11 replies to this topic

[Colophonius]

Hello, 

 

while most ant keeping journals focus on one kind of ants, this one will be a bit different. I currently keep several ant colonies and have already written German journals about them and while I want to share my experiences with you, I think simply translating my journals would be quite a dull affair. Therefore I decided that I will write a single journal where I will introduce my colonies time after time and will keep you in touch with the most interesting developments.

 

Enough talking, let's start with my newest colony:

Camponotus substitutus 

 

Roughly one and a half month ago (end of November 2014) I received a packet sent by a fellow ant keeper. It contained a small colony of C. substitutus. This kind of ants was often imported from Argentinia to German shops, but those imports stopped and now they are rarely kept in Germany. The previous owner gave them to me  for free , because he did someone take care of them instead of selling them again, according to him they were sold and re-sold for a while. Now they found their final destination and I will try my very best to nourish that colony. 

 

After they arrived I put them into a small glass formicarium and added a quickly built external YTONG-nest.

 

 

 

 

I used a heating mat to quickly convince them to move into that nest and managed to take some decent pictures of those beautiful ants. 

 

 

 

 

During shipping they seem to have lost all their brood except for a few eggs, but the healthy queen was eager to reproduce.

 

 

 

However, I was not totally happy with the situation. Those ants deserved a better place than a small, boring glass formicarium. So I took my old fish tank ( 80x50x30cm) and built it into my very first sub-tropican formicarium.

Eventhough some parts did not the work I wanted them to, I am still quite happy with the result.

 

 

The ants quickly moved unde the rock in the middle and I did have no clue about the colonies' development. A few days ago I added a heating mad to the large YTONG-nest on the front. Until today several ants moved there and brought their brood. It appears that my colony will soon be growing, a few days ago I could even witness the "birth" of an ant (didn't take pictures, though).

 

 

 

In a few days I will add yet another plant. Unfortunately the plant in the middle (Ficus scandens) ran dry while I was on vaccation and lost almost all of it's leaves, but it's growing again. 

 

Next colony I will be presenting are my North-African Messor minor hesperius. 

Edited by Colophonius, January 14 2015 - 5:30 AM.

[drtrmiller]

I made a similar tropical, planted setup. I enjoy observing the ants in such naturalistic setups.

[Mercutia]

Do you know how old the colony approximately is?

[dspdrew]

I like that out world.

[Colophonius]

Do you know how old the colony approximately is?

 

 

Probably around three years old. They must have lost a lot of workers /brood over the years, though. There are around 80 ants and that's a really small amount of workers for a three year old colony.

[Colophonius]

After having introduced my newest colony, I will continue with my largest colony.

 

Messor minor hesperius

 

Unlike the South American C. substitutus, they originate from North Africa. According to some information on the internet, they are only found on Macaronesia, which is a group of islands close to Morocco. ( http://en.wikipedia....iki/Macaronesia ) I don't really know if these information are correct, but I just assume they are. 

 

I purchased the queen and roughly 40 workers in February 2014, so almost one year ago. Before that I had only kept native ants and those had been in hibernation for a while and since ants are my only pets, I decided to give exotic ants a try. Similar to Pogonomymex and Veromessor, Messor are harvester ants. 

 

After they arrived in a test tube, I kept them at a slightly increased room temperature (~20-25°C)

 

 

Unfortunately, a lot of ants began to die. Today, I am not sure why they died. First of all I removed all decoration, which did not help at all. They had enough food and water to grow, but the larvae and puppae did not evolve. Some evening, I came home slightly drunk and very desperate because of my dieing ants, I added another heating mat to the formicarium. Suddenly the brood began to evolve and fewer ants died. I contacted the seller, but he assured me that he was keeping those ants on room temperature. Still, I decided to keep them warm all the time. In summer, the formicarium often warm up to 45°C. 

 

They soon became too large to fit into that test tube and slowly moved in an external ytong-nest. 

 

At first, it was a large nest for a few ants.

 

 

But the colony was quickly growing.

 

 

 

 

 

Soon they ran out of space and I decided that it was time to build a larger, better nest for them. 

