40 replies to this topic

[Miketheawesome]

 Aug 25 2020

 I’m a first time ant keeper and I’m really excited for the future. I got my ants on the 20th of this month from YsTheAnt so big shout out to you man. I named my queen “queen Sheila.” I just got done feeding them some honey, I was actually afraid that they weren’t going to like it but after about 5-10 minutes one of them started to taste it and I don’t think she hated it haha. Another one came up to get some honey but I think I put too much honey cause she got stuck, thankfully she was able to pull herself out. I thought she was dead cause she wasn’t moving for a few minutes but I think she was just resting cause she got up all of a sudden and went to work. She actually surprised the heck out of me haha. I put the honey on a tinfoil plate so I took it out and gave them less honey so nobody gets stuck again. I got to watch them share there food via trophallaxis for the first time it looked like they were just kissing each other haha.
 

Sorry the picture aren’t great I used my phone 

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[Spazmops]

I hope you have success with your colony! It’s a really great hobby.

[TechAnt]

Awesome!

[TheAntGuy]

Just a tip, next time you take pics, try putting them on top of a piece of printer paper, hold your phone still (hold it against something, or set it+your hands down on a desk while you take the photo), and try and take the pics with some natural sunlight or experiment with different lights around your house. A good portion of good phototaking is about things other than the camera itself, like background and especially lighting.

Otherwise, welcome to antkeeping! I will be following this journal closely

Edited by Theantguy14, August 25 2020 - 3:23 PM.

[Miketheawesome]

Just a tip, next time you take pics, try putting them on top of a piece of printer paper, hold your phone still (hold it against something, or set it+your hands down on a desk while you take the photo), and try and take the pics with some natural sunlight or experiment with different lights around your house. A good portion of good phototaking is about things other than the camera itself, like background and especially lighting.

Otherwise, welcome to antkeeping! I will be following this journal closely

 
thank you for the advice I’ll definitely try all that next time I want to show Queen Sheila off as much as possible haha

but really thank you for the advice

[Miketheawesome]

Sept 1 2020

  I forgot to put how many ants I have last week I had 8 nanitics (I believe that’s what there called please correct me if I’m wrong) and 1 queen but sadly I now have 7 nanitics. Ya one of them died, don’t worry I gave her proper burial in my back yard. But we move forward for the colony sake.

  This time I decided to feed them some protein so I gave them a cricket leg and guts, I think I might have gave them too much please let me know if I did. They were in a huddle for the first 15-20 minutes. I think I might have spooked them and that’s why they were in a defensive position for so long. Then I went to the bathroom and came back they weren’t huddled and one ant was eating and then anther was eating, I was pretty relieved cause I didn’t think they were going to like the cricket haha. 
 
 

 

Edited by Miketheawesome, September 1 2020 - 9:34 AM.

[Miketheawesome]

Some pictures 

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[Miketheawesome]

Sept 8 2020

 

   Hello again fellow ant people I hope everybody had a good 3 day weekend, I know I did I went kayaking and got sunburned haha. 
   Anyways, I still have 7 nanitics but I’m pretty sure there is at least one larvae in the egg pile they have so I’m pretty excited for that. It actually took me awhile to see it because queen Sheila and her crew were huddling around the eggs in a defensive position on top of the eggs but after awhile they moved.

    They are putting there trash and poop at the entrance of the tube and I’m so glad cause if they put it near the water it can make it nasty. I was going to wait till tomorrow to clean it up but I decided against it and used a cue tip to wipe it up.  
   Today I fed them some honey which they love, as far as I can tell haha. I want to give them a variety of food, maybe not next week but I would like to give them some fruit like a apple or something if you have a opinion about this please let me know. I looked it up and found that they mostly like honey, dead crickets and honeydew. I did find a preferred food forum topic but I’m pretty sure that’s for a larger, older colony

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[Spazmops]

Those pictures are already looking a lot better! I hope that larvae becomes a worker before hibernation rolls around.

[ponerinecat]

Nice, colony's about the same size as mine.

[Antkid12]

Cool.

[Ants_Dakota]

I love camponotus! Good luck!

[TheAntGuy]

Great improvement! It will take practice but the more you experiment with different lightings and backgrounds, the more those pics will improve! Beautiful colony by the way.

[Miketheawesome]

Great improvement! It will take practice but the more you experiment with different lightings and backgrounds, the more those pics will improve! Beautiful colony by the way.

Thanks man I appreciate it and thanks again for the advice 

[Miketheawesome]

Sept 15 2020

   So that larvae was actually a pupae and now it’s a worker, I’m pretty excited about it. I wish I could have seen her transition that would have been coo.

   Today I fed them some cricket legs and a small drop of hunny. I wanted to give them a piece of a superworm but the store was out of them I’ll try next time. They didn’t really touch the cricket legs hopefully they will have eaten it by the time I clean it up.
  The egg pile looks like it might be a little bigger. So I must be doing something right haha

 

 

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[Miketheawesome]

   Sept 23 2020 

 

   Hey fellow ant peoples, sorry for the late update I got a little busy yesterday. I fed them some honey as usual and I also gave them some apple peace’s. I’m not a hundred percent they like it though, it looked like they might have tried it but when I took them out today to clean the test tube I saw the apple peace’s looked shriveled up but I’m not sure they ate it so I’m probably not going to give apples anymore I’ll try peaches next time 

 

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[Ants_Dakota]

   Sept 23 2020 

 

   Hey fellow ant peoples, sorry for the late update I got a little busy yesterday. I fed them some honey as usual and I also gave them some apple peace’s. I’m not a hundred percent they like it though, it looked like they might have tried it but when I took them out today to clean the test tube I saw the apple peace’s looked shriveled up but I’m not sure they ate it so I’m probably not going to give apples anymore I’ll try peaches next time 

even if the apple is shriveled, they still probably ate from it, but i do agree, peaches do sound more juicy.

[Miketheawesome]

 

   Sept 23 2020 

 

   Hey fellow ant peoples, sorry for the late update I got a little busy yesterday. I fed them some honey as usual and I also gave them some apple peace’s. I’m not a hundred percent they like it though, it looked like they might have tried it but when I took them out today to clean the test tube I saw the apple peace’s looked shriveled up but I’m not sure they ate it so I’m probably not going to give apples anymore I’ll try peaches next time 

even if the apple is shriveled, they still probably ate from it, but i do agree, peaches do sound more juicy.

 

ok so you’re saying they don’t really eat the “apple” they suck the juices from the fruit that makes sense 

[TheAntGuy]

Tip: be careful with feeding fruits and when possible try and feed without the skin, reason being that most commercial fruits can have pesticides on the outside of the fruit. Washing or rinsing is usually sufficient to get rid of them but feeding just the flesh of the fruit and cutting off the skin is the surefire way to feed safely.

Edited by Theantguy14, September 23 2020 - 9:40 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Also, ants don’t really need fruit if you give them honey. Sugar is sugar, and they’ll go for the most concentrated source. What they need variety in is protein.