188 replies to this topic

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

A lot happened over the weekend. Well a little that turned into a bit more anyway. Felt like a lot.

I made my own nest expansion for the colony.
It took me 4 tries to get a useable one making a couple noob errors, a couple lazy errors, and one bone head move that ruined the 3^rd try.

I managed one that is not the nicest looking, but totally lived up to my plans of being “the nursery” section of the colony.

I had noticed they keep the youngest brood/egg clutches on the water tower all the time.
While the middle stage larvae are consistently moved to where the most humidity is. Often choosing low 70’s high 60’s F. temps where the humidity was higher, when the nest is 84-86 F. all the time.

So I planned that the next nest expansion should be both really high humidity and high warmth. I made a nest about a four inch square (doubling their nest space), with two water tower chambers and one large connecting “hall way” chamber between them.

Here it is just after being fully installed and the first ants checking it out. It’s real basic of course. I try to Keep It Simple Silly, just two real chambers and a connecting space.

Yes heart shaped water towers.

 

The connecting area includes passage to each camber, the old nest and the next expansion which will go on that tubing in the empty space. I think about a 7”x7” square when it’s next time to expand.

 

I ordered tubes for adding water, that are smaller than I seen in use so far/smaller than what’s on my THA fallen fortress. But they work great. They provide the benefit that the blunt tip syringe used for filling water towers, fits snugly into this tube. So even though it is a long and narrow tube, it push the water out the other end anyway. This means I can add water to the nest with no vibration disturbance at all. As these tubes are soft, flexible, and outside the nest proper, so when I hold them to push the blunt tip in, the ants never notice.  I got a little spool of this so I’m a just keep using it for the next nest too.

 

 

Here they are after a few more got brave to check it out. The temperature probe for the thermostat came from their old nest, so I think it helped them move in faster, that it already had their colony sent on it when they got in here.

 

That was all on Friday. But I didn’t get the heat cable on the nest top proper and it wound up with loads of condensation inside the next morning.

This shot is maybe 30 mim after getting the heat cable put on. you can see the area nearer it is dry now.

 

 

Here you can see heat helps get rid of it, but once it is already there in large amounts you can’t get rid of all of it. To keep it at bay it needs to be kept off form the get go, or the denser parts farther away from the heat source. Will keep cooling down fast enough as the water evaporates to keep it cool enough to collect more condensation consistently.

 

And here they have moved the bulk of the brood into the new nest including the pupae, still kept against the heat side, but now getting more humidity than the old nest.

 

 

This is Sunday, you can see a lot of the condensation has gone, but not all of it.

 

But now there is a bigger problem happening that started saturday and got worse as time went on. Did you notice the blu-tak on the corner of the nest there?

 

I tried a plexi top at the behest of the frame shop person where I bought it. But it turns out the heat/humidity cause the plexi to bow. It cupped up around the edges peeling the magnets up and away, and leaving gaps.

If you pressed the lid on from any one side, it gapped up a lot on the opposite side. I had to put tape and blu-tak around the edges to keep things under control for the weekend.

 

 

I got that replaced with glass on Monday when the frame shop was open. Though the frame shop did a better measure job than I, the glass hangs off one side a bit by about ¼ inch now. Which is correct for any of my cudgel jobs really. I once built a covered patio without taking any measurements. Not an exaggeration, that patio never saw a measuring tape. Worked great, don’t ask how it looked.

 

Here’s my full setup now with new nest in the back left, and space for the new outworld on the right.

Which arrives this week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ernteameise]

Heart shaped water-towers.

Something one does not see every day.

Cute.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

The new outworld arrived and it is so great, i can't show it to you.

The lighting is too poor where it is and i can't get a worthy image of it to share.

I've already ordered some goose-neck lamps so i can light it proper for pictures. But that won't be here till the 6th.

 

So i'm going to share one image of it here, but everyone has to be very forgiving and understand, it looks vastly superior in person.

 

It is 11"w x 7"d x 9"h

 

I have limited space so wanted to make use of verticality which is why it's 9" tall.

This is the last space i have for expansion, any new outworld will have to replace a present one.

And i only have two to swap out. The first and smallest one shares a base mount with the nest so it's not going anywhere (THA Fallen Fortress).

 

And i asked for all the top trim/top quality decorations. I have very little space here so what i do fill it with i want to be as nice as i can get.

