63 replies to this topic

[Gregory2455]

Some species hurt more.

[ToeNhi]

Andrew, have you consided leaving you design the way it is, and attaching a metal mesh to the back to prevent your ants from escaping? They may still tunnel through the ytong, but at least they won't be able to chew through the mesh.

[dspdrew]

Yeah, unless I design it for them to dig in, I don't want them digging. The whole idea is for this nest to be easily cleaned and reused. If the Ytong is getting all chewed up, this won't be happening.

[dspdrew]

Update 1-12-2015
 
I finally opened up this colony's formicarium and dumped all the ants into a tub. I saw what I hope was the queen. Seeing how many alates they were producing, and how many of them lost their wings, it's hard to be sure, but this one was pretty big so I'm pretty confident she was the queen. There wasn't a whole lot of brood in there, but there were some very small larvae, so the queen was definitely there two weeks ago or so, and still laying eggs. Using a picture of the tub, I counted at least 600 workers, so that's not too bad. Many of the missing 100 died while taking the formicarium apart due to the water tank leaking into the plastic tub. It was a pretty big mess, but at least I now have them all separated from everything except the Ytong nest.
 

 
 
I placed a large test tube setup in there and put a warm light on the Ytong. Once they move all their brood into the test tube, and I get them separated from the Ytong, I'll dump them into my third prototype formicarium that I just took the Camponotus out of and updated.
 
Edit: Actually I forgot this nest is acrylic, so I won't be able to put these in there due to their inability to climb smooth surfaces. This means I'm going to have to find something else to put them in.

Edited by dspdrew, June 20 2020 - 7:18 PM.

[Crystals]

I suppose you couldn't dump some very thin hydrostone in the acrylic formicarium and swish it around to cover the non-viewing surface?  Of course, that would be an eye sore in an otherwise nice looking formicarium.

 

Leave it to drew to harness the horse and forget his wagon was missing a wheel. 

[dspdrew]

No, Hydrostone will not stick to smooth surfaces at all. I am actually planning to maybe sand blast these nests anyways, so maybe I can just hold off on moving the Pogonomyrmex until I give that a try.

[dean_k]

A question for you since you relocate your colonies often. Do you think forceful relocation causes casualties?

[dspdrew]

If you physically injure them like I did this time, but other than that, I don't really think so.

[drtrmiller]

A question for you since you relocate your colonies often. Do you think forceful relocation causes casualties?

 

The only thing you could do to cause acute mortality, would be to over apply heat.

Edited by drtrmiller, January 12 2015 - 5:57 PM.

[InsideAntz]

Hi dsp, the popo's were a big part of why I do fish tank with soil and part... never have a problem with mold. I always drill a hole in the bottom of the tank to drain (using a glass cutter bit of course). 

soil and sand - sorry

[dspdrew]

Update 1-17-2015
 
I moved the colony into the Hydrostone testing prototype of the formicarium I'm designing. Unfortunately it looks like about another 50 workers died while they were in the tub for a few days. I'm not sure what caused this, but it seems my Veromessor kind of did the same thing.
 

 

[Miles]

I have a feeling that this prototype will do better than the Y-tong/Acrylic nests.

[dspdrew]

Yeah, it will have a few disadvantages, but I'm sure it will be a million times better for the ants.

[Crystals]

Drew, where do you find your hydrostone?  Also what section is it usually in?

I have looked up and down in northern Alberta and seem unable to find any despite checking out over 30 different hardware stores.

[dean_k]

Crystal, have you tried art supply stores? I know some use it to create sculptures.

[dspdrew]

Yeah, sculpting is what it's mainly used for. I don't think you're going to find it in a hardware store. I buy mine from Ebay or Amazon.

[dspdrew]

Update 1-29-2015
 

Today the queen finally laid a few eggs after not laying anything for quite some time. I did another count on this colony after all the deaths that happened during the last move, and they seem to be right around 600 workers.

[dspdrew]

Update 4-30-2015
 

This colony continued to shrink to probably around 300 or so workers. I moved them out of the test formicarium which was way too damp for them, and into another one of the large ant farm boxes I've been making. With these being a lot more mature than my other colonies, and the size of the workers being a bit larger, with the exception of the P. rugosus, they really started digging like crazy. At first they must have had about 30 separate nests being dug all around the sides. Eventually they narrowed this down to about 10 holes, and now they probably have about 5 entrances to their new nest. When I moved them in they only had a few larvae after the queen had recently started slowly producing again. Now they have a pretty big pile of brood, and I can always spot a cluster of fresh eggs. Hopefully this means they're making a come back.

[BugFinder]

I hope so too!

[YsTheAnt]

Update?