9 replies to this topic

[cap_backfire]

Hadn't thought about looking for a whole colony to bring home but are there any real cons to this practice?   Pros?   I'm pretty new and just testing my options.  Colony capture came up in a discussion recently and I went "Huh."  

The only problem I could see is having a setup of some sort ready to go at time of capture instead of a small test tube.  

[TechAnt]

Pros:
-Quicker than raising a queen

-Big and visible ant count

(maybe some other pros, only pros I can think off the top of my head are these)

 

Cons:

-Disrupts natural environment stability

-Stressful

-Possibly may lead to leaving the queen / lot of workers behind to die.

-You don't know their diet, unlike the stage in their early founding/small colony stage where you can test (unless you know the species' diet already

-Need a set-up to fit their size 

-Environment you took them from may fall into disarry

(and that's all I can think of)

 

Overall, if there are enough of these colonies in the area and you have the proper gear and knowledge researched how to properly do this, it is fine. If this is a major colony or needed in the environment, I would not recommend so.

[antsandmore]

Pros- 

a stable colony that made it past founding

many workers, good amount of workforce

can take care of brood and are responsible

Cons- 

takes away natural living conditions

chances of parasites

stress to colony

can kill queen while digging up

time consuming

[DDD101DDD]

These are just what I can think of right now but there are probably a lot more.

 

 

Pros for catching a whole colony:

• You know the queen is mated.
• Don't have to wait for a founding period
• Some species are hard to raise from a single queen so catching a whole colony skips that stage
• You can get a large colony instantly without having to wait a few years for it

Cons for catching a whole colony:

• Possibly mess up local ecosystem(I think this one is debatable)
• Could have trouble adapting to captivity and die
• Some would argue that it's more satisfying to raise a colony from a single queen
• You don't know how long the queen has been alive, it's possible she's very close to death or running out of sperm
• Taking a large colony could be overwhelming
• Colony could get killed while collecting

 

Pros for raising a colony from a single queen:

• Some would consider it more satisfying and fun
• It's less likely to harm the environment(as far as I know) 
• It presents more of a growth curve so you're not completely overwhelmed and you can slowly add on nests and get more insects
• Much easier then digging up a whole colony in my opinion

Cons for raising a colony from a single queen:

 

• You need to wait for the queen to found and get workers
• Some species grow slowly in the founding stage
• The queen might not be mated
• In some species it's really hard to found colonies from a single queen
• Tend to die randomly

[antsandmore]

 

These are just what I can think of right now but there are probably a lot more.

 

 

Pros for catching a whole colony:

• You know the queen is mated.
• Don't have to wait for a founding period
• Some species are hard to raise from a single queen so catching a whole colony skips that stage
• You can get a large colony instantly without having to wait a few years for it

Cons for catching a whole colony:

• Possibly mess up local ecosystem(I think this one is debatable)
• Could have trouble adapting to captivity and die
• Some would argue that it's more satisfying to raise a colony from a single queen
• You don't know how long the queen has been alive, it's possible she's very close to death or running out of sperm
• Taking a large colony could be overwhelming
• Colony could get killed while collecting

 

Pros for raising a colony from a single queen:

• Some would consider it more satisfying and fun
• It's less likely to harm the environment(as far as I know) 
• It presents more of a growth curve so you're not completely overwhelmed and you can slowly add on nests and get more insects
• Much easier then digging up a whole colony in my opinion

Cons for raising a colony from a single queen:

 

• You need to wait for the queen to found and get workers
• Some species grow slowly in the founding stage
• The queen might not be mated
• In some species it's really hard to found colonies from a single queen
• Tend to die randomly

 

this is great. I could probably add on a con for digging up a colony: if it is full grown, alates will be flying everywhere in the flight season.

[Manitobant]

Pros of collecting a colony:

- easy way to keep a species that is hard to found in captivity, like social parasites or cryptics

- colony is already healthy and stable

- you see interesting ant behaviour immediately

- some genera with ergatoid queens or gamergates can only be collected this way, such as leptogenys and diacamma

- less prone to random deaths

- can move into a formicarium immediately

- easier to perform experiments and observations with

- you instantly have a large colony



Cons of collecting a colony:

- takes an established colony and their alates (if they have any) out of the wild

- you don’t know how old the queen is

- can be stressful to the colony

- some workers will die (guaranteed in my experience)

- you may not collect the queen when digging them up and damage the colony if not successful



Pros of collecting a queen:

- you get to watch the colony grow

- very rewarding experience

- only takes single queens out of the wild



Cons of collecting a queen:

- may not be mated

- some species are very hard to found

- can die randomly

- colony isn’t stable

- you have to wait to see workers and interesting behaviour

[AntaholicAnonymous]

The ants don't just increase in numbers.
If you read through some journals on here you'll see that every colony has its unique story/behavior.
As a beginner you'd probably just make a sad end for a large wild colony that requires all the care that you didn't take the time to learn slowly.
I'd always go for a queen. Maybe a handful of workers if you want to buy one


You can always try an invasive species if you want to grab some but I'd leave the native colonies where they belong

[Canadant]

Well, if you're looking to get things going fast you can try to brood boost. It's very successful and less harmful to a wild colony.

[Kaelwizard]

Well, if you're looking to get things going fast you can try to brood boost. It's very successful and less harmful to a wild colony.

Yeah brood boosting is like the best of both worlds. I only ever take pupae, though, and not too much so that the wild colony doesn't lose an entire generation.

Edited by Kaelwizard, February 11 2021 - 4:15 AM.

[cap_backfire]

Thank you all for the input.   You echoed many of my own concerns and kind of showed me the way.   I'm "new" to ants but not to being a responsible outdoorsman.    
My takeaways are to take time to see if there is a likely/ possible local impact on collecting (or even disturbing) a nest in their area.   I'm not SUPER sold on having a difficult species to care for, but I like the idea of the challenge and just straight up watching them.   The colony I have now is literally enthralling-I could watch them for hours on end, and have done so.  My other two test tube queens are nowhere near as fun (diapause is SO BORING) but I tend to try and spoil them as well.   

 

In my research I don't feel like taking a queen or even a few queens from after nuptial flights is an issue since they blanket the area with elates and almost all of those are picked off by predators or mishaps anyway (don't want to get into the "What if that ONE QUEEN you snatched turned into a super colony and staved off invasives and changed the world" because that's a very steep/ slippery slope of nihilism to me.   

 

Thank you again for the input!  I strive to be responsible and am doing homework on how and what constitutes responsible ant collection.