This one includes some beautiful pieces of petrified woodstone that i must light better to capture the great colors of.
A lid with 4 vent holes and a large lid-on-lid that's museum glass. This offers some really sweet top down views and the larger glass lid-on-lid really makes the view super clean.

I just can't say enough good about Mack's work, he really has an eye for the aesthetics that i love.

 

So here's the one shot i'll offer till i can take some worthy photos of this wonderful beauty after i've got better lighting in place.

 

 

And here's a fresh larvae clutch pile in the new nursery nest.

 

They continue to grow and seem to be doing quite well.

their biggest current drama is deciding where the new trash pile will go.

 

They no longer keep the trash in the med outworld, they take it all the way to the large outworld now. But they are split as to where exactly it will be kept, with three competing waste management crews moving the trash back forth between their three different location piles.

Now after 3 days it's down to two crews bidding for the location of the trash pile. The third pile is mostly gone now divided up between the other two.

I figure in another 2-4 days they will have worked out where the one trash pile is going to be kept.

 

 

[100lols]

Wow! Beautiful work by Mack indeed. Even without much light the quality of the work is obvious. Love it

Can’t wait to see the girls climbing that structure. I wonder how they’ll like it? I can see they are nice and toasty in the new nest. Thanks for the update!

[Ernteameise]

Oh wow!

This new outworld is absolutely stunning. Amazing.

 

(I cannot wait for Mack to come back to me with my own custom nest, now I see this. He must be really swamped with work this summer)

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

In the last couple weeks the ants have developed a new behavior. I believe they are making dried fruit.

 

Once the colony got large enough I could not reasonably put in and take out whole slices of fruit to their outnest area. So I started giving them small apple bits less than an inch cube in size. I’d put 2-3 of these in, and they not only swarm it, but also tear it up and drag it out to the trash on their own.
This was a win/win, they still get fresh fruit bits in a location the callows will come out and eat on, but they cleaned up after themselves now.

And then they started stashing apple bits in their own unique locations away from the trash piles.
 

In the outnest they store seeds in two piles on either side of the nest entrance. Most commonly piling them there from foraging, and slowly moving them into the nest proper from there.
Later when they got the nest expansion and had to move the seed larder(it was covering the new nest port), they just quickly moved it out to the outnest area in those two piles.

Those are obviously some not trash pile zones, but official food pile zones for them.

And now they store tiny drying apple bits there, as well as a couple other stash spots in the med outworld, again, not in the trash pile and other trash is not placed with the apple bit stashes.

 

Here are the two outnest food piles. You can see the one on the left is just apple bits and the right one is a mix of some seeds and some apple bits.
They put little bits of sand on the apple bits, like it might help wick the moisture out of them or something?

Left pile

right pile

 

 

Here are a couple apple bit stash spots in the med outworld, not near the trash pile and no trash with them.

 

 

And if you watch any of the apple bit stashes, once in a while an ant will come by and pick one up, chew on it for a bit and then maybe place it back or decide it is now trash and take it out to the trash pile.

It really seems like they are treating the little apple bits differently from the trash, and basically making dried fruit bits that’ll last longer for them to extract sugars from.

 

 

I noticed yesterday that it looks like a small explosion of new ants happened within the last 12 hours.
I count at least ten or eleven in here that are light enough to be in the 1-12 hours out from eclosing.

 

 

And then yesterday I gave them a half a raspberry. Always testing out things that might provide both sugar and seeds. It was not mobbed on popular like apple or nectarine was, but several did work it. And this morning it was clear that overnight they harvested some of the seeds from it.

 

And I got one of my best photos yet. Still shrunk it a bit for posting here, but kept it larger than most casue i think it's all that. So be sure to click and bask in its full sized glory.

 

[Ernteameise]

Great pictures!

 

And very interesting behaviour! I Have never heard of ants making dried fruit, but so much is still unknown- so this might actually be a thing.

Thank you for sharing.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

And now that the lighting is here, I got ok pics of the new outworld to share.

The Three outworlds are all from Tar Heel Ants. left to right (L,D,H):
Fallen Fortress, 4”x4”x4”
Medium Foraging Area w/custom build, 9”x5”x5”
Full Custom Order, 11”x7”x9”

 

The Fallen was a Christmas 2022 prebuilt special.
The medium I ordered a little later.
And the large I just added, sparing no expense to request all the bells and whistles available.


Primary front view and slight top down angle.

