2 replies to this topic

[DDD101DDD]

A year or so ago, there was an AMA with Miles in the ants and antkeeping server, and I remember him saying that if you manually put ant colony's trash in a certain area enough, they'll start to do that themselves. I tried that with my Lasius neoniger colony a few weeks ago, and it actually worked(which surprised me). Mine also put trash on sugar water(it'd probably work with normal water too), so you could probably utilize this as a way to make cleaning up easier. It doesn't work with larger pieces of trash though. I don't have a before picture, but this is what my Lasius neoniger outworld looks like now.

 

In green is the area where their trash used to be, blue is where I put trash in and they moved their trash in that little dish, orange is where their sugar water used to be.

 

 

 

 

 

[futurebird]

Many ants like to put trash on water or wet things. I don't really know why. My theories are: 

1. It prevents flooding near the nest as puddles are dangerous for ants.
2. It is a way to hide or save a food source
3. It prevents water from evaporating as quickly so they can use the source longer

But I really have no idea about the whole "putting trash on the water" thing. 

 

The green location is probably too close to the nest. Most of my ants put it as far as physically possible from the nest entrance. It's amazing how organized they can be isn't it!

[DDD101DDD]

Many ants like to put trash on water or wet things. I don't really know why. My theories are: 

1. It prevents flooding near the nest as puddles are dangerous for ants.
2. It is a way to hide or save a food source
3. It prevents water from evaporating as quickly so they can use the source longer

But I really have no idea about the whole "putting trash on the water" thing. 

 

The green location is probably too close to the nest. Most of my ants put it as far as physically possible from the nest entrance. It's amazing how organized they can be isn't it!

 

If I had to guess, it would be because they tend to drown quite easily, so they cover it up. And yeah, their organization is pretty nice when picking up trash.