166 replies to this topic

[ANTdrew]

There is so much we don’t know about ants, and captive ants in particular. This may just be one of those mysteries you never fully solve. I find nematodes highly unlikely, though, since you carefully sterilize foods. As long as births outpace deaths, they will be fine.

[BleepingBleepers]

Have always enjoyed your journal. Also want to say thanks for stopping by on my journals or posts and giving some insight and comments, whether it be for fun or ant-ucational purposes.

 

I hope you figure out the issue with your ants.

 

Something just popped into my mind, just throwing an idea out there so don't ask me about the scientific bases that it's based on as there's none, but the chewing of the foil......would there ever be issue of them ingesting it somehow, hence the possibility of it also mixing with other stuff and forming that black stuff in your ants somehow? Just saying, no clue, always thought it was kinda interesting honestly.

 

Again, if it was me, I'd prob send a sample to some entomologist / myrmecologists and probably be interested in buying a microscope and checking it out, would be fascinating and useful to us ant keepers that may come across your issue in the future as well.

 

Anyhow, GL and best wishes, hope everything goes well or gets better with the issue.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

^ Thanks, and thanks for keeping your journals too.

 

On foil:

I once gave them a single ply unfolded bit of foil. When i looked in a couple hours later, it was missing about 15% or so, just  torn off in chunks. Which i never found anywhere.

But that was one time only and some time ago now. On all the folded foil bits that are several layers thick they never tear it apart, just dent it up but nothing ever torn off. So i don't think they are eating it. I do make sure to fold it so that single ply layers are not on the outside but folded up internally. Though honestly that's to scratch my OCD itch, wasn't thinking of them in that until after the single ply experiment.

 

 

 

I spent about three days scrutinizing the colony, and culling ants that had any oddities to them. Notably ones with a seemingly off distribution of internal blackening/discoloring in their gasters.
Among them so far i have found a few younger (lighter coloring) workers that were dying and clearly had very wrong gaster coloring.
I have preserved some of them in alcohol, in case i come into contact with the right biology field people or obtain a microscope of my own.

 

The colony appears to be doing fine, and i just imagine that they look at me differently, now that the true nature of our relationship has been revealed.

 

 

Yesterday i removed one ant(to the alcohol preserve) after not culling any for a few days. It was one of the few younger ones i found dying of whatever this is with an obviously wrong coloring internal to their gaster.

 

But only having seen a few of those and removing them quickly, I feel like it means they are not too bad off and getting better....maybe?

I figure as long as the queen is not infected, and if this is something just passing through. Then the colony can weather whatever this is.

 

Still would be nice to have knowledge and not be acting on best guesses here.

 

 

On the lighter side, the colony seems mostly fine despite my imprisonment, and continuing to grow with a large brood pile that turns out about 10+ new workers a week.

They continue to "play" with foil. Here they are going in for some fancy cat food, but you can see they decorated the fake succulent there on the right.

 

Their nest has at least 4 chambers of dried apple larder at any given time for a while now. Once they got to a >X size, they became really aggressive about cutting up and stashing apple. So i wanted to stop giving it to them as much and needed a sugar alternative for the adults.

So i got them sunburst for the first time.

They do drink it form the dispensers, but they also stuff dirt in them and they clog up kinda fast. I found they go after it the most if i just put a drop or two on a dish for them.

 

 

I do have to keep an eye on it, as it gets sticky quickly with the water evaporating. Sometimes an ant will get stuck in it. But then i just use the blunt tip and squirt a little water on the sticky spot. The ant is instantly unstuck, the water absorbs the sugar, and the ants go nuts for it all over again. Without adding more sunburst, just water. I flip a tray out once a day for them now.

 

Foraging that fancy cat food for the brood.

 

FYI technically it is cat food, but like fancy pants high quality stuff that's basically pate' for cats. My friend's cats turned their noses up at it so now my ants eat it. You'd be an idiot to pay this much for Ant food, do not buy this for your ants. But mostly cause i want to imagine my ants are super deluxe special and eat better food than all other ants. ; )
https://www.smalls.com/

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, February 5 2024 - 12:36 PM.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

As far as i can tell, whatever pathogen killed those younger ants turning their gastors back/white inside is not still around.

 

As well the die off rate seems ot have lowered a little, in terms of how many dead ants i notice each day.
It gets fairly macob to see them drink the juices from their dead sisters dismembered body parts. So if i notice a dead/dying ant I remove them. Which keeps me in tune with their die off rate. And i inspect them close these days for anything being off.

 

As far as i can tell everything is A ok in the colony.

 

 

I found they generally prefer real apple to the sunburst if i put both out at once. The apple will be busy while the sunburst is only occasionally sampled.

But if the sunburst is out on its own they get in for it. NOTE: in image below the apple is 2 day old dry while sunburst is fresh.

 

I also find they show more interest in the sunburst when i put a drop or two on a dish rather than leave it out in liquid feeders.

I wind up with a bit of interaction feeding them a drop of sunburst, and needing to keep an eye out for when it gets sticky as ants get trapped in even a thin film of it.

But adding a drip or two of water releases them and brings on a new crowd to drink the still sweet but now watered down sunburst.

 

I go back and forth all day, drip of sunburst, drips of water, drip of sunburst, drips of water. Removing the dish at night before bed.

 

 

 

And then something really special. I didn't notice this for a couple months maybe, and now i see it every time and sometimes it still gets me.

 

Oh no, an Anole got in here and is about to eat my ants!!!!

