187 replies to this topic

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

The colony is doing great. They add maybe 1.9 new ants a day on average i estimate. I have found a good % of the callows tend to hang out on the ceiling for a while. I have to get in an odd angle below the table in order to see up to the nest ceiling to count them.

Over the last 4 days they also had  a few dies offs totaling 4 ants and one pupae that didn't wake up.
I get weird out by them dragging a dead ant around so i take them out as soon as i spot one. If i don't they will drag the bodies around, put it in the trash, take it back out. Carry it around, clean it, put it back on the trash, take it back out again. And do that for the better part of a day or two until they finally let it go to the trash permanently. So i just put a stop to that as soon as i notice it going on now.

This was also a situation for the colony i figured had to come along at some point. The queen seems to lay eggs in batches rather than a set steady rate. So i figure cohorts that were eclosing at the same time are gonna pass on near each other too in little batches.

I take it as a good sign that everything is mostly normal for them.

I want to reiterate that having a place far from the nest to place trash seems to be a factor in them keeping a fairly clean looking nest space, with a near steady flow of workers taking out trash bits constantly.
While they will steady take in seeds and stack up a fairly deep larder if i give them enough that they like. And then a deep larder requires maintenance, and you can see them doing the doggie dig into the seed pile, churning older seeds form the bottom up to the top.

Had a big clean up of the large outworld and restocked with seeds. I went total spoiled on them and have recently been buying the cheapest planting seeds on the spiny rack at the local grocery store.
It's $1.99 for a fairly small amount, like orders of magnitude cost higher than bulk isle cooking seeds. But they love them, more so than chia seeds now.

They had 6 little piles to choose from. chia, dandelion, Kentucky blue grass, poppy, black eyed susans and some other planting seed flower i forget(really tiny weeny seeds, like 1/5 the size of a poppy seed)

They messed with all the piles and shuffled a little of everything around, but after about 3 hours, there were none of the planting flower seeds to be found in the otuworld, they took them all. The other seeds remain where they were several days later now.

Also interesting is, ants that want a seed, want that seed.The same two ants moved most of the seeds, but each one only moved the one type of seed they moved. Never touching the other type of seed they the whole time, while being piled right next to each other.

And i've not done insects for a while now just fish flakes and seeds of late as they seem very into them.

The bigger ant will break up a flake in the one spot, while smaller ants come along and take the little pieces back to the nest.
They have also gotten a bit braver as the colony size grows. They will now engage fish flakes farther away from the entrance when they had preciously ignored any too far away. Now they will drag them back to be near the entrance and then break them up there.

 

 

 

And then most surprising the other day a fresh callow came out of the nest. It was the first one I ever seen do this, they normally stay in the nest for a while tending brood or whatever and won't be seen outside the nest proper until they have become a least fully red. But this one apparently woke up ready to be doing outword work.

here she is in the med outworld


and then shortly to the large outworld where she explored the whole place quite willfully, moving around in it like any other of the "outside" ants would. When normally an ant not ready to be outside would quickly scurry back into the med outworld in a panic if they stumbled their way out here.



It was so odd to me it made me nervous, so i moved her back into the small outworld on top of the nest. She was back in the large outworld in less than 10 min. And she's carried on like this now as a new ant that is foraging with the older ants. She knows what she wants to be doing and it is not what the other callows been doing.

They are looking close to ready for their next nest, so i'll probably get them moved into over the next couple of weeks. As they are in a side view miniihearth and going to a topdown view nest. I'm going to set it up to let them take their own time moving. I'l get them all into the mini only. Then reorg the space for the new setup with heat and all on the new nest. Then i'll hook up the mini to the med outworld and just let them take their own time about it. Allowing the mini dry out and cool down so the new fallen fortress nest will be preferable for them.

 

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, June 15 2023 - 8:58 AM.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

My local had waxworms in yesterday for the first time, so i checked em out. I've not given them any insects for a few weeks now as they seem to be fine with fish flakes, but i do want to give them variety as they would have, so a few insects/protein from time to time is on their menu.

