132 replies to this topic

[Mettcollsuss]

I just bought some, and all my ants love it except for my Tapinoma sessile, who freaked out for a solid 10 minutes upon placing a drop in their tube. But after calming down, they tried a few sips. That was the only negative reaction I've had from it.

[drtrmiller]

I just bought some, and all my ants love it except for my Tapinoma sessile, who freaked out for a solid 10 minutes upon placing a drop in their tube. But after calming down, they tried a few sips. That was the only negative reaction I've had from it.

 

Sunburst is intended to be a convenient, specially formulated sugar-water alternative for all sweet-loving ant species.

 

Sweet-loving ants may react to sudden changes to their environment, such as vibrations, smells, and air flow that occur when foods are introduced to a small enclosure, but won't react to Sunburst much differently than other well-prepared sugary liquids.

 

With that said, if this colony was starving and/or had not encountered a well-prepared sugary liquid in a long time, you might observe a flurry of excitement and recruitment that could be interpreted as "freaking out" by virtue of the fact that they are in a small test tube.  But mostly when I've observed freak outs in test tubes, it is because the ants found food in a space they weren't expecting, and so they proceeded to signal an alarm that there was a potential intrusion into their nest.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 Click Here to Buy Sunburst Ant Nectar

Edited by drtrmiller, February 22 2019 - 12:16 PM.

[Ants4fun]

I'll say that all my ants definitely prefer the sunburst to hummingbird nectar. They won't touch the hummingbird nectar anymore.

[Rstheant]

I’m doing an experiment. I’m adding a tiny bit of food coloring, to see if the ants drink form Sunburst. I think if you deprive the ants of nectar for a week, they will gladly take any food, or nectar.

[drtrmiller]

I’m doing an experiment. I’m adding a tiny bit of food coloring, to see if the ants drink form Sunburst. I think if you deprive the ants of nectar for a week, they will gladly take any food, or nectar.

 

You shouldn't add any foreign material to the bottle.  You could introduce contaminants, or the material you add could alter the composition in a way to negatively affect performance.  Different dyes may also cause the liquid to not taste as good, since dye is not very tasty.  In any case, I'm not sure what the goal of your experiment is?

 

If you were happy with the sugary liquid you were using before Sunburst, and if that is cheaper and more convenient for you, you should absolutely continue using that.  However, if you find that Sunburst works better, is more convenient, and is worth the cost, then it is simply an option you may be inclined to select when choosing how to feed your ants.

[Rstheant]

No, I’m not putting dye directly in the bottle. I’m mixing a very tiny bit of it in some sunburst, to see if ants drink it. The color will make the nectar visible. I am also putting my nectar next to it to see what my ants prefer. That’s all.

[drtrmiller]

No, I’m not putting dye directly in the bottle. I’m mixing a very tiny bit of it in some sunburst, to see if ants drink it. The color will make the nectar visible. I am also putting my nectar next to it to see what my ants prefer. That’s all.

 

 What species, and how many workers in the colony(s)?

[Rstheant]

Camponotus fragilis, 30 workers.

Edited by Rstheant, February 16 2019 - 6:17 PM.

[YsTheAnt]

*Camponotus fragilis

[drtrmiller]

Fragilis, 30 workers.

 

It would be difficult or impossible to conduct any type of conclusive, repeatable study for a single colony containing 30 workers.  For large, established colonies, it is typical to see twice as many ants feeding from Sunburst compared to other sugary liquids, and the ants typically fill up with a larger amount of the food.

 

My recommendation would be to continue using the bottle of Sunburst as the only sugar source for one or several of your small colonies, and use your other preferred sugar source exclusively for other colonies.  This will allow you to comparatively observe how Sunburst works over the course of a couple months.  Once the Sunburst has been completely used, you can decide whether to revert back to the sugar source you were using before, or continue using Sunburst.
 

How to use:

• To observe vigorous feeding activity, offer as much as your ants can consume within a few hours, every 2 to 3 days.
   

• When using SUNBURST™, do not use other sweetened foods such as sugar water, honey, or other sweet foods. SUNBURST™ provides all the nutrition of these sweets and more.
   

• Allowing ants constant access to Sunburst or other sugary foods will keep them full of food, and you may observe less vigorous feeding activity over time.

For small colonies, dispense 0.5 to 1 ml (10 to 20 drops) into a byFormica Micro Liquid Feeder.  Larger colonies may require as much as 4 ml (100 drops) dispensed into a byFormica Mini Liquid Feeder.  Smaller amounts will evaporate more quickly in the liquid feeder or serving tray. Outside the bottle, the liquid will evaporate into a syrup over time, which the ants do not prefer.  At a minimum, remove and replace uneaten liquid every 3 to 5 days.

 

 Click Here to Buy Sunburst Ant Nectar

Edited by drtrmiller, February 22 2019 - 12:16 PM.

[FSTP]

stop bumping

[Rstheant]

I don’t understand.

[Zeiss]

I don’t understand.

Bumping is the ability to have your topic show up at the top of the feed again by two methods: commenting "bump" on it or using a feature where you don't need to comment to "bump" it to the top.

