30 replies to this topic

[UberDuber]

Hi guys,

 

I recently caught an Atta Texana flight in Texas and am now the proud owner of about 60 alates and dealates. I have read Cheeto's guides, as well as many other topics and videos, but can't seem to find an answer to some general questions. Apologies if the answers are out there in other topics and I just missed them

 

Some background on my setups: I have 3-4 queens each in deli cups with 1-2cm of Plaster of Paris (I couldn't get hydrostone/ultracal in time). Some of the cups have play sand on top of the plaster, others just have play sand and no plaster. They also each have a spout coming out of the cup to add water through, though it was my first time using plaster, and I messed up and the hydration spouts are filled with plaster as well (lol). I have added some vinyl tubing to create a water reservoir, but did not have time to test it before the flight, so I left the plaster mostly dry and added a small plate with wet cotton instead for now. I've added some pictures

 

- How often should I add water to the plaster and how much? Assuming the plaster is mostly dry at this point.

 

- If I do use the hydration spout, is there a possibility that keeping a reserve of water would cause the water to eventually pass through the plaster and flood the founding chamber? If so, is it better just to water the plaster directly with small amounts of water from time to time and forego the reservoir? 

 

- For A. Texana, I know there is a lot of queen death. How often would it be safe to check and remove dead queens? I'm trying to disturb them as little as possible, but I know there will be some initial deaths and would hate for the dead queens to mold and kill off the others in the chamber. I also figure if I rely on the wet cotton and not the plaster, I would want to swap out the cotton often to prevent mold.

 

Any other general tips on how plaster hydration works and/or how to care for new atta queens is much appreciated!

 

 

 

 

Attached Images

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[aznphenom]

I am also new with atta (recently caught them myself) but I am better versed in plaster. 

 

First, Plaster of paris will deteriorate quickly if constantly wet and most likely mold.

 

Like most plaster base nests, its meant to be constantly moist. You can use the spout if you want, it would help not having to open the lid to water it. Especially with that container, you most likely have to pull pretty hard to open it, shaking the whole thing. You would definitely have to gauge how much water you put into the spout. Eyeballing your photos, you can probably fill the spout the first time to the top with water and it will spread slowly. it shouldn't be flood. To be safe, you can do it to an empty set up to be safe. You can stick with a wet cotton method and leave the plaster dry. 

 

You need to remove a dead queen asap. They will most definitely mold. I have checked mine daily because I am eyeballing their fungus growth to maybe split pieces to ones that don't have any fungus (I took some queens in the middle of them digger in their chambers so I don't know if they have dropped their fungus or not).

[mmcguffi]

so I left the plaster mostly dry and added a small plate with wet cotton instead for now.

 

Remove the cotton -- this will likely mold/grow bacteria quickly and shouldn't be used

 

- How often should I add water to the plaster and how much? Assuming the plaster is mostly dry at this point.

 

Add water when the plaster color starts to change. The plaster should definitely be moist at all times. That said, contrary to popular belief, you don't want 100% humidity (where you can see condensation on the walls). In my experience this quickly kills the fungus. You generally just want "high" humidity. I start with water-saturated plaster, so I'm not sure if I can give specific advice to your situation

 

- If I do use the hydration spout, is there a possibility that keeping a reserve of water would cause the water to eventually pass through the plaster and flood the founding chamber? If so, is it better just to water the plaster directly with small amounts of water from time to time and forego the reservoir? 

While the hydration spout is nice maybe, I wouldn't spend time constructing them since the time to make them is much greater than time to water. If all the founding chambers already have a spout, it's totally fine to add water there -- maybe even preferable. You should only have to water a few times (at most) during founding to make sure you have the proper humidity. That calculation is with hydrostone/ultracal though, so I'm less familiar with how pure gypsum (plaster of paris) behaves

 

 

 

- For A. Texana, I know there is a lot of queen death. How often would it be safe to check and remove dead queens? I'm trying to disturb them as little as possible, but I know there will be some initial deaths and would hate for the dead queens to mold and kill off the others in the chamber. I also figure if I rely on the wet cotton and not the plaster, I would want to swap out the cotton often to prevent mold.

The queens are super light sensitive the first month or so. Light during this phase can really stress them and cause them to eat brood/kill their fungus/etc, but removing dead queens is important. I would check every few days at night with a red light and remove the dead queens 

 

 

Any other general tips on how plaster hydration works and/or how to care for new atta queens is much appreciated!

 

Plaster of paris is not ideal, but I wouldn't switch them at this point. Just be on the look out for weird growth on the plaster. You might want to construct some alternate founding chambers just in case. You can get little containers (I bought some on amazon sold for jelloshots) and fill the bottom with a cm or so of hydro stone. You can also put play sand on top of that, but I think either way is sufficient

 

Good luck!