They went bonkers for waxworm unlike anything else i ever gave em. I had planned to not post insect consuming images and focus on ants and seed harvesting. But the response was so more than i ever seen i got a image of it.

 

Normally they come out in force to check out a bug, but in short order most have left and a small work crew of maybe 4-6 will take care of it. But this waxworm was just endlessly swarmed on like this by a pile of ants. And it was too big to drag back into the nest through the tube, but they wound up trying and blocking up the tube a few times.
This morning less than 24 hours later there is just one tiny bit, like maybe 10% max of it left in the nest and they are still working on it. And no trash from it that i could spot either just mostly all consumable with a soft not chitin exterior.


Here are those seed packs i was mentioning last post. Pricey by the unit of course, but the ants really get in for them over any of the seeds form the grocery store bulk isle.


And here's the fallen fortress nest they will be moving into in the next week or so once i have all the supplies on hand for the reorg.


The connection to the outworld is middle on the left. It has two magnets on either side of it holding it in place up against the outworld.
And the plug in the lower right will be replaced with the temp probe for the heat cable thermostat.



After changing up to the new riser shelves from the last one. I discovered the soft foamy non-slip feet on the last one were absorbing a lot of the vibrations of the room (2nd floor hardwoods) and any bumps to the table including just setting down the flashlight on it or whatever. I had to place a soft cloth on it or just setting objects down under their riser(flash light and magnifying glass) would cause the nest to go into a frenzy.
So i got those pads on order as the last item i need on hand before I can redo their shelf for the larger nest and new outworld.

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, June 16 2023 - 8:37 AM.

[Ernteameise]

How happy are you with the outworlds from Tarheel Ants?

Easy to clean?

They sure look amazing...

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

How happy are you with the outworlds from Tarheel Ants?

Easy to clean?

They sure look amazing...

Highly pleased. I bought the mini hearth and fallen fortress (the med outworld with nest currently detachment) on holiday sale dec 2022. I added the large world (9x5x5 med outworld on their page) after about 4 weeks of the colony arriving. I was waiting till they seemed settled in and busy expanding numbers before i spent more. That one was custom ordered so i could have entrance/exit ports on each side right up next to the planned front face view. They direct traffic to make it easier to get macro photos and ready for the next expansion later on.

They are both easy enough to clean but each has it's own challenges that i do not believe could be better designed without compromising aesthetics. The med outworld has that one tall plant bit and reaching in I can't exactly avoid my hand brushing on it a bit maybe picking up an ant if there was one on it.
The large outworld's cool looking bridge and 5" width  means i can't angle the little handheld vacuum "wand" in certain places to clean. I got to use a extra short little brush only about 1.5" long if i need to sweep stuff out where the vacuum can get it sometimes.

I just ordered another outworld as the colony will move into their next nest soon(fallen fortress) giving up the small outworld on top of the mini-hearth. This one full custom so i could fill that last space i got at 11w x8d x9h.
Which i didn't know he did,  i had though i would need to find a best fit compromise size from among some cookie cutter options.

And while i've had an idea or two for an outworld, i like Mack's work so much i tell him to make whatever his art eye wants to. And just give him my personal taste POV that i like landing closer to the minimalist end of the spectrum than busy. A mix of all the decoration, but less leafy/bushy plants than rocks/sticks. And i included an image of what i got already,  he'll style/color platelet match the new one to it.

I'm figuring a taller one(9") is going to be harder to clean and i might need to rig some kind of vacuum wand extension for it. But as the farthest awawy outworld i also expect to see a lot less poop and a specifically placed trash pile.
These ants are so polite to me, it's like they try to make it easy.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

I decided to do the move into the fallen fortress. They could have waited another couple months, but I had everything on hand including the time, so I got it done. I knew the more of them there were the harder it would be so I was wanting to move them as soon as it seemed ok for them rather than waiting till they were overflowing from the nest space into the outworld.

Everything went pretty smoothly and about 24 hours later they seemed to be getting settled into the nest. Signs of the trash pile being kept where it was,  so all good then I’d say.

