|
Post by 1moldavite on Mar 10, 2019 17:33:55 GMT
Just lately I have noticed the appearance of much smaller workers,much smaller than the normal small workers,this has had me wondering as to why. Normally the first few workers a queen has are small,but my queen came with a ready made colony. I'm beginning to wonder if the ones she came with were indeed her own,obviously there is no way of knowing. After spending all day slowly carving into ytong yesterday only to realize that I didn't have the right size drill bit for drilling the entrance hole into the nest,I relented and bought a ytong nest from aus Ants. It may be delayed as there are bushfires apparently,so I'm waiting on that,when it arrives I'll be attaching the nest via tubing. This will give my ants a choice of where to nest,the problem with natural soil nests is you can't see if your Queen and workers are okay,so I'm hoping they choose to move into the purpose made nest which has a red acrylic viewing area,just hope these super small workers can't find a way to escape. I still intend to carry on with the nest I'm making when I have the right drill bits,but I'm leaving that for when I get a larger colony.
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Mar 14, 2019 12:23:11 GMT
Due to the nest being a soil nest,I have no idea how many ants in this colony I have,but as I checked on their enclosure half an hour ago ,I was amazed to find the top of the stone entirely covered by freshly hatched springtails,there must be at least four hundred new springtails,which are keeping the workers busy and happy as I saw a worker proudly holding a springtail while making their way into the nest,I managed to track it a little way into the nest,then lost sight of it,so to total it up am I a successful ant breeder for the Noda,no idea but I am a successful springtail breeder at least.
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Mar 19, 2019 11:32:02 GMT
This morning I was surprised to find about four workers were walking upside down on the cover of their nest/formicarium,this as far as I know is the first time they had done this,since there is a hole for ventilation in the centre of the lid I can't know for sure if any have escaped hopefully not,there is usually only three reasons why ants try to escape. 1 They haven't got enough food. This isn't the case as far as I can see as they seem to want to hunt and eat springtails and there has been an explosion in the number of springtails,they number about a thousand at the moment,plus they get honey,fruit and crickets. 2 The temperature/humidity. These are kept at a constant at all times. 3 Room. This is the most likely reason as far as I'm aware as it is a soil nest so I don't know how many there are,I have noticed that they have made a tunnel about a cm from the surface that goes all the way around the enclosure,so they may be looking to expand their nest.
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Mar 20, 2019 9:55:06 GMT
I have just received an email confirming that a ytong founding nest I have ordered from Australia has just arrived in the UK,this is for this colony,although it's a founding nest it is big enough for up to 500 small ants,as soon as it arrives I've just got to convince my ants to move out of their soil nest into the new nest,I'm surmising that this is going to be problematic,if they will not move into it I'll still use it,once I've made a fire brick nest set up I'll want them in that anyway,I'm going to do a set up a bit like one of these in this video.
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Mar 21, 2019 10:12:45 GMT
After having to pay custom charges on the nest,I've worked out I could have made one of the formicariums in the video for less money,I'm going to have to start getting busy making my own.
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Mar 23, 2019 22:47:11 GMT
Oh well as I predicted getting them to move from soil to ytong was not going to be easy...Ant says no
I'll leave it connected for two weeks,if they are not nesting in it by then,I'll have a spare founding nest and a great excuse to get another colony of ants yay.I also found a jumping spider in there enclosure which I quickly remove,not an Australian spider may I add just a common uk spider,
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Mar 28, 2019 0:56:12 GMT
I replaced the vaseline for fluon as a way to stop them escaping,the problem with vaseline is they would get stuck in it and two or three workers have died that way,I was a bit worried about fluon not working on plastic as it's supposed to be designed for use on glass or acrylic,but watching my Noda ladies this morning climbing up the sides of their enclosure till they reached the dried fluon then falling down filled me with relief,no more ants getting trapped and dying,and no ant escapes.I have just ordered a Lasius niger Queen with eggs/brood and a Messor barbarus mated queen Red head Queen with eggs/brood and 1-5 workers from Chris,so who knows how well these new ladies will do.
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Mar 31, 2019 11:18:44 GMT
I haven't really posted much about my Nodas apart from them rejecting a ytong nest,this is mainly because they have become very much self sufficient.I see the workers out and about hunting springtails most if not all of the day,the springtails in turn are eating food I do put in just for them now and breeding. I make sure there is a source of water for both the ants and springtails, and honey water which I have seen the springtails consume but not the ants,there is little more left for me to do with this colony of ants apart from videoing them now and again.
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Mar 31, 2019 16:45:01 GMT
I did something a bit silly,I was videoing any activity of the workers,I believed that their nest was still under the soil and the entrance was still in the corner. I lifted up the stone to check for any uneaten food only to find that the whole colony had moved in under the stone. As soon as their nest was revealed all hell broke loose and there were ants grabbing brood and heading back to the entrance of the soil nest,even though I didn't know they were there I do feel guilty,and I hope that this won't cause too much stress on the colony. I'll post the videos later,from the amount of brood they have they really need more room though,so I'll give them my Camponotus's old enclosure,which is too big for a single queen,but just right for a thriving colony.
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Apr 1, 2019 5:10:27 GMT
I started videoing two minutes after accidently disturbing them,there was a lot more eggs and brood then is shown in the video
The queen takes her time
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Apr 3, 2019 14:14:33 GMT
After all that moving I have an inkling that they have moved back under the stone,the reason I believe this is today I saw a few small workers emerging from under their stone,but amazingly I saw a big ant,could have been a Queen on top of the stone,no way am I checking though.
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Apr 6, 2019 22:39:07 GMT
A very unfortunate accident happened,I had a electrician in doing some work and the idiot knocked over my ants soil nest enclosure,this happened on Thursday last week and I've been worried ever since as a lot of soil fell on top of there nest I didn't know what to do for the best so I attached the enclosure to a big one with soil in it and some sphagnum moss,I sat there for a couple of hours just watching them,I saw many small workers carrying brood,but they didn't know what direction to go in,next day I saw them head to the new enclosure,but again they seem as if they were not heading in any particular direction,later on in the day I saw about thirty worker ants with a small amount of brood had started forming a nest,but as yet I don't know if the Queen is okay or not,I looked in their enclosure today and saw what looked like eggs that had been just left on the top of their stone,so right know I don't know how many colony are doing as today I saw none out searching for eggs/brood,I did put in a dead locust which I cut up for them and saw them investigate it,but if the Queen didn't make it I know they will not survive.
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Apr 7, 2019 11:14:42 GMT
Still there is not many sightings of ant activity and of course no sightings of the Queen,the ants I saw before have made there nest in front of where the heat mat is situated,because of this there is no way of trying to view them through the side of the enclosure.
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Apr 14, 2019 20:38:37 GMT
Unusually my Nodas have started eating pre killed crickets,I can only think that they may be having more trouble catching springtails,as now they are in a larger soil nest the springtails have more chance to escape,therefore my next purchase is for more springtails,I'm also going to purchase so more decorations for their outworld I have seen packs on Amazon which look good,I'll probably get a pack for each colony.
|
|
|
Post by 1moldavite on Apr 18, 2019 18:13:26 GMT
I tried my ants on boiled egg today,but I haven't seen any ants approach the egg,of course the springtails are there eating it.
|
|