Edited by mmcguffi, May 9 2022 - 1:06 PM.

[UberDuber]

Awesome, thank you both for your input!

[mmcguffi]

For reference, here is how Ulrich Mueller keeps his Atta foundresses:

 

 

As you can see, sometimes we over-think it

[UberDuber]

Yeah, my ultracal order actually got in yesterday so I'm going to make some extras that will just be the cement in a dish, nothing else. There are colonies by me that have not flown yet, so I may end up with more ladies anyways.

 

Where do you get your gypsum cement / hydrostone? I can't seem to find a place to buy in bulk (like 50 lb bag) without it being crazy expensive.

 

I'm guessing as far as when you are watering, that it's a small amount? Like, just several drops?

[FloridaAnts]

What do you plan to do with so many colonies?(If at least 10 succeed)Sell them? Release them?

[UberDuber]

A lot of what I caught were alates (still have wings), and this species has notoriously low survivability in the founding stage. I'll consider myself lucky if I get 3 successful colonies out of the bunch. I would like to keep more than one, but I guess if I got three, I would sell one when they get too much to take care of.

[FloridaAnts]

A lot of what I caught were alates (still have wings), and this species has notoriously low survivability in the founding stage. I'll consider myself lucky if I get 3 successful colonies out of the bunch. I would like to keep more than one, but I guess if I got three, I would sell one when they get too much to take care of.

Maybe our method for raising these ants needs to be perfected, but I am sure that won’t happen until someone starts trying almost every way possible to raise them.(And it would still take a while)

I have heard these colonies go for quite a bit when large….

[UberDuber]

Update: I checked tonight and removed the dead. There were 3 deceased queens, two of which I had suspected were injured, so I'm not surprised on them.

 

I have a "test" founding chamber just like the ones I'm using that I will be adding water to and hoping to figure out how much I should add to my existing ones.

 

I only opened containers with dead queens tonight. They did not seem upset by the red light, though some had very obviously not settled yet.

 

I will probably take the cotton out soon once I figure out how I want to hydrate. The only reason I don't immediately dismiss the cotton is that it's on a plastic tray I could easily replace. I could even replace it consistently throughout the founding process if I wanted. I could much more easily swap the cotton than the gypsum, and I'm able to easily see all sides of the cotton to know if it molds, whereas I could miss it on the gypsum, especially in the ones with sand.

 

Anyways, those are some of my thoughts for now. Going to give them a few days to settle (it's been 3 days since the flight), and test the unused plaster in the mean time.

 

Thanks again for the advice. I might just keep putting updates in here to document what happens

[UberDuber]

 

A lot of what I caught were alates (still have wings), and this species has notoriously low survivability in the founding stage. I'll consider myself lucky if I get 3 successful colonies out of the bunch. I would like to keep more than one, but I guess if I got three, I would sell one when they get too much to take care of.

Maybe our method for raising these ants needs to be perfected, but I am sure that won’t happen until someone starts trying almost every way possible to raise them.(And it would still take a while)

I have heard these colonies go for quite a bit when large….

 

 

You are right, they are a very valuable ant. However, this species just sends out tons of queens, knowing most will die. Pretty much all ants do this, but atta even more so. It's also a very well researched ant. Dr. Mueller, who McGuffie mentioned, is a well respected researcher of atta.

Edited by UberDuber, May 9 2022 - 6:15 PM.

[aznphenom]

A lot of what I caught were alates (still have wings), and this species has notoriously low survivability in the founding stage. I'll consider myself lucky if I get 3 successful colonies out of the bunch. I would like to keep more than one, but I guess if I got three, I would sell one when they get too much to take care of.

Maybe our method for raising these ants needs to be perfected, but I am sure that won’t happen until someone starts trying almost every way possible to raise them.(And it would still take a while)
I have heard these colonies go for quite a bit when large….

They’ll eventually go down as people get them each year. This is only like the 2nd year of people finding them in mass. And we are learning from how to be more successful with them.

[mmcguffi]

 

They’ll eventually go down as people get them each year. This is only like the 2nd year of people finding them in mass. And we are learning from how to be more successful with them.

 

 

 

Maybe our method for raising these ants needs to be perfected, but I am sure that won’t happen until someone starts trying almost every way possible to raise them.(And it would still take a while)
I have heard these colonies go for quite a bit when large…. 