 

That was the negative possibility of moving them too soon I risked. If they felt the new nest space was too big they might start filling it up with whatever’s on hand, like their own refuse. But seeing the trash pile begin to reform I’m confident they’re ok.

 

The main goals were:  

1: get them into a larger nest
2: expand the raiser space so I can fit the new outworld when it arrives.
3: get some earthquaking proofing in place so the ants won’t spill everywhere if things get shaky.

 

First tip: the cheap sandwich bag type plastic gloves like this

My Pogonomyrmex Occidentalis can just barely hold onto them, a tiny shake drops  them off if needed. Moving them was so much easier with these. Get a few on a stick, put the stick between my gloved fingers  like a cigarette and pull it back through slowly while twisting it. They just fall off into the outworld.

 

I used self adhesive anti-skid pads on the riser feet. the last one came wiht them and after moving to these i saw how much work they were doing. I suddenly needed to set everything on the table under them down very gingerly or they'd get freaked out. With these in place life's back to normal.

 

 

 

The original riser was fairly small, I replaced it with 4 risers all lined up as one larger shelf. It had to fit on top of what I already had, and be the height so when I turn to view in my chair, they are at a good level for ease of viewing. I didn’t find a single shelf to meet it and wound up with this Frankenstein setup to get there.
Fallen Fortess on the left with nest behind it. The outworld money shot is facing the front view this way, and i was already moving to view the nest in the previous setup anyway. The bit of cardboard there is held in place magnetically and puts the nest in shadow. I'll move the large (soon to be med) outworld over to make room for the new large one when it arrives. And the bluetac works great on the heavy med outworld to keep it in place on the shelf. takes a serious pry to move it. I recently swapped to LED lights for summer.

 

 

 

 

The fallen fortress here without the nest on it. I drilled a small hole all the way through it and the riser. Then a larger dip just deep enough for the bolt head to sink in, so the nest can sit flat over it. It’s now bolted to the riser shelf and taped down so it won’t spin/wiggle when I’m futzing with it.

 

 

 

This is the heat cable. So it would end where I wanted it to I brought it up through a hole rather than directly from the back. It goes along the bottom edge and back along the top, heating the one side of the nest. Then a short tail is left that contacts the glass enough to keep condensation from forming.

 

 

 

And the cable tail with a few scouts checking out the nest. Some water was spilled out of the tower before they moved in. The condensation there goes away if i move the tail to go down the middle, but i'm pretty sure once the material dries out and it's just the tower evaporation, the cable can stay in this position and keep the condensation off.

 

 

 

Here is the old nest with shortened tube setup for them to move. They got busy re-exploring the med outworld(now the small), and in fairly short order took one larvae over to the new nest. But just the one for a while, and it looked like they would not be moving. It’s warm enough without the cable, and their mini-hearth still had plenty of water in it for humidity I didn’t believe they would fully move out for a long time potentially.
So I breathed slightly into the mini hearth’s outworld. They immediately went into a scramble to GTFO. The Quen almost leading the charge and going directly to the new nest without any futzing about and not coming back out until the following day.

 

 

 

 

In fairly short order they had moved all the brood with just a few ants who were really hesitant to leave the nest. I opened it all up and held it over the large (now med) outworld. Each time one would venture to climb on the outside of the nest I would brush them off into the outworld.

Here they are shortly after I was done doing all the work and not making more vibrations.

 

 

And here they are the following day, just about 24 hours later from the start of their eviction ordeal.

 

 

Close up of their shade awning. I think i'm a find something like a fake leaf or anything that looks nicer than the cardboard from a battery pack. It works well and before i had it up i could tell they were tolerant of the direct light but noticed it. They were much more calmed down moving after it was up.

 

 

Last image here is The Big Ant. I posted a while back about the big larvae and massive pupae it became. She's the biggest. This is her among the average ones. There are other larger ones, but they are still easy to see are not her.

