19 replies to this topic

[Californian Anter]

^^^

[AntLoverAdam]

Sugar water can be used, but its still recommended to use water.

[LC3]

Ants don't need to drink water, they get most of it from their food or absorb it through their exoskeleton. They can certainly drink water though. 

[Kevin]

Never put sugar water in a test tube setup. It can crystallize on brood and all over the setup. Also much more prone to mold, in general it's a colony killer.

[thosaka]

Never put sugar water in a test tube setup. It can crystallize on brood and all over the setup. Also much more prone to mold, in general it's a colony killer.

Yeah, I made that mistake. I mixed cane sugar powder with water, and the puddles crystallized. It almost froze my queen!

[Jelly]

This seems like a good thread to ask.
What ratio of water and sugar do you guys use to feed the ants?
Right now I've been saturating the sugar by heating up water, dissolving, then letting it cool.

[Mdrogun]

This seems like a good thread to ask.
What ratio of water and sugar do you guys use to feed the ants?
Right now I've been saturating the sugar by heating up water, dissolving, then letting it cool.

When making sugar water I normally boil the water, add as much sugar as will dissolve and then I let it cool.

[MrPurpleB]

When I create sugar water I just add some water and sugar. I think the ratio it was like 3 sugar for 4 water. Since I only have one colony, I usually only make a little and sir until the sugar dissolves. I would still recommend adding a water source and a sugar source.

[Works4TheGood]

Never put sugar water in a test tube setup. It can crystallize on brood and all over the setup. Also much more prone to mold, in general it's a colony killer.

I actually do this for all my colonies. I haven't had problems just yet. Perhaps the level of success varies depending on the setup, colony size, and species?

[Serafine]

This seems like a good thread to ask.
What ratio of water and sugar do you guys use to feed the ants?
Right now I've been saturating the sugar by heating up water, dissolving, then letting it cool.

Doesn't really matter. My ants were happy with 1:1, 3:1 ad 4:1. Although I must say the 1:1 was the most stable and had the least mold.

[ctantkeeper]

you should never load sugar water into a THA water tower or to hydrate any formicaria for that manner. You can serve your ants sugar water in the outworld as food however, but you will still need to hydrate your formicaria with good old fashioned water!!! It is of utmost importance that the nest is hydrated periodically. 

[Batspiderfish]

Sugar mixed with water is a recipe for microorganisms which will break it into acids and alcohols.

[Jelly]

 

This seems like a good thread to ask.
What ratio of water and sugar do you guys use to feed the ants?
Right now I've been saturating the sugar by heating up water, dissolving, then letting it cool.

Doesn't really matter. My ants were happy with 1:1, 3:1 ad 4:1. Although I must say the 1:1 was the most stable and had the least mold

 

Assuming you mean 3, 4 parts sugar and 1 part water. 

I like stability anyways so ill use 1:1, are you measuring by weight or volume? 

[Serafine]

I mean 4 parts water and 1 part sugar. 4 Parts sugar and 1 part water wouldn't even dissolve.

I did it by volume, just filled the tube to half with sugar, half water. But it didn't really matter anyway cause my ants will happily even take pure honey.

Edited by Serafine, March 24 2017 - 1:57 PM.

[Jelly]

I mean 4 parts water and 1 part sugar. 4 Parts sugar and 1 part water wouldn't even dissolve.

I did it by volume, just filled the tube to half with sugar, half water. But it didn't really matter anyway cause my ants will happily even take pure honey.

 

Yes i meant to put 4 parts water and 1 part sugar...

The visual of all that sugar LOL

[Antsinmycloset]

1:1? Wow.

I've been wondering lately if I could make sugar water too strong and either dehydrate the ants or nuke their gut flora, but I'm suddenly not feeling as bad about 1:3 mixes. Good to know.

[drtrmiller]

15 replies in 24 hours to a question about sugar water?

There are folks out there (not in this forum) who have hurled insults my way the past couple years for offering Sunburst Ant Nectar, which is essentially perfected sugar water. They argue that sugar water is so simple; and yet, there continue to exist multitudinous questions on the subject and recipes to be offered. I have lost count of the number of folks who claim their ants refuse homemade honey, honey water, or sugar water preparations. Some recipes I see are expressed by volume, while others are measured by weight.

The simple answer to your question is that captive ants should always have a separate source of plain drinking water! Any sugary solution offered—be it homemade preparations of honey water or sugar water, or commercially available ones like Sunburst Ant Nectar—will change over time, either by evaporation, making it syrupy and less attractive to the ants, or by microbial growth, also making it unpalatable and potentially harmful. If the ants do not have a source of clean drinking water when this inevitably happens, they can die of dehydration in spite of having a full feeder full of a spoiled or suboptimal sugary solution! Even Sunburst may become suboptimal if allowed to evaporate and turn into a syrup—no sugary solution is immune, and all should be completely replaced every 2 to 3 days.

Beyond this, there is the concern of how to optimally prepare homemade solutions, as a matter of method:

I just performed a rough calculation with my sugar (which is going to be different from your sugar because of the particle size and crystal density), and obtained a measurement of 0.83 g/cc. Based on the molecular weight of 1.59 g/cc, about half that volume of my sugar is air. Using coarser or finer crystals will yield a completely different result than measuring by volume! This is a major problem for anyone who uses volumetric measurements!

During the development of Sunburst Ant Nectar, 12 commonly found ant species were fed 30 different solutions, including controls, and many variations of sucrose solutions, honey water solutions, maltose water solutions, and some with other ingredients added (salts, acids, bases, etc.) in a 3-stage trial—165 separate tests—where the number of ants feeding at various intervals was recorded and tabulated into 17 separate tables. It is from all this data that an optimal solution was determined, which is now sold as Sunburst Ant Nectar. The results, even between very closely related formulations, were shockingly disparate.

As a result, it is almost a necessity that homemade sugar water preparations be experimented with, as they will almost always be suboptimal. If one insists on preparing homemade sugar water, but the solutions are poorly received by the ants, experiment with various ratios until you find the right one(s). While Sunburst is designed to be the holy grail of sugary foods for ants, it's perfectly acceptable to use your own solutions, and to keep Sunburst around almost medicinally, for when nothing else works. Based on my knowledge and experience, ants will never be more receptive to any honey, fruit, sugar product, or homemade sugar solution than they are to Sunburst—but it is possible for the antkeeper hobbyist to come very close, with some effort and careful calculation.

Edited by drtrmiller, March 24 2017 - 4:29 PM.

[Serafine]

Luckily I never had any issues as my ants accepted literally any sugar source I offered them.

[dspdrew]

I have sugar-water solutions in feeders for months sometimes in my colonies and they continue to drink it.

[Mdrogun]

I have sugar-water solutions in feeders for months sometimes in my colonies and they continue to drink it.

I second this. I'm currently using the same sugar water I did 3 months ago.