7 replies to this topic

[CoolColJ]

I was lurking in the Ant-Tribes forum with google translate, and came across interesting stuff in this Chinese company's forum.
Looks like a lot more R&D and design goes into some of the these Chinese nests than I thought.
 
One design feature from this company is the garbage collection zone of their nests.
It appears to be an area of the nest that has high air flow from the vents located there that make ants dump all their rubbish in that area.
With a deep valley and port to collect and remove the rubbish
 
This thread is summary of their nest evolution over the years up till 2015
You can see the garbage collection area either in the bottom left or right of the nests.
 
https://translate.go...t-text=&act=url

 
Most of the nests tend to be an all in one design, not needing an outworld.
 
I think this is their recent acrylic nest for smaller ants - which you may have seen on Aliexpress
Garbage station at bottom right, lots of vents and airflow to encourage ants to dump rubbish, plus the steep valley area around there makes all rubbish channel towards there.
https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i3/24038037/TB2yCjCoVXXXXamXpXXXXXXXXXX_!!24038037.jpg
 
They also make sand/dirt nests with the same design feature.
 
The most recent nest appears to be a composite of cast material and acrylic hybrid
 

We must worry about the nest next year. At the beginning of this year, the composite material nest that was originally prepared was announced. However, due to production process problems, the batch production yield was too low and not only was temporarily suspended. But the groping cannot be stopped. This kind of material, ants like it very much. If you connect an acrylic nest, the ants will be moved in different points. We will further reduce the type of acrylic nest.
There is not a lot of new patterns in the appearance of the new nest, similar to some American nests, and there are also places for imitation. The main difference is that they use internal pools (many people call water towers, but I think they should call pools because they don't have towers) and provide air humidity; we still use the external tube-type water towers unique to our tribe. Already used by many people, it is not special.) A shock-resistant silicone foot is added to the bottom for easy use at desks , desks , and other places where there is little vibration. Of course, too much vibration will not work.

 
http://www.anttribes...d-9179-1-1.html
 

This is the new nest of this year, tentatively named "anthill", "bunker" (anthill is the ground part, and the bunker is the underground part of the anthill). There will be four models that are suitable for most ants, including giants.
There are not many innovations and changes in the formal structure, but the main material of this nest is the custom-made special plaster that was developed in two years.
This form of nest is simple, but it is a revolution in tribal past acrylic products. After the tribal products will focus on this material, the pure acrylic nest is just a supplement.
Experiments have shown that the priority of ants' selection of various nesting materials will be: 1. Soil 2. Sand 3. Gypsum and gas bricks 4. Acrylics

The soil is not suitable for observation;   
sand will eventually be hollowed out, difficult to clean and cannot be used for a long time ;  
gypsum like ants, but long-term will be soaked and wet rot;  
filling brick brittle and difficult to express, easy to batch processing, color depth difficult to observe;
acrylic appearance, but smooth, impermeable, non-absorbent, odor, so many ants It's hard to nest.
Therefore, I always wanted to find an ideal gypsum-like material that was not afraid of blisters. Just as my hometown Xiaogan Sencheng was a Chinese plaster factory, it was rich in various kinds of gypsum products. We found a manufacturer through friends, and developed and customized this material in cooperation. The hardness was high. Breathable, absorbent, but it will not be bad forever.
The entire nest is closed with acrylic, giving him the appearance of acrylic, gypsum heart. Although observation is worse than pure acrylic nests, it is more suitable for raising ants. And later, more nest shapes can be molded.
About the end of the month, but it is likely to skip tickets, mass production process problems are still being tested, and some problems have not been completely resolved.
 
Su Yan Zhao:

The anthill inherits the characteristics of an ant tribe's one nest. It looks like the shape of a wild anthill. It has a larger space for activities in the upper part. It has a drinking water tower and a water hole on the back. The anthill ONE is also positioned on a small ant.

The bunker is an infinite expansion module that can be used as an expansion of the anthill (see below). Can also be used with hunting grounds.


d Anthill X is located in large and medium sized ants.

 
I don't think the above nests got released, but this one did
 

Hard to believe this nest only costs $14AUD

https://item.taobao....id=569103128842

https://translate.go...t-text=&act=url

Edited by CoolColJ, June 22 2018 - 7:09 PM.

[dermy]

I'm always fascinated by the Chinese antkeeping community among other areas of Ant-Keeping because they seem to use things that most North Americans would consider "bad" for ants. But their ants seem to do pretty well in acrylic nests and it seems they've added gypsum to it so that probably helps. I remember early on in ant-keeping people would try Acrylic nests and often have various problems with hydration, but that seems to solve it, or I would assume it does.

Edited by dermy, June 23 2018 - 1:49 AM.

[Serafine]

There's many interesting way in which antkeeping stuff is developing.

- AntKit is refining their acrylic stuff (with larger sponges and riffled-bottom nesting chambers to assists cocoon-spinning species).

- AntsCanada is the first company going for molded plastic nests (which require a massive starting investment but are the cheapest to produce in large quantities and are also very durable).

