2 replies to this topic

[Formiga]

Yesterday one of my colonies started to move their brood around from the formicarium to their water test tube, in the out world.

 

I suspected this was due to humidity on the formicarium starting to go low. It had been some days since I've watered it.

 

I even saw the queen going outside of her usual nesting place. I've also seen her "packing" a huge pile of eggs and larvae and trying to pick them all up, and that was impressive!

 

So I've watered the formicarium and the queen stayed in her place. The other 5 nanitics split the time between staying with her and on the test tube taking care of the eggs. There were brood on both places.

Now I've seen no nanitics on the water tube (they're all inside with the queen) but there seem to be still a couple of larvae (from their size they are not eggs) in the tube.

 

So do eggs, larvae and pupae need different levels of humidity?

Does it makes sense for the small colony (with just 5 nanitics) to have eggs on two such separate and far away places?

Or it's just a reaction time and they'll finally sense the humidity levels by their queen on the formicarium are ok and they'll move back all the brood, eventually?

 

 

 

Thanks for any hint or comment guys!

[futurebird]

I'm fairly certain that they do need slightly different conditions. But, when the colony is small most of my ants keep them mixed up in one pile. Only as they grow in number do they start separating them more and more. But from what you describe they may have just forgotten the larva. But ants are pretty good about not missing such things, so I'd just give them time. They will move them back. 

 

If they don't they may be dead or damaged. 

[Formiga]

Thanks for replying!

And thanks specially for teaching me why ants can leave their brood behind.

 

At the moment there's brood in 3 separate places! And I'm certain that the amount of brood in the water tube is not small, so most probably not forgotten.

 

I remembering seeing at least one cocoonless pupa among them. So it means pretty soon there will be more ants. This realization that they are soon about to grow in numbers could encourage and justify them all this activity, I imagine. They are also hitting more on the sugar.

 

I perceive them as an active happy colony, always walking around the formicarium (too big for their numbers) and in the out world. I call them "The extroverted colony", opposed to the other one I call "The introverted colony" because they have no large formicarium, just a narrow piece of tube they use as a nest, and blocked the entrance with little pebbles of sand, closing themselves in and barely going out for "a walk", sugar or even food. But they seem to be ok, just working on their brood inside.

 

But it has been interesting to observe totally different behaviors on these two colonies!