Formica.sanguinea

[barney636]

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As per L.niger 2 - She is still in the post and I expect her to arrive tomorrow

Not much to post on here yet then - sorry

[barney636]

Well these guys have arrived and I was surprised to find that the seller decided to put in around 8 - 10 workers too

F.sanguinea - i1097.photobucket.com/albums/g345/barney6361/Ants/Fsanguinea.jpg

He also added an extra 2 Niger queens + brood + a couple of workers in each.

This was really nice of him but the problem with that is I was planning on keeping the new arrivals in test tubes for months which would give me plenty of time to make set ups for them

Never the less.... I found an old broken tank at the bottom of the garden and slapped a load of Aquarium sealant around the cracks and yay... we have a tank suitable for the F sanguinea.

Having read that they are partial to a bit of rotten log for a nest site I wasted no time in dragging the wife and kids off for a walk in some woods near by.

Managed to find a good squidgy log not too wet, some nice pine floor covering and some twigs etc. All on top of a 2 - 3" layer of compost makes a nice forest floor replica.

I threw a lid together using some framing wood and some heavy stainless steel mesh and placed the tube in.

set up - i1097.photobucket.com/albums/g345/barney6361/Ants/Tank.jpg

Within a couple of mins a few workers were out exploring and after an hour they had found a bluebottle I had placed in there which they dragged back to the tube.

They are still in the tube at the moment but we shall see what they do. I think I may need to get some heat under the enclosure as the temp dropped a lot over night and they are huddled.

[barney636]

Well, I have spent all day making enclosures for the rest of the ants and have been checking up on these guys.

I dropped a maimed fly in earlier and they totalled it in seconds really aggressive but that is something I love about wood ants.

I had my food this evening and the little buggers have legged it into the enclosure abandoning the tube while I wasn't looking... Yay!

Guess they found a spot they liked under the rotten logs.