 

The lid, plenty of venting and the lid-on-lid is a museum glass pane providing excellent top down visibility even with a direct overhead light. My only critique here is that the glass lid is too hard to remove compared to the full lid. Maybe if it was held in place by three magnets in a triangle shape, it’d be easier to pry it up from a corner. But as the lid-on-lid here is large enough, removal of it causes enough air disturbance they all flip out anyway. I might try changing up the lid-on-lid magnet configuration later. For now i just take the whole lid off when i need access.

 

 

Right side view, the bright reflected spot is one of the two gooseneck LED lamps I added. I like how the raspberry bits decorate the trash piles.
NOTE: All raspberry bits were sent directly to the trash, unlike the apple bits they stash away from the trash. They also harvested 100% of the seeds from the rasberry.

 

Here are some close ups of the premium decorations. Fabulous pieces of petrified woodstone on display here. To some eyes this will be simple and less premium looking than crystals or other things also considered top tier trim. But for my eye, the petrified wood is as choice as it gets. But my camera just don’t really capture the reds going on in the first piece here, it is more vibrant in person.

 

 

It is so great looking here in the room. And I’m just so very happy with how Mack totally get’s my personal taste POV, delivering spectacularly fabulous aesthetics just like I like. Which is fairly far along the spectrum slider to the minimalist end of things. I like it to have some interest but not be “busy.”
And BAM, several rock decorations and just two bits of greenery,  nicely placed in the scene with a small succulent and just little bit of leafiness in there balancing it out. It has the intrest and the outdoor vibe, but is not too busy, so the Ants remain the star of the show out here.

 

 

I cannot overstate my satisfaction with this.

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, October 9 2023 - 10:41 AM.

[ANTdrew]

It truly is a spectacular setup. Mack should feature it on his site.

[100lols]

Couldn’t agree more. Stunning setup! Mack and you paired well.

The girls have a nice ways from the nest to explore and we get to watch their cool behaviors.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

Got the next nest made and installed. They grew past the last small nest I made real fast. I’d find a significant portion of the colony packed in tightly together, in one or two places of the med. outworld every morning.
When the morning timer light comes on they all wake up and start the morning commute back into the nest proper. Not a frenzied freak out but just, oh i guess we were in the wrong palce, let's go back inside now that we know.

 

For the new nest I added a new feature for the heating cable. A copper tube on the far side from the water towers that passes just under the chambers there. No need to tape the heat cable to the side of the nest. The copper pipe should do a good job of conducting the heat into the surrounding plaster material.

BTW: I am bad at documenting projects. Stopping to take pictures is disruptive to enjoying the work flow of the moment. So not a lot of that to offer I am afraid.

This image is form my first try that failed. The mold is almost x2 as tall as the nest will be. The next mold that did work out I made be just as tall as the nest. It was much easier to work in than trying to work inside a tall box.

The tube is just maybe a 1/4" longer and sunk about 1/8" into the wood on each side of the mold.
The next one i made was exacly as long as the mold, and i used a pushpin on one side to hold it in place(tube over pushpin head), and a little clay prevent the tube form getting clogged. The bump on a pushpin's base presses the tube into the wood on the opposite side.

 

 

And here is a side view showing how the heat cable end bulb is an exact fit to the tube. It is just loose enough the cable can push the bulb through the tube without any real hassle. But small enough this tube can be fit to any common nest forms I have seen, vertical or horizontal orientation.  
Next time I am considering to place the tube so  some of the copper is exposed to the inside of the nest cambers. Copper has natural anti-microbial properties. And if I can place the copper tube just right, then it could be exposed along one side of the nest at the top, to be in direct contact with the glass. Which would give the glass heat directly to help ward off condensation.

I think this feature is delux for reducing the need for tape, and leaving the nest athsteics more clean. I'd recommend to check this out on your next build.

 

 

The full top down view, this is 8”x6” filling out the last of the useful space I got to give them. I made the main track fairly shallow as I noted the ants seem to prefer to be crowded in on top of each other. I did three water towers as I also noted the ants really love their humidity. The left isde has one port and the right has two. The gap in the track is the port that will get the temp probe for the themrostat heat cable control.

 

 

Here it is in place, as always using a lot of blue tak on the bottom to keep everything in place in case of earthquake shakes. I am really liking using these tiny laytex tubes for water tower filling. As you can see the fill tubes are on the back side which would be hard to use in more typical designs. But these are easy to get hold of to insert the blunt tip syringe, without any distrubace ot the nest at all.

 

And a side view of the install.