 

 

I mean that so got me the first time i noticed it. Clearly Mack at THA saw that and positioned it just right to be seen here. Like all optical illusions it works from just the right viewing angle, and reveals itself for what it is from others.

 

OMG it's just freaking perfect and i am amazed every time i see it.

Anole invader.

 

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

Long time no post.

Just been “busy”(other more interesting things) and not feeling like the authoring time.
Also I would wish for better and more pictures to offer, but again not an activity that enjoyably  passes the time for me outside of work grind. Hard to make myself do it when I could be playing video games or just enjoying the ants.

Still I continue to really enjoy the ants and spend time with them every day.
They have been with me now for a little over a year having arrived here in March of 2023. I imagine they were somewhere in the 8-15 month old range when they arrived with 28 ants and a brood pile.

They are now beyond counting, but I estimate no less than 320-375 adult ants now. The biggest outworld rarely has less than around 100-120 in it(which is  countable and what I use for estimating total size).
I estimate they average about 10 new ants eclosing a week these days. With that increasing at a very slow pace, maybe 1-2 more every 3-5 months maybe? The brood pile grows in size, but very slowly. As best as I can tell the egg  lay rate is just a tiny weeny  bit faster than the eclose rate. Hard to see it grow, but clearly it is bigger than it used to be.

 

I have given them some form of protein every week along with regular seeds this whole time.

Special near people grade cat food (smooth bird)
Freeze dried chicken hearts
High fish/shrimp content fish food flakes
And occasional feeder insects (crickets and waxworms)

For seeds I have THA seed packs as well as seeds from my local bulk food section (chia, poppy, hemp, etc) And I splurge on garden flower seed packs sometimes too. Lot of flower seeds the ants like in those that we don’t cook with, but really pricy compared to THA and bulk food isle seeds.

 

I still give them tinfoil bits to play with. Never single sheets, but tightly wadded balls or tightly folded shapes. They are hilarious to watch trying to  move around long pieces or circles where they all try to move in different directions with it. And whoever is strongest just drags everyone else along for the ride.

 

I need to expand  their nest and outworld space soon to meet their growth. At least for keeping them in the ratio of space I wish to afford them. At some point I will be out of space and have to cull their numbers or let them get over crowded. We’re rearranging  some space in the room to get more room for the ants. I’m going to move their nest to a wall shelf and give the whole current space over to one big outworld. I’m still going to go to THA for sand and decorations to use in it, but I’ll get the box made locally at TAP plastics I think. As I’m getting to a fairly substantial sized foot print box to ship it from the other side of the country.

And I plan to do loose sand and rock decorations instead of a permanent poured material as the ones I have now.
I realized I really like the first two outworlds I got but there’s just no good way to take them out of use and get them cleaned back to the state of looking new again. The next outworld I’ll do with a thin layer of sand and loose decorations. I can always redo that to a  new state easily, and change up the decoration at the same time too.

 

I recently swapped to the summer time LED overhead lights, and plan to keep them in place for the year. Allowing the colony to have maybe a little slow down in winter if the ambient is allowed to lower more. I’ll keep the heat cable on their nest but set the temps a little lower, and  the outworld to come down to whatever room ambient winds up being.At the size they are they drink a lot of water. A small bottle water lasted the whole first year, but now I’m already halfway though the 2nd bottle. I keep out at least 6 water dispenser and they are almost always busy. I just keep adding one until they are not all packed full every time I look in on them.

 

As well I noticed they are “tanking up” now that I offer them Sunburst. They were all over apple slices, however they started making an apple slice in a trash pile real fast now that they are so big. Making me need to vaccume up the trash almost 2x a week. This was going quite beyond my expectaions of being lazy and needed addressing
Lots of fat gasters to be seen that are much lighter in color now, being so full of yellow sunburst that an apple slice could not offer. And a watered down 1:3 ratio is more popular than full strength Sunburst here.

We’ve also been having escapees now and then. I have one outworld that’s 8” tall plexi walls, no lid. i ahd just been relying on their poor climing to keep them in. But their tenacidy wins in the end.
Every now and then one would make it out. Like one a month or so, very rare. And I never actually saw it happen. But then my honey found two in about as many weeks out and about in the house. So now I got a fluon smear going and much as I dislike the look, it works. No more escapees to be found.

 

Lastly, whatever makes the ants’ gasters start turning black is still present, but seems not to be slowing them down at all. As best as I can tell a few ants die earlier than normal, not having gotten as deeply dark red as they do in later age. And all the ones that die with younger looking color do exhibit this blackening of their gasters in some spot. Again not seeming to hold back the colony whatever this is, but no explanation or understanding why some of them (maybe about half at most) get this blackening on them. And only some of them seem to die early, I assume because of it.

 

I’ll post some images of the colony shortly.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

The "smooth bird' cat food feeding.

 

Some foil antics and apple slice


medium middle outworld with nestmate water dispensers

 

large outworld farthest out

 

popular watering hole with the locals



small seed fruits and berriers are popular. they will drink the sweet juices and excavate the small seeds.

blackberry made for a cute photo i think.



Strawberry on one day and then the next.



mmm, seedless strawberries.

Attached Images

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[Ernteameise]

Awesome pictures.

I love this colony and the whole setup.

It will be very fun to watch.

And I need to try this strawberry approach with my own harvesters. But I will have to wait for summer when there are regional organic ones (won't buy the pesticide ridden stuff that is on sale now in the supermarket).