34 replies to this topic

[Wegmier]

Congratulations on your first nanitics!

[Antkid12]

Cool setup.

[Domagoj]

Glad you guys like it, hope ants do to.

[Domagoj]

Update: the nanitic population is now at about 10-12 (it's getting had to do the head count). There's a bunch of brood as well.

Since the last update, I never saw any of them foraging the outworld, but this morning I offered them some fish food and within about an hour they brought in a piece of it and left it at the test tube entrance. They also brought in a pile of loose sand and left it at the entrance. Are they trying to close themselves? Should I provide more loose sand and small rocks?

 

What worries me a little is that the cotton ball plugging the water end of the tube is starting to get some color that I don't necessarily like. Should I be worried about that?

Edited by Domagoj, August 16 2020 - 10:55 PM.

[ANTdrew]

The ants may want a tighter entrance to their tube, which is why they’re piling up sand. For small ants, I like putting the plastic test tube caps with a small hole drilled in the middle.
A bit of mold on the cotton isn’t that big of a problem. They’ll be fine now. You can always move them later if it gets worse.

[Domagoj]

The hole in the connector is 9 mm (~3/4''). I could make a reduction. Is it worth the disturbance? I can make the plug "off site" but to install it I'd need to decouple the test tube from the outworld, put the plug and reconnect. It should take no more than 10-15 seconds, but can't be done without moving the test tube.

How big the hole should be? Should it be from a material ants can chew through (such as balsa wood)?

[Domagoj]

I added more sand and they piled up much more of it, blocking the entrance to about 2/3 of the height. They also brought in a bit of it towards the brood.

The number of workers is slowly growing, without counting I'd say it's at about 15-20. They are starting to get bigger that the first nanitics, which is a good sign, I suppose.

 

I've been feeding them mosquitoes, which they seem to love, as they are taken in matter of seconds. They also accepted a small caterpillar, but I had no luck with ham, bacon and similar human food. I also offered them a spider, but after a couple of days of it not being moved, when I tried to removed it and throw it away, I found out that it was stuck to the outworld substrate and the ants wouldn't have been able to move it even if they tried, so I'll have to repeat that offering.

Two days ago I received a package of six different live critters (a few different roaches, grasshoppers, mealworms) which I froze. I gave them one small roach cut in half and they dragged one half of it up to the test tube entrance. I'm not sure what's the plan, but I don't see ants swarming it and digging the insides. The other half is a bit further out. It could be that they already took what they wanted but I missed it since I was away for the day after giving them the roach, so I wasn't able to observe them.

 

I also gave them a drop of Sunburst, and I've seen at least on worker spend several minutes drinking it.

 

So, how do I gauge when they need more food if I can't distinguish between partially eaten roach (from which they took all that they are interested in) and the one that is not accepted at all? At the moment there are no workers foraging the arena. Is outside activity a good indicator of hunger?

[ANTdrew]

Yes, if I see lots of workers out foraging, I assume the colony wants more protein. Very few workers will risk foraging when the colony is small, though.

[Domagoj]

Thanks.

This morning I saw two workers foraging some distance from the roach bits, so I figured they wanted more. I took out the roach bits and as I grabbed one bit with tweezers one ant got out of the roach carcass. I suppose there was still something interesting on it, but it's been 48 hours since I gave them the roach. I gave them a cut up cricket instead, and quickly a seven ant army got excited around the bits. This is the most workers I've seen outside at the same time. They seem to like it. It's been an hour and a half and they are still interested in the cricket, with 5-6 workers doing their thing.

Anyway, I'm happy I found a source of bugs they seem to like. The guy that breeds them is in the next town over, shipped them overnight for a couple of $$, and is willing to accommodate my need for small quantity of various species. I still have a few more to try, but it's looking good for now.

[ANTdrew]

It’s a lot of fun when you start seeing the big feeding responses from a young colony! Whenever I remove old insects, I always tap them first to make sure workers aren’t up inside still feeding. This is even more challenging with a massive colony.