 

And the lone male is still here. Though now with the new nest this area of the old nest is much more sparsely inhabited.

 

 

I woke this morning to discover bad condensation going on in the new nest. I’m currently trial and error searching for the best heat cable configuration to keep the glass warm enough to not get condensation, while keeping the heat far enough away form the water towers to not cause a high evaporation rate.

 

The good thing was the ants took to the new nest really well, no one was living in the outworld this morning, and nearly all the brood had been moved into the places in the new nest that I had imagined they would be.
So it feels like a success in the layout/design/build, even though I got some dialing in to do with the condensation issue.

I have fantsies of a custom built bit of glass that is wired like a car rear window defogger to use on ant nests.

 

 

And the ants regualry come swarm the upper deck of the large outworld when they are in forgage mode. They are not swarming here becasue of the seeds, i put the seeds out becasue they were forage swarming.

 

I had the glass lid-on-lid off for a few days. Then I took the whole lid off about a week ago.
My honey has not noticed yet. So i should be safe if she does, as i can let her know, it's been this way for weeks. And no escape issues, so no issues with that setup.
They really treat the large outworld as outside these days. The one issue being anytime i am over them to look at eveyrthig i got to be careful about my breathing or they get a huff of mamal breath and have a total freak out.

 

 

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, October 20 2023 - 10:20 AM.

[ANTdrew]

Magisterial work there!

[100lols]

Indeed, great work!! It’s all very aesthetically pleasing. The ants have so much space now

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

Worked out the condensation issue.

 

Part of the difficulty is simply the size of the glass. Surface area cools, so once there is enough of it, keeping the whole pane universally warm enough to prevent condensation is about impossible for me. Outside temps are inside temps for us basically, we’re used to bundling up as the ambient is so cold all the time in winter.

 

I did two things:

 

1: I swapped the 25 watt LED for a 25 watt incandescent (summer/winter lighting)

Which helped drive off condensation from the lower section near the heat, but left the upper section too cold. Additionally on the overnight when the light is off, it left a lot more condensation on the glass by the morning.

 

 

 

So 2: I gave the nest a blanket.

 

I didn’t want to cover the whole thing as they get acclimated to light/dark conditions. They been living under light now fully for a couple weeks. The blanket was perfect, it kept enough of the glass warm enough the heat cable manages the rest. And the angle on the openings to the light mean they are not in real darkness in there, so when I do remove it they don’t notice/care.

 

 

I also recently replaced a light fixture. I had a  zoomed double hood, but the stand on the table passed a lot of vibration to them being bumped by the window shade on windy days. So I went wall mount.
I had a hard time finding bendy goose neck lamps with deep hoods and ceramic backs(where the bulb screws in) that can take incandescent heat. Most everything was for LEDs all thin plastics and not likely to take the 25 watt ceramic heat element on winter nights.  These were sold as for reptile light/heat and while they didn’t wall mount on their own, they were right and cheap enough too(about $25 each).

 As always, not just good, but good enough.

 

The new nest is totally popular and has replaced the nursery nest I made first for where they keep all the brood. While the nursery nest remains popular for general ant living.
The new nest gave them more opportunity to divvy up the brood. They now keep three distinct brood groups.

In the upper left is the youngest brood, and in the next chamber over are the older/fatter but still feeding brood. And then all the no longer feeding larvae and pupae are kept in their own chamber.

 

I notice sometimes overnight they move all the brood to one chamber in the top of the new nest, and when the light comes on, they move the oldest brood down to the lower left corner here (image is upside down from normal viewing positon).

 

Ant Enrichment:

We call it that for other captive animals so why not insects too? I read that in the wild these ants will use stones to block up their nest entrance at night. So I gave them some and they went nuts.

 

I gathered a few tiny pebbles from in front of my house. While doing so I discovered an ant colony lives right outside my door under a bush. They were out foraging where I was gather pebbles.

I soap and water brush scrubbed them off, and then baked them for 30 min at 450f in the oven.

 

I placed the stones in the med outworld, and they attacked the stones. Like they were trying to kill the stones, biting and trying to pull them apart in groups. Not moving the stones in a group, but pulling away from each other tug of war style with them. And they were clearly agitated in their movement for a couple hours, being very “on” for a while. I'm thinking the stones still had other ant smells on them for why they were freaking out and attacking the stones.

 

However the larger nest seems to be working, no one in the new two nests cared or even appeared to be aware of anything going on that was seriously pissing off all the other ants in the outworlds.

