3 replies to this topic

[Formiga]

Context: My Formica fusca queen has moved to an area of the formicarium that did not have a red filter and was exposed to light.

 

Last night I've cleaned my formicarium. It is too large for that colony so they were using areas of it do dump dead flies. Purposefully or not, they've clogged a hole with a dead fly that was the passage way to two other areas. This fly had mold, and there was another moldy fly in the passage that led to their outworld. Since this passage is important for them to get to their water and honey, and there is a watering area nearby I've decided to act quickly. It's interesting to see how they try to minimize humidity in that fly by dumping sand grains around to absorb it.

 

So I've cleaned it, leaving all the circulation areas clean and accessible.

I've also removed the red filters so I could have a better contrast for observation, leaving only the queen's chamber side of the formicarium with the red filter.

 

After cleaning it, the ants started immediately to check around and soon decided there was a better place for the brood and moved it.

Soon the queen followed them. She's big, fat and looking healthy!

She followed the trail and crossed the exposed area of the formicarium. When she got to the entrance hole, she hesitated and went back, retrieving back to her dark comfy place.

A few minutes later she tried again and went down the hole.

 

It's very interesting to observe that the queen follows the scent trail left by the workers and makes no path decisions of her own.

The path implied climbing against the glass and then moving back talking advantage of a platform for entering the new royal chamber. The queen followed this exact path, failing a couple of times to leave the glass into the access platform, because of her size and weight compared to the workers'. She went back and went to a platform one level above to rest and tried again, finally making it to her new home.

 

This side of the formicarium was not covered with the red filter and was exposed to light.

I assume the queen feels more comfortable in the dark and she made no decisions about the place, just following a pheromone trail left by the workers, who made this decision.

 

I covered that side with a red filter temporarily, for her comfort.

 

So my question is: What's better for the queen? Dark or exposed?

With the red filter I have less visibility, but I find it secondary to her comfort and the health of her brood.

 

From your knowledge and experience, what do you comment and recommend guys?

Thanks!

 

[Formiga]

Here's a video of a couple of her attempts:

 

https://youtu.be/aZtL7U5k56I

 

(wow!, I got a cheap watchmaker magnifier and it does pretty good stuff! Maybe it's time I upgrade my phone just for the videos. Watching details on these 2 millimeters buggers sure adds a lot of interest to my observations. With it I could observe in detail forced co-opting and ants taking care of a wounded one. It turns these little things into beautiful monsters, it's amazing!)

[ANTdrew]

Yes, keep queens in the dark.

[Formiga]

Thanks for confirming it, ANTdrew.

 

I've also decided to keep the all the faces of the formicarium with the red filter. The top, where the queen is not, is can have the filter easily removable for observation, so I won't stress her while looking at the other ones.

 

What I thought: Everything with bright light is outside, the outworld, away from the inside of the colony and its protection. Also where you dump stuff.

By keeping the formicarium dark I hope to minimize trash around. Since the formicarium is too big for the colony's size, it being used as a dumper is kinda unavoidable, lets see if this minimizes it.

 

 

(and I'm starting to ask myself if I'm not getting too much involved in this ants thing because I've just returned from a hike (found a queen!! , have an ID request post on her) and right now while I was typing this post I was feeling a wild little Crematogaster chewing on my neck...     )