 

 

There is quite a bit of hubris in these statements! People have been rearing Atta for decades and decades, not to mention people have been finding Atta in masses for millennia. Here is a recent (2015) paper that quantifies the overall mortality of Atta texana foundresses: http://www.sbs.utexa..._InsSoc2015.pdf  tldr: A. texana die a lot during the founding stages

 

I'm sure there is a bit optimizing around the edges to reduce mortality, but @aznphenom you'll (unfortunately) see how common mortality and infertility are with the Atta you collected this year

Edited by mmcguffi, May 10 2022 - 7:01 AM.

[FloridaAnts]

Is it rare to find them mating? If they are unmated, it would be a shame if it was one of the unmated ones to successfully rear males.(Or is this different in Atta)

[mmcguffi]

Is it rare to find them mating? If they are unmated, it would be a shame if it was one of the unmated ones to successfully rear males.(Or is this different in Atta)

 

As far a I know no one has observed any Atta mating -- they mate high in the air, mid-flight. I know no one has observed A. texana mating, at least. Also, many (all? not sure) Atta are obligately polyandrous -- meaning they must mate with several drones mid-flight, otherwise they are not able to produce workers 

[UberDuber]

RE: The mating, my friend who got to the flight before me said the drones and queens made a swarm around the street lights and buzzed around for a while before dropping and shedding wings. Presumably, this was him witnessing the actual mating process, but of course, there's no way to pinpoint which queen was fully inseminated. I've seen mating swarms on the ground as well and it's just too hectic to point out individual queens. Best way is still to pick queens that seem healthy and have successfully torn off their wings.

 

Back on the hydration stuff though.

 

McGuffi, how did you 'soak' your hydrostone once it was set before introducing the queens? Do you just fill up the container with water over and over until no more is absorbed, and then wipe out the excess? Then just add a few drops a couple times during the founding process?

 

Thanks!

[mmcguffi]

 

McGuffi, how did you 'soak' your hydrostone once it was set before introducing the queens? Do you just fill up the container with water over and over until no more is absorbed, and then wipe out the excess? Then just add a few drops a couple times during the founding process?

 

Thanks!

 

I found that you need to let the hydrostone cure and completely dry out for at least a few days (but I wait a week), otherwise it appears to be toxic to the ants ...or at the very least this is true for the brand I use (Plasterguys; ebay). After that, I add an excess of DI water and let it soak for ~10-15 min (though longer is fine, obviously) and dump the rest. I then let it air out until I can't see any residual water (an other ~15 min) before sealing it / adding fungus / etc

[UberDuber]

Hey guys,

 

Here is an update on my Atta Founding Journey:

 

- I tested my mock setup (pictured below) and it took filling up the tube 4 times to saturate the plaster of paris with water. I left the tube full of water for a couple days as well. What I noticed was that there was significant condensation on the inside of the chamber, which would not be ideal for Atta founding, but there was no risk of flooding. The plaster did not deteriorate in any way during my testing, though I'm sure it would eventually.

 

- I was able to find a local supplier for Hydrostone in my area and created new founding chambers that are nothing but hydrostone in a cup and a couple small holes drilled in the lid, which I'll use moving forward. I'm hoping to catch one more flight this year, as there are areas near me that have not flown. Also I now have extra cups if I do see a mold problem and have to move a colony. Mmcguffi's detailed explanation was perfect and I feel much more confident with plaster use now. (Thank you!!) One thing I would note is that I used a 5 gal paint bucket and a paint mixing drill bit to mix my plaster. It was wayyyyy easier this way, and I would recommend avoiding stirring the plaster by hand.

 

- I checked the queens on Saturday, which is my second check, and I'm up to 10 dead (5 alate, 5 dealate). Every container has a large egg pile, but only one container had noticeable fungus. Hopefully next time I check, I'll be able to visually confirm more fungus. However, I am going to start seeing if I can find some boost fungus anyways, just in case.

 

- My strategy for now is to only open the containers that have a dead queen. On those containers, I removed the cotton, added the water tube, and filled it once, which should change my hydration method away from the cotton, but also not provide so much water as to cause excessive condensation. I checked the cotton on the ones I removed and there is no evidence of mold growth, so I think I'm safe to leave them a bit longer in the ones that didn't have a dead queen, in order to give the queens a bit more time to settle before opening the container.

 

Still open to advice and feedback, but if nothing else, hopefully this will be a good read for new atta owners later on

[mmcguffi]

All your Atta should have noticeable fungus gardens by now -- I've been calling them "fungal discs" since they are flat and wide, but I'm not sure if they have a proper name. They only need a tiny crumb of fungus to get a garden started, so you could try and transplant from your other colony / colonies (at the risk of stressing those colonies of course)

[UberDuber]

I guess I need to look into buying fungus from someone then lol Even the one that has it, it's barely a crumb.