 

Here is one being hauled up the tree for some reason.

 

And there were some road blocks as they ported the stones from the med to large outworld.

 

Eventually they took all the stones to the large outworld and most wound up in the trash. After a couple hours they all mellowed out and got back to whatever basic ant business there was to attend to.
Though this morning I  noted that while no ports in the formicarium were plugged with stones. They were still interacting wiht some of them.
 

I think I’m going to be sure and leave the stones in there when I vacuum up the trash pile and see if they remain interesting to interact over time.

 

 

[Ernteameise]

I repeat myself but this is a really cool and classy setup and you put some real thought into it.

Also love your observations concerning the "enrichment".

[100lols]

How well does the sticky tack do with the heating cable?? I’m looking for a better option than tape because mine falls off…

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

@Ernteameise

 

you are too kind. Thank you.

 

 

@100lols

 

seems to work well.

i started using it with the 2nd nest, so it's not been in use a particularly long term.
but it holds position well if you press it down tight enough. It's not sticky holding down the cable in most places but just being a solid surface i can use to make the cable's own tension keep in place.
In a couple places where the cable wants to bend up enough i wrap a bit over it to hold it down better.
the warming makes it get a little sticky on the cable and glass. But a few blots with a larger bit will pull it off.

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, October 26 2023 - 7:52 PM.

[100lols]

Awesome, thanks FFY!!

I’m working on starting my journals soon so I need my aesthetics as good as I can get them. The sticky tact looks clean!

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

Thanks to a friend of mine I believe my ants are now the most spoiled ants around.
My buddy has some disposable income, and fussy cats. So he bought the most fancy cat food you can find without just feeding them your own food. And of course they do not like it.

 

It arrived on dry ice. He tested one of all the flavors and they turn their nose up at all of it.
This stuff is better than any Fancy Feast the poorer retires are eating to be sure.
https://www.smalls.c...man-grade-fresh

 

It's “smooth” and whatever animal. Smooth fish, smooth bird, smooth cow and so on. It’s like pate basically. I got a 4oz block of smooth bird in my freezer and I just chip a tiny little bit off and let it thaw(about 5 min).
And as the brood pile seems pretty set at a max size, they got protein for a lifetime now. They have fed on this stuff once a week for four weeks now and no issues, so i give it the seal of approval.

It stays clumped together well and not too wet. They can break off hunks and carry them off without leaving smears on everything as they move it around. And it is 100% food no refuse leftovers. They can also scrape every little bit up and make a bigger ball to cart off. The feeding tray is spotless when they are done.

 

They go nuts for the stuff.

 

I still give them apple all the time, but now in little bits they can deal with on their own instead of whole slices I have to clean out later. But very little of the apple bits I give them wind up in the trash.

 

 

Instead they stash apple bits in their own locations all over the place. These are not trash piles but some sort of food store too.

I don’t have an image but a couple chambers in the new nest have their own specific pile of apple bits and seeds together, while the main seed larder chambers are strictly seeds. And they tend to these piles regularly. I think some combo of drying out the apple faster to slow/prevent rot, but also moistening the seeds to help get them open.

As they keep a very specific refuse location, I feel sure none of these apple bit piles are trash from their POV.

 

 

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

This post is more than a month in the making, and the situaiton is ongoing still, but i feel a month is enogh to report on now.

 

My ants use magic!!! I've got the documention over the last month to show it too.

A little over one month ago now the ants started keeping apple bits rather than just likcing on slices. They tear them up into smaller bits and stash them all over the palce, but do not put them in what is explcitly the trash pile.

And of all the apple bits they keep they got one "big" one, that they keep from rotting or drying out, obviusly by magic.

I noticed this apple bit maybe sometime in mid Oct. It was nothing, until a week later it was exactly the same, and that seemed to make it something.

 

first image i think i have: 10-21-23

 

and i just keep taking one every so often

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and eventually daily. Cause it is the same apple bit, no rot, no brown, not looking dry. What sorcery is this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this is not trickery or exaggeration, every image above was taken on a different day.

 

They move it around a little sometimes, but mostly it lives there against the lower back wall in the outnest area. And they come around to hold onto it from time to time, or whatever it is they are doing with it.
And even when they get fresh apple that they will tear up into bits and stash, and it all starts drying out and some turn a little reddish brown.

But this bit will remain where it is and unchanged in any time passage meaningful way that i can observe.

Obviously these ants use magic.

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, November 20 2023 - 1:39 PM.