipping through ten threads to answer ten questions and can instead focus on the one bigger thread. I've also noticed it generates a lot more replies and discussion than a single question thread.

Edited by dermy, April 21 2018 - 7:34 AM.

[VoidElecent]

Yes a thread title with a few questions etc would work, but individual threads work too. I'm not here to compare which one works best, only that the current method works for me and that I believe a thread with multiple unrelated questions would not provide the insight I need hence multiple threads allows me to see how many people viewed a thread, if a lot of people viewed it with no responses then it means I'm not going to get an answer on that. If I jam all those questions into one thread well who is going to want to answer all of them. And the responses will get confusing like which question is this person answering. Yeah no. If the system works why change it. 

 

No one is trying to argue with you; multiple threads to ask multiple questions are just inconvenient and obnoxious. People who want to browse new and interesting threads don't only want to read yours, as fascinating as they may possibly be.

 

A single thread with multiple questions would be concise, logical, and equally effective, if not more.

Edited by VoidElecent, April 21 2018 - 7:37 AM.

[AntsInSpace]

Alright then, I'll test that out.

 

Inconvenience isn't a plausible reason to change something. You don't remove the lid from your tank because it's an inconvenience as you can't stick your head into it to get a better view. 

You ever taken a walk in the streets and enjoyed everything about every single individual ? Did you try to change the behaviors of those individuals you found unpleasant ? If you changed those behaviors, did they go back home and once more became unpleasant to those they're turning to, for they have now changed in some manner. 

 

The only way to reason with me is to show me the benefit of trying a different approach. Since three people have brought this up now I'm going to try it and see how it works for myself. Since I'm not here to be unpleasant, if it doesn't work as well as individual threads then unfortunately efficiency cops pleasantries. 

Edited by AntsInSpace, April 21 2018 - 7:45 AM.

[LC3]

A note on ant colony maturity, ants tend to produce alates mostly if they have an abundance of high quality food regardless of size of the colony. While this can happen in captivity for a young colony in the wild a colony usually manages to obtain this threshold once they have a large work force and can stand up to intraspecific and interspecific competition and asserted themselves in their environment. What you would typically assume of a mature colony. And while this can happen early on in a younger colony in captivity the size of the colony would limit the alates reared to a few -far less then the hundreds or thousands a mature colony can produce.

 

In places that get winter some species rear their alates from overwintered larva (larva from the previous year), others will hibernate the queens and some will just rear it like any other larva during the spring or fall. The time larva are reared do not necessarily coincide with when the ants fly.

 

Additionally males often outnumber the females and in some species (Not sure how prevalent in ants as a whole) colonies either have a male or female bias. On the other hand some ants call for mates, which is when queens do not fly and instead sit at the nest entrance waiting for a male who is usually attracted by pheromones. Once mated she then flies to start a new colony. Some species can also inbreed with little apparent negative effect.

 

There are also ants that do not disperse via flight, sometimes they loose their wings all together (usually referred to as ergatoid) or are brachypterous (have tiny nonfunctional wings). A worker that has fully functional reproductive capabilities and otherwise acts and behaves like a queen is referred to as a gamergate. Some ants are also known to produce intercastes (ants that are in between worker and queen). Another oddity is in the case of Cardiocondyla males are wingless and worker like and will kill other males within the nest to stay as the sole mating male.

Edited by LC3, April 21 2018 - 10:01 PM.

[nurbs]

Inconvenience isn't a plausible reason to change something. You don't remove the lid from your tank because it's an inconvenience as you can't stick your head into it to get a better view. 

You ever taken a walk in the streets and enjoyed everything about every single individual ? Did you try to change the behaviors of those individuals you found unpleasant ? If you changed those behaviors, did they go back home and once more became unpleasant to those they're turning to, for they have now changed in some manner. 

 

 

Lolwut?

[Serafine]

Inconvenience isn't a plausible reason to change something.

Inconvenience is a VERY plausible reason. If you continue to clutter the forums with single question topics that could be all answered in the "short questions short answers" topic you will [censored] people off because it makes the forums pretty much unreadable and covers other interesting topics under a ton of newbie questions. At the point where half of the front page consists of your single-question topics moderators will likely step in and give you warning because what you're doing is essentially spam.

If you want to keep asking questions like this the Antkeeping Discord chat is probably a better place for you, forums really don't work that way.

Edited by Serafine, April 22 2018 - 1:31 AM.

[DaveJay]

I read this because it was listed as a result in a search for "gamergate" so I'm glad more questions weren't asked!
It's just a shame that I had to read all the "combine your questions into one post" rubbish, that really didn't streamline things much now did it? Lol