10 replies to this topic

[AntTeen804]

I've never kept this sp. (tapinoma sessile) and just asking for any helpful tips thanks!!

[Ants4fun]

Even though they are quite an invasive species, they are often difficult to keep in captivity. There have been a lot of reports of them not eating, surprisingly growing relatively slow, and outright dying. One tip I will give is to make sure you have a strong barrier, as these ants are escape artists. Otherwise I don't find them, and most other invasive species really interesting...

[Foogoo]

Even though they are quite an invasive species, they are often difficult to keep in captivity. There have been a lot of reports of them not eating, surprisingly growing relatively slow, and outright dying. One tip I will give is to make sure you have a strong barrier, as these ants are escape artists. Otherwise I don't find them, and most other invasive species really interesting...

 

I just caught a colony of what may be Tapinoma and I can agree to everything above. Let us know if you find something that works!

[AntTeen804]

I'm using oil and it's working I also have mesh on the lid

[BugFinder]

I'm very interested in that species.  I've never run into them on the job yet, but it's one of the ants I'm supposed to encounter at work.  I would love to already know them when I finally do encounter them at work.

[Ants4fun]

I'm very interested in that species.  I've never run into them on the job yet, but it's one of the ants I'm supposed to encounter at work.  I would love to already know them when I finally do encounter them at work.

BTW both the plural, and singular form of 'species' is 'species'. So 'species' is not a word.

[Crystals]

I have a colony of them.  I haven't posted a journal yet as almost all other journals I found stopped after about 3-6 months when the queens died (I guess since this colony has made it 10 months I should make one). 

I only ever did find one colony - on the side of mountain in the middle of Rocky Mountains in a pile of bone dry spruce needles while hiking about a mile or so from the nearest building.  I took 3 of the queens and about 100 workers and left the rest.

 

I can definitely agree to the slow growing part.  Bizarrely, mine demand hibernation more than most of the natives - but considering I live in a place that regularly gets 7 months of snow I am not too surprised.  Thankfully, they don't seem to want a long hibernation and were fine with one month of it. Like my Lasius and Camponotus, they hibernate with their larvae. It was actually the fact that their larvae refused to develop for 3 months that clued me in to the reality that they needed hibernation, and would hibernate with their larvae. 

Since all the pest stories say how fast they grew, I was surprised at how slow the brood develop and how slow the colony grows.

 

As far as food, they were the fussiest for the first 2 weeks while settling in.  I rarely see a strong feeding response, but if I look close their gasters are always distended.  I find them very strong in the sweets department, the hummingbird nectar and oriole nectar always have visitors and I have it available 24/7.

They like variety.  If you offer the same thing 3 days in a row, they start to ignore it.  Mealworms, crickets, black soldier flies, and they really like fruit flies.  I had tried Chromerust's ant food recipe with the chicken and nectar and they really enjoyed that.  They also seemed to like Aqua 300 from byformica.  In summer, I offer anything I can catch.  I cut it up for them.

They are very cautious around really liquidy foods, but thicker liquids, pastes, or gels are fine.

 

Escape artists in the extreme.  Even with an upside down lip on the foraging area covered in fluon, one or two occasionally manage to find the one rough spot and get to the edge.  I had rubbed olive oil on the top side of the lip and that seems to work well.

 

The biggest thing I found is that they really need heat. Most of my colonies, even the Camponotus with brood, are happy with just sitting on top of, or beside, one piece of my 15 watt heating cable.  Tapinoma needed it doubled up and looped to cover 75% of the nest.  The glass on the nest is hot to the touch and that is where they gather most of the brood.

 

Condensation is deadly for them, so choose your setup carefully.

 

These pictures are from when I first collected them, to just before their first hibernation: http://s445.photobuc...a?sort=3&page=1

I guess I better take some recent pictures to show how the colony has grown and make a journal sometime this week.

I have no idea how old these queens are, or how long they will live.  Since they hide in or under the egg pile, I have no idea if I still even have all 3 queens. 

EDIT:  I just took a close look, and saw all 3 queens. 

[dspdrew]

When I first got into ants, around Fall of 2012, I found a log with a giant colony of these living in it. I took it home and cracked it open in my bathtub. Inside I found about 10 queens, and hundreds of workers and brood. I even found a red and black Crematogaster queen in there too, living right next to all of them.

 

I kept most of the T. sessile queens, and some of the workers, and tossed the rest of the rotted log chunks out into the planter in front of my apartment. They lived inside a test tube for a while, but most of the queens died. The remaining seemed to be doing pretty good after that, but I got tired of them and got rid of them. Not too long after, I started seeing a little trail of ants walking along the crack in the walkway out front. I could see where they were going down into the ground too. I checked them out, and sure enough they were T. sessile. There must have been one more living queen in one of those pieces of wood that I thew out there. Within months this colony was starting to look quite large. By early spring, I noticed there were alates running all around on the sidewalk out in front every night. Soon the ants starting trailing into my apartment, running across my desk while I was at the computer and stealing the food from my cricket bins. This was when I finally put some ant traps next to the cricket bin to kill them off. Soon they were no longer seen anywhere.

 

So, living outside in the ground, these sure didn't seem to have any problem thriving, so maybe they just need a more natural environment.

[Myrmicinae]

As far as food, they were the fussiest for the first 2 weeks while settling in.  I rarely see a strong feeding response, but if I look close their gasters are always distended.  I find them very strong in the sweets department, the hummingbird nectar and oriole nectar always have visitors and I have it available 24/7.

They like variety.  If you offer the same thing 3 days in a row, they start to ignore it.  Mealworms, crickets, black soldier flies, and they really like fruit flies.  I had tried Chromerust's ant food recipe with the chicken and nectar and they really enjoyed that.  They also seemed to like Aqua 300 from byformica.  In summer, I offer anything I can catch.  I cut it up for them.

They are very cautious around really liquidy foods, but thicker liquids, pastes, or gels are fine.

 

Have you tried feeding them bee pollen yet?  I still need to test that out on my colony, but I am predicting that it will make a significant difference, given that it is known to be a major part of their diet in the wild.  It might even improve brood development.

Edited by Myrmicinae, April 7 2015 - 9:43 AM.

[Myrmicinae]

Here is a link to my T. sessile journal.

 

http://www.formicult...essile-journal/

 

I just took them out of hibernation a few days ago and found that most of the workers had died.  There are only three left.    The good news is that they are already raising a new batch of larvae, which seem to be developing at a good rate.

Edited by Myrmicinae, April 7 2015 - 9:47 AM.

[Crystals]

Have you tried feeding them bee pollen yet?  I still need to test that out on my colony, but I am predicting that it will make a significant difference, given that it is known to be a major part of their diet in the wild.  It might even improve brood development.

 

I actually have offered the granulated variety you get from bee keepers (that you add to yogurt, etc).  They never touched it.

I always wanted to offer live blossoms, but I doubt it would be fun to get all of the workers out of the blooms when they are wilted.

 

But mine seem to behave quite differently from the ones that I read about.  Maybe I found an odd variety?