Colony size to protein ratio.

[Deleted]

Hi all,

If I have an ant colony with say about 5-10 workers, I can understand to throw in the odd fly or cricket every two to three days for Queen and larvae. Is there a way of judging when the colony gets a lot bigger, (say 50+ workers) how often to feed protein and how much?! I can't chase flies all day, but I can buy live foods I guess!. A little table would be great to show roughly how much to feed and how often. Good for the newbies I mean...

[messor2894]

my 50 plus 12 queened lemani colony average 12 house flies and 3 green bottles a day. is this too much I have no idea but it depends on like you said how many larvae. I would do a table but I'll leave to somone better. :-)

[Wood~Ant]

You will find that about 3 flies a day is plenty, as ants will take in more food than they can eat quite often; but this does depend on how many hungry larvae they have, as growing larvae eat flies while adult ants will take a more varied diet.

[Deleted]

Jun 23, 2014 16:42:32 GMT messor2894 said:

my 50 plus 12 queened lemani colony average 12 house flies and 3 green bottles a day. is this too much I have no idea but it depends on like you said how many larvae. I would do a table but I'll leave to somone better. :-)

You sure they are not hiding them somewhere?

Didn't think a colony of that size could process that much material.

[messor2894]

Well I thought that Luke, but there larvae seem hungry all the time. My queens eat a lot, they are so fat some can hardly move. lol