 

 

And i got a full brood count on the move. I give myself a  +/- 3 margin of error.
45 pupae

79+ larvae (one tiny larvae clutch is the +)
2 egg clutches

1 half-awake callow had to be carried over

--------

129+ on the way and 2 egg clutches.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

The colony is now one week in their new nest setup and seem to be doing quite well.
I managed a count the other day during a down time for them(they keep a loose schedule) when they were not moving around as much.
For sure no less than 150 minimum, potentially as many as 175 i'd say.
 

A few noticeable changes have gone on in their group behavior recently/as part of this move/as part of their colony size.

During high busy times for them i can count as many as 30 workers in the large outworld which used to not see no more than about 10 max not too long ago.
Still only have about 5-10 that roam/linger in the large outworld (soon to be med) throughout the day, tending to the trash pile or whatever. But part of the change has been to have a noticeable schedule of activity that waxes and wanes during the day.

With an active busy larger number of ants in both outworlds for a period of time and then back to a calmer moving smaller number of them in the outworlds doing slower looking busy work and loafing off.

On this schedule they will form a small mass of ants that move as a group in circles around the small outworld for about 15-30 min or so at a time. They have become really interested in this left corner of the small outworld and swarm around it every time they are doing the move in mass thing.

 

They have also begun a new behavior of excavating/eating bits of apple. They dig a hole into the side of apple slices now which they had previously only licked on. I've not spotted any of the apple in the trash pile so i'm left to guess they are eating what they excavate or maybe feed it to the larvae. But when they are moving as a mass they come to the apple and dig a hole in the side of it.
 

And the mass motion only happens in the small outworld. The large outworld is still behaved differently in with the majority of ants turning away form the entrance to it when they get close. Out there they do not move as a mass like they do in the small outwolrd.



Here is someone foraging a bit of fish flake, showing that navigating back to the ground form the sky bridge can be challenging. They will often make a spiral around the bridge a few times before they manage to  get to the ends and climb down properly. If they can established a "good" trail they won't, but commonly they wind up spiraling around the bridge a few times on every trip, before they get down off it. So of course that's where i tend to place the forage most often.

 

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, June 26 2023 - 9:09 AM.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

The colony continues to grow.

As best as i can estimate they average somewhere between 3-5 new workers a day. That's an average and there are rare days when no new callows wake up, but generally i can spot a bit of white on someone still, indicating they woke up sometime in the last 1-8 or so hours max. None of them have any white for long at all,  so i use that as my gauge of how recently they eclosed.

 

The weather has been warming, i unplugged the heat cable for a day and discovered that some condensation will form even with the heat cable as from from the tower as can be. So i keep a bit of heat cable draped over the top of that area.


I got to see the queen lay eggs. They cleared off a spot on the water tower that's normally covered in brood. She positioned over it and tucker her gaster up under her for a few min. When she moved there was a tiny pile of maybe 3-6 eggs(didn't have the magnifying glass in hand to see better). She tended them for a little bit, then a worker came along and put them on the egg pile near by.
 

 

And they made it clear the small outworld is nest, they don't like exposed water in the nest and cover it with dirt. i read they would do this with nest mates commonly so just hand't used them in the nest proper.
now they drain out the water in the small outworld all the time no matter where i put it.

Humidity saturated when i see it in the morning.

And yes here in the nest we keep some brood.

 

All is well in the nest propper.


And here we had a dig party and went to town tearing chit up. Wish i had got a good vid/burst shot of this to make a gif. They are going nuts here being really group aggressive on digging.

 

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, July 5 2023 - 1:00 PM.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

They just keep growing. I can see now that I should already be looking to their next nest if I intend to DIY it. As i never done any before i need some time to fook things up a bit while i figure it all out.

The now small outworld is lived in as nest and i really dig it. Basically, all nest activities are out on display easy see there. Seed husking, grooming, rest, brood care, and callows. The only ant who no longer comes to the outworld is the Queen. She was out once early on after the move and i've not seen her out sesen.