- In Europe there is a growing number of 3D-printed nests manufactured with Simants.de being the top state of the art (their nests are kinda similar to the old AC hybrids but with vastly superior printing quality plus they're modular with exchangeable doors, heating cable holders, nest inlays etc.).

- Chinese manufacturers are starting to combine different materials to cancel out each others' weaknesses (like acrylics, grout, gypsum and probably more in the future).

 

I really like the idea of combining acrylics with more porous materials like grout, ytong or gypsum - this is especially brilliant for species like Messor which tend to chew through grout and ytong but then are still safely contained by the acrylic frame of the nest.

My only issue with those chinese nests is that almost all of them are so small and made for tiny ants - I mean I have a 3-4000 worker Camponotus colony, if I'm gonna add a new nest it's going to have to be a biggy, not a tiny boxlet they're going to fill up within 2 months.

Edited by Serafine, June 23 2018 - 3:02 AM.

[CoolColJ]

I really like the idea of combining acrylics with more porous materials like grout, ytong or gypsum - this is especially brilliant for species like Messor which tend to chew through grout and ytong but then are still safely contained by the acrylic frame of the nest.
My only issue with those chinese nests is that almost all of them are so small and made for tiny ants - I mean I have a 3-4000 worker Camponotus colony, if I'm gonna add a new nest it's going to have to be a biggy, not a tiny boxlet they're going to fill up within 2 months.

They have larger nests, and some of the nests are modular, so you can stack them indefinetly.
The company in this thread makes this one

https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i1/24038037/TB2mOHLczm2.eBjSZFtXXX56VXa_!!24038037.jpg


These are modestly sized nests, but still hold a lot of ants


I remeber seeing a 30 test tube nest, that ought to hold a lot of ants

Edited by CoolColJ, June 23 2018 - 3:15 AM.

[Barristan]

In the end building your own nest will always be less expensive (if you don't count the time ). I don't know how much I would have paid for a 60x20x5cm Nest made out of Ytong...

[CoolColJ]

In the end building your own nest will always be less expensive (if you don't count the time ). I don't know how much I would have paid for a 60x20x5cm Nest made out of Ytong...

That new nest from the company above is only $14 AUD on TaoBao...
The older modular acrylic nest above is $12AUD per module

Ytong nests are actually very easy to mass produce as they guy said.
machines just do it faster than hands
https://youtu.be/vm6kQnZFJ8Y?t=7m14s

I used to think doing it yourself was cheaper, but once you add all your tools, and hot glue gun, materials, etc it's pretty expensive.
And your time is worth money

I just retuned $80AUD worth of Bosch hot glue gun and glue sticks, and just buy a founding nest instead with the money
I was only going to be using the hot glue a few times, it would not be worth the money

Edited by CoolColJ, June 23 2018 - 4:57 AM.

[Barristan]

I used to think doing it yourself was cheaper, but once you add all your tools, and hot glue gun, materials, etc it's pretty expensive.
And your time is worth money

I just retuned $80AUD worth of Bosch hot glue gun and glue sticks, and just buy a founding nest instead with the money
I was only going to be using the hot glue a few times, it would not be worth the money

Never use a hot glue to glue glass on ytong, use silicone which is used to build aquarium tanks:



But as the guy said in the video you have to be careful not all silicone is safe. Only use one with no additives.

Hot glue won't work good with glass.

Using silicone is quite easy. Just apply it like a glue around the chambers and tunnels then place the glass on it and press down the glass. After that place some heavy items on it like books and wait for 1-2 days until it is dry (you won't smell vinegar anymore).

But my nest doesn't look as precise and beautiful as the ones you can buy of course. But if you are more skilled or you practice more you can build nice looking Ytong-Nests quite easily:

 

 

I calculated the raw costs of the nest on my blog:
 

• Ytong: € 2.29
• glass panes: € 5.60
• wood rasp for driller: € 3.33 (was blunt after making the nest)
• silicone: € 0.90 (tube was € 9, will last at least for 10 such nests)
• tile cement:~ € 0,80 (also hard to tell how much I used)

So overall raw material costs of € 12.92. It took me over two hours to make it.

 

I just wonder why antkeepingdepot wants 45€ for this nest: https://www.antkeepi...t-size-04-green

 

if there manufacturing process is so highly automated. The nest is only 12 cm x 15.2 cm in area. The one I made is 60 x 20 cm in area.

 

You don't need a CNC router you can also use a cheap hand router with cheap cutting heads (since they will be blunt after a few nests anyway if you don't use very expensive ones made for cutting in concrete)

Edited by Barristan, June 23 2018 - 5:53 AM.

[CoolColJ]

Yeah the Aus Ants Ytong nests are very expensive as they get larger, because Antkeeping Depot takes a cut, ontop of the markup Aus Ants has.

I remeber the Resin nests, a member called Del was selling for $25 AUD for the smallest sized one.
Once it appeared on Ant keeping Depot, it jumped to $40AUD.
I should have bought a few back at the old price

Edited by CoolColJ, June 23 2018 - 6:15 AM.