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Post by john123 on May 1, 2018 19:35:10 GMT
Okay, I promise this is the last new thread for a while.... my bank balance needs time to recover. I was browsing British Ants website and came across a nice £10 off special on large colonies of Pheidole Noda, 150-200+ workers, having only gone on there to pick up another messor sub species for my collection.. I naturally ended up ordering both a founding messor nondentatus and the large Pheidole colony. They arrived today, having only ordered them Sunday that’s pretty speedy. Wow, they were just a mass of ants when they arrived, it was amazing to see. I was thrilled and very eager to get them out and into a bigger environment. I’ve done some digging through the forum and found they sometimes have an issue taking food, I’m pleased to say the early signs are that we won’t be having that problem. Anyway, here’s a few pictures, hoping they will move out of the tube in time if I keep the cover over the nest.   |
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Post by john123 on May 3, 2018 5:42:31 GMT
Just a small update on these girls. They are escape artists, with the humidity of two water sources I was getting condensation on the PTFE coated walls that was letting them climb up to the lid. I've since removed the test tube as they decided my dark 3D peinted nest was a better place to call home, plus added some escape proof vents into the lid to improve ventilation. I had some left over fine mesh from my terrarium, so cut some vents in the lid and covered them with mesh.
That mealworm I fed them was hollowed out, so I presented them with some protein jelly which they seemed very interested in. Hopefully should last them longer that the little meal worm. Do you reckon the would benefit from honey/sugar water? Has anyone that’s kept them successfully got a feeding routine they could suggest?
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Post by Wood~Ant on May 3, 2018 7:32:14 GMT
From my experience of keeping ants and small ant genus like Pheidole, they will drink honey or sugar water. Because small ants can get stuck and may drown, it is advisable to use only tiny drops or dip the end of a cotton bud in the honey water and put that into the foraging area, then the ants can suck from it.
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Post by john123 on May 4, 2018 5:32:36 GMT
I tried them on honey water last night, they showed a mild interest. Then I put in another half a mealworm and they went mad. They ended up carting it off into the nest, a collective effort by half a dozen of them. Slightly concerned that they might be using the far corner of the nest as a waste dump so I’m going to need to closely monitor that.
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Post by john123 on May 6, 2018 16:27:45 GMT
  They seem to have settled down well, I’ve noticed quite a pile of eggs against the acrylic in the nest and they happily accept any food offerings, that blue bottle barely fitted down the connection tube but they happily dragged it to their waiting brood. Comically one ant did accidentally pull off a leg whilst trying to drag the full fly, it scurried about with just the leg in its jaws erratically for a while. |
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Post by john123 on May 27, 2018 8:51:34 GMT
 I'm glad to say they must have settled and enjoy their nest set up as the queen appears to have been very busy. There are a few workers that carry around bundles of eggs. They don’t seem to have a dedicated nursery area which is odd, they seem to prefer to spread the brood out around the nest. |
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Post by Wood~Ant on Jun 5, 2018 18:14:57 GMT
How are things going with this colony now John?
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Post by john123 on Jun 5, 2018 19:30:51 GMT
Funny you should ask, I had to swap their out world water supply yesterday, which was a massive pain as they refused to have less than 5 workers on it at any one time, even when I bribed them with food. Basically I was using a small canary water bottle, blocked up with cotton wool, but they seemed to bore through the damp cotton wool and end up drowning in the main reservoir... which is bizarre... there was no other way they could have ended up floating in there. So anyway, they’ve got an even smaller drinker now with a thicker bit of cotton wool blocking it off. I also attached a test tube to the nest to encourage them to use that as a waste site rather than leaving anything in the nest. You can see the set up and the nest in the pictures. There are are plenty of brood and they seem lively enough, preferring random flies and spiders to the feeder insects I’ve bought for them. I took the whole set up out of the heated cupboard for the picture.   |
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Post by UKantz on Jun 5, 2018 20:30:29 GMT
My noda colony did the same thing, they've moved out from their nest and into the water reservoir where they continuously tunnel into it  |
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Post by john123 on Aug 8, 2018 16:31:25 GMT
Slightly unfortunate update on these guys, they are a pain in the backside. Definitely the messiest ant species I’ve kept, I really struggled with mould and general cleanliness. They’d leave things to rot in their nest and seemed to take pleasure in spreading anything that they did drag out across their out world, rather than using a garbage site. It started to effect brood development so I’ve fished them out of their original set up, and they are now in a tubs and tubes style set up. Two test tube setups side by side within a tub that’s had its walls coated in PTFE. Since the move I’m happy to say they are doing fairly well, I’m mainly feeding them jelly to limit the mess. Managed to get a nice snap of one of the majors  |
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