 

I used a 60x20x12cm YTONG-block and added chambers on the front, on the top and on the right side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used a long tube to connect the old formicarium with the new one.

 

 

 

 

They have been living in this set up for three month now. Eventhough they don't require hibernation, I reduced the temperatures to simulate natural seasons. 

 

Meanwhile they are very active -at least at night time. Every evening around 10 p.m. they start to become very active and lots of ants begin to forage. I observed that this is not linked to the light in the room. 

 

 

Around one month ago I found the first reproduced gyne, which I understand as a sign for good care.

 

 

 

Keeping those ants in general appears to be very simple. They eat pretty much all seeds and nuts I gave them yet.

 

 

 

In the nest, they make "ant bread" from the seeds.

 

 

 

But they also eat insects and even freshly-caught fish:

 

 

The only thing they mostly don't eat is honey/sugar water. 

 

I think this is enough of introduction. 

After showing you my largest colony, the next update will feature my smallest ants. Pheidole pieli.

 

 

 

 

[dean_k]

Messor spp...

 

It's one of ant species I became very interested in while googling around because they are harvest ants. Quite jealous here.

[William. T]

It's too bad you can't find any harvester ants in MD.

.

Edited by Pheidole, January 14 2015 - 1:47 PM.

[Gregory2455]

Apheanogaster count as harvester ants I think, so you can.

[William. T]

I am sorry about that.

Edited by Pheidole, January 15 2015 - 6:40 PM.

[drtrmiller]

Really?! Wow! When do they fly in MD? How do you raise them? They are my priority for this year!

 

Please create a new topic if you wish to continue this line of questioning.

[Colophonius]

Hey,

 

before starting my new entry about Pheidole pieli, I'd just like to add that I would highly appreciate that you would make your own thread about harvester ants. Discussion about nuptial flights etc. don't really belong in a keeping journal. Thank you in advance .

 

Well, back to the ants:

Pheidole pieli.

My Pheidole pieli are from Malaysia and I bought this colony in july 2014 from a private seller. They are tiny ants (workers: 1mm, soldiers 3mm) and therefore require a highly efficient barrier to keep them from escaping. I myself am using a lid and a thick layer of paraffin oil. The ants seem to like high humidity ( >80%) and temperatures between 20 and 30°C. 

 

They were shipped in a test tube. 

Because of their tiny size, I didn't manage to get a good photo, but you will get the idea:
 

 

 

Initially, I used some kind of YTONG-nest for those ants. I used two small ytong boards with chambers on the inside. By that I wanted to create a small and very compact nest that offers enough space for the whole colony. According to the seller, who keeps those Pheidole for many years, they will reach approximately 2000 workers. Of course this set up had one big disadvantage: there was no visibility. However, the Pheidole seemed to like the nest and moved in within minutes after arrival.

 

Over the next months, they showed that they were capable of eating a lot of proteins. Honey however was barely touched. 

 

Here they are transporting a fly:

 

At some point, parts of the colony moved to the front pane and I managed to take photos of two queens, several workers and some males. 

 

 

I also tried to take a photo through magnifiying glasses. I really liked the style of the result.

 

 

 

 

While I mostly feed dead insects, I once fed a grass hopper that was not entirely dead. It was almost buried in ants. One intersting thing to notice are the mandibles of the soldiers. They are meant to cut though insects.

 

After a while, I did not like the set up. The formicarium was too small and there were some details that did not work (e.g. watering), so I decided to give them a new nest: I mixed white clay with white sand ( 1 unit of clay and 4 units of sand) to give them the possibility to shape their very own nest. 

 

 

 

In the background there is a heating mat which is currently disabled because it's winter. The ants quickly began to accapt the new formicarium, especially since I stopped watering the old nest and soon they moved in. 

 

Luckily they built a lot of chambers directly on the panes, so I can even see parts of their nest. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take any decent pictures yet - there is too much sand/clay sticking on the pane, but with a bright LED I could see that they got plenty of larvae. 

I also stopped using honey and used invert sugar instead. Now they drink a lot and I feel that the activity has increased. 

 

For now, I am looking forward to next season. When I will turn on the heat mat for several hours, the brood will surely develope quickly and the colony will grov even further