i have been very interested in using a honeydew surrogate as a sole food source for awhile now. I successfully used one as a sole food source for a Camponotus floridanus colony and would like to experiment further and document my findings. So far i have been using an amino acid supplement called Amino Blast made by a company called body fortress, there is nothing special about it other than that it was on clearance at my local walmart and didn't kill my ants when i gave it to them, so I've just kind of rolled with it. I have noticed it contains a larger variety of amino acids than most other supplements i have looked at, it also contains electrolytes. It also contains artificial colors and sweeteners but hey that's the spice of life. I have been using a ratio of anywhere from 1:1 to 1:4 amino acid powder to surrogate, and ususally enough water to dissolve it into a syrupy consitency, i use hot but not boiling water as i have read higher temps begin to break down the amino acids. At first i was simply playing around but i began using it more and more and then just to see i stopped giving a young C floridanus colony all other food sources except for the surrogate for several months and they continued to produce eggs and grow, and i experienced no mass die offs. So for some initial tests this is what i am doing: I have 10 fertile (assumed, all with larvae) queens from 5 species, Camponotus floridanus, Crematogaster pinicola, Dorymyrmex bureni, Pheidole bicarinata, and Pheidole metallescens. 1 test and 1 control for each species. the test colonies will all be recieving nothing but the surrogate or variations of it ( i am concerned about vitamin deficiency in the long term) the control colonies will be recieving normal fare. I also have at least 1 or 2 additional founding queens from each species in the same stage of development so i may include an additional batch of test subjects before they all get nanitcs.
July 1, 2019:
All test queens recieved a single drop of surrogate consisting of a 1:4 powder/sugar ratio, controls recieved nothing
they are in kind of a haphazard setup currently but i will build a little box with some foam cutouts for them.
Edited by SuperFrank, July 4 2019 - 6:33 PM.