[Domagoj]

It's been a while since I last updated you guys on the progress, but mostly because there was not much of it.

A couple of days after my last update, I decided that the funky water in the original test tube is too funky for my taste so I hooked up an additional test tube with fresh water. I know the ants found it because I placed a few mosquitoes in there and they were gone in double quick fast fashion, but even four weeks later, they still haven't moved. I uncovered their tube and exposed it to room light (it's not really bright in there) and covered the new tube, but no cigar. I even tried placing a small bit of LED strip light next to the old tube, which they didn't like, but still preferred to moving.

This morning, I decided to take a bit more poignant action and made this setup:

The new tube (the one covered with foil is tilted down a bit, that's why everything is sitting on the plastic container. I placed the LED strip on that tube to provide a tiny bit of warmth and put everything by the window for both light and a bit of cold (it's overcast today, so no direct sunshine). When I came back home from work they've already mostly moved, only a few younglings remaining:

They seemed to like the tiny piece of aluminium foil I left in the old tube. They would use it to separate different stages of brood, hide under it, etc. Should I provide another one in the new tube?

 

The new test tube is glass, as opposed to the old plastic one, so I managed to snap some new pictures, which I hope are better than the previous ones. Here's one of them, with her majesty front and center, surrounded by her daughters:

 

As you can see, the queen still has her wings, but they seem to have been clipped a bit.

In any case, I've been feeding them the frozen bugs I got and they seem to not be too picky, however I noticed that some of the bugs darken quite a bit a few hours after thawing. I tried blanching some of the frozen bugs and it seems to prevent the blackening, but then the ants seem to be less interested in it. I still need more testing on this front since I may have overfed them at that point and the lack of interest may be due to that.

New ants are still eclosing, as I've seen a pale one yesterday, so that is good.

 

Edit:

I had to move the setup back to it's original place, since it was in the way, hopefully they don't move back to the old tube overnight.

Edited by Domagoj, September 28 2020 - 9:16 AM.

[Domagoj]

Last week, I transported the DIY fridge (more on the fridge topic in this other thread) from workshop to the basement at home and transferred the ants from the original room to the basement as well. I gave them a few days to adjust from about 23-24 °C (73-75 °F) in the previous room to about 21 °C (70 °F) in the basement.

Yesterday, I finally placed the ants in the hibernation chamber and turned it on to 18,5 °C (65,3 °F). The plan is to gradually drop the temperature over the next two weeks following this chart, meaning that today I lowered the temperature to 17 °C (62,6 °F). The numbers in the table are the ones I pulled out of my derriere, so if you think there is something wrong with them, I'd appreciate the advice.

I'm still providing protein, since there's quite a bit of brood still going on and quite frankly I either give the critters I have to the ants, or throw it away, since by spring the critters will be half a year old and I'll just get some fresh ones.

 

[steelplant]

If you're still giving protein, is there a chance some larvae might pupate, or will the lowering temperature stop them? I'm just giving sugars while mine are preparing for hibernation - should I be giving protein? Sorry if this is off topic.

[Domagoj]

Good point. I took out the roach they had and won't be giving them any more.

I'm new to all this and quite frankly have little to no idea what I'm doing. That's why I'm here on the forums - to share my adventures and learn. This is the first time I'm hibernating a colony.

I think I might pause the temperature drop for a few days to give the pupae a chance to eclose (at least the ones that are close), but I assume there is no way to prevent at least some casualties. The question is at what temperature I should pause (if at all). They are now at 15 °C (59 °F).

[RushmoreAnts]

If you're still giving protein, is there a chance some larvae might pupate, or will the lowering temperature stop them? I'm just giving sugars while mine are preparing for hibernation - should I be giving protein? Sorry if this is off topic.

I would think pupation would not occur in fridge temps. However that being said, I don't think anything above freezing would kill pupae in temperate species.

Edited by AntsDakota, October 25 2020 - 8:04 AM.