[Rstheant]

Okay thanks.

[drtrmiller]

Sunburst Ant Nectar is now available on the UK and Europe Amazon sites.

 

 Click Here to Buy Sunburst Ant Nectar

Edited by drtrmiller, February 22 2019 - 12:45 PM.

[Rstheant]

You need to make the WIPE or byformica formula blue again. I need a alternative for my ants. I keep feeding them crickets and it a very tedious process.

[drtrmiller]

2018 Shelf-Life Study, 1 Year Later:

 

In February of 2018, I consulted an outside expert to assist with answering some questions to better understand the product life cycle of the Sunburst Ant Nectar formula, such as, but not limited to the root cause of product degradation, and possible ways to extend the life of the product.

 

The field expert advised that I conduct an experiment by placing bottles of Sunburst and exposed liquid in a test chamber filled with pure carbon dioxide gas (CO₂).  At the end of these tests, we came to the definitive conclusion that exposure to CO₂ is the root cause of product degradation.

When CO₂ contacts the liquid, a series of chemical reactions occur, both with the water and the stuff in the water, which effectively make the liquid less tasty and more susceptible to the growth of microorganisms.  Therefore, if the product is exposed to very little air, such as in a sealed or tightly closed bottle, the quality should change very little over the course of the product life.

 

After 13 months of shelf life study, during which time the bottles were kept at room temperature, the contents of the bottles used in the study have changed very little.  The pH, which is the #1 key metric for determining whether the product has been exposed to CO₂ as released by either microorganisms or exposure to air, is virtually unchanged from what it was a year ago.  This is in contrast to our gas chamber study, in which the control liquid that had direct contact with the pure CO₂ gas experienced a nearly 99.985% decrease in [OH-] concentration within a few hours!

 

Because the buffer capacity of the liquid is one important factor that affects the rate of pH change, smaller volumes of the liquid will respond more quickly to pH decreases as a result of exposure to air.  This is one reason why Sunburst is the most attractive to ants for the first few hours or days when it is freshly dispensed from the bottle.

What this all amounts to, is that for bottles which have been opened, but very little used, the product should remain fresh for an extremely long time—possibly years if there is no contamination.  However, as the product is used and the liquid volume in the bottle decreases, the product quality will begin to degrade increasingly quickly.

 

The next step in my study will be to repeatedly open, dispense, and close the bottled product in order to simulate real-world use.  We will record and graph the pH change over time to obtain a deeper understanding of what a user might expect from using the product at the rate we recommend, as referenced below.  We expect this next phase of the study to last 6 to 12 months, and I'll keep you all updated on the results.

 

The current recommended useful life is 3+ months for small bottles, and 6+ months for large bottles, after opening and with regular use.  This may be a conservative estimate, but I won't know until the conclusion of the study.

If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to ask them here.
 

 

 

What size bottle should I choose?

While everyone will use the product differently, the following table may offer some general guidelines as to the use-capacity* of each bottle size.

* Use-capacity determined by offering small colonies either 0.5 or 1 ml of product every 3 days, and larger colonies 2 or 4 ml of product every 3 days.

Edited by drtrmiller, March 30 2019 - 4:46 PM.

[Serafine]

As an additional point of reference my ~5000 worker Camponotus barbaricus colony is drinking around between 6 and 8ml of diluted maple syrup (75% water, 25% sugars) per day. Not sure about their Sunburst consumption (which would likely depend on the actual sugar content in the liquid) but when I last gave it to them they were about 2000 ants and drank about 4ml per day so the number seem kinda consistent.

Their diet seems to be rather sugar-heavy, similar to some other large-colony european Camponotus species - there also are species which focus much more on insects like Camponotus vagus and Camponotus fallax, those likely drink less sweets (also those species usually don't even reach 1000 workers).

[drtrmiller]

Given not only the range of sizes for ants, but also the differences between sugar consumption, as you mentioned, the whole concept of a feeding recommendation chart is going to be very limited with respect to its usefulness.  It's really meant to be a starting point.
 
Further, because you guys tend to be able to successfully manage far larger colonies than the typical hobbyist I see from other countries, the "Small," "Medium," "Large" colony language I used would probably not apply to Germany.
 
I think if a user was offering 4 mL of liquid and it was disappearing after 1 day, they would hopefully have enough sense to offer more the next day, because that is a huge amount for tiny ant stomachs.
 
As an aside—I see a lot of peculiar people who somehow come up with the idea that it's a proper use of Sunburst to just add one or two drops of Sunburst every week or two so their bottle ends up lasting for years, while they (presumably) continue feeding sugar water, honey, and other sugars in larger amounts more regularly.  Sunburst is intended to be used as a convenient replacement for all other sugars, not an occasional "treat."  I imagine these people probably keep a 1 L bottle of Fiji water in their refrigerator that they use only for celebratory occasions, and they probably pour it by the shot.

Edited by drtrmiller, March 30 2019 - 6:57 PM.

[Antking117]

If I buy multiple bottles can I use one for 6 months, then open another and use that one for six months. Or are they 6 months from purchase?