I came in the other day to find they had moved most of the brood out to the small outworld. This was the first time I seen it this full and they had no care about the light there (nest proper is in shade). I have also discovered they really do like smaller/tighter spaces and move into them anytime they are available.
They are so many now that live in the smal outwolrd i can't place apple slices in the same place all the time like i used to.
Now when i open it up and they go nuts, i have to just set the apple slice down anywhere there's an empty space for a second, there's just so many of them out and about now.
So the apple wound up real close to the wall, making a little cubby space that they love. Anytime the slice has a cubby spot between the wall and the apple they move in in mass.

Here we can see the cubby space made and that they filled it with brood.

 

 

But really the whole of the small outworld is nest to them as this other brood pile shows. this and the above images were taken at the same time, all the brood but the youngest and eggs are in the small outworld.
They move back and forth on this depedning on how humid the otuworld is.

These images are from a later time when the brood is back in the nest proper.

You can see a little egg/tiny larvae clutch they have pressed onto the glass ceiling of their nest for us to check out, and her majesty close at hand.

 

 

Backing out from macro, a little bit of the tower is also open in this chamber and i notice they move the main brood pile(late stage larvae and pupae) back and forth a few times every 24 hours or so, between the more humid pocket here and the hotter chamber across from them where the heat cable is.

 

 

 

And backing out more we can see the main water towerchamber where the younger larvae, eggs, and often the eclosing workers are kept on the water tower(which is nearly impossible to gauge water levels in).

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, July 13 2023 - 8:20 AM.

[Ernteameise]

I am happy you have such a nice growing colony.

Great pictures, too.

Thank you for sharing.

 

My Messors actually also use the small outworld of their acrylic nest as "nest" area, is is quite fascinating to watch.

[Jonathan5608]

Man I love the Pogonomyrmex look.

[BleepingBleepers]

I can feel your enthusiasm and how involved you are with your nest. You're really going all in on this

Very nice, detailed journal.

 

Read through some pages, sad about mutANT (hilarious nickname ) and how outworldgoing your Queen is, I've seen a few people post about their queens daring to venture out.

 

I'm trying to do the same with my journal, also a first time ant keeper. Since I was a kid, I've always wanted an ant farm, but I wouldn't dare for a few reasons:

 

1. Escaping

2. Getting Stung/bit

3. Thinking they would use a TON of ground space which I didn't have

4. Where to get a queen from

5. Them escaping and me getting stung.

6. Did I mention my fear of them escaping?

7. ... and getting stung?

8. Thinking they need some real specialized care techniques and special types of enclosure etc.

 

Anyhow, good luck with your colony, seems you're having tons of success and it's because of you and your ants' great effort obviously!

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

Man I love the Pogonomyrmex look.

I been really blown away by their size variation. They are not polymorphic yet have a really wide range of size among the colony. I can tell larger seems the more mature colony size to produce as newer ants are larger than any that showed up as part of the original 20+. Yet new smaller workers can be seen too that get totally dwarfed by their larger sisters, so wide size range seems is just part of their norm.

And they ultimately get a nice glossy gaster shine that reflects lights really well*, but they go through a yellow orange callow state for a few days, then a lighter red that's more matte, to eventually the deeper glossy red with some banding that can be hard to see depending on the angle/intensity of the light.

 

*when i view them with my magnifying glass that has built in light, the light circle around the glass is perfectly reflected on all the fully matured worker gasters that are glossy.

 

 

I can feel your enthusiasm and how involved you are with your nest. You're really going all in on this

Very nice, detailed journal.

 

Read through some pages, sad about mutANT (hilarious nickname ) and how outworldgoing your Queen is, I've seen a few people post about their queens daring to venture out.

 

I'm trying to do the same with my journal, also a first time ant keeper. Since I was a kid, I've always wanted an ant farm, but I wouldn't dare for a few reasons:

 

1. Escaping

2. Getting Stung/bit

3. Thinking they would use a TON of ground space which I didn't have

4. Where to get a queen from

5. Them escaping and me getting stung.

6. Did I mention my fear of them escaping?

7. ... and getting stung?

8. Thinking they need some real specialized care techniques and special types of enclosure etc.

 

Anyhow, good luck with your colony, seems you're having tons of success and it's because of you and your ants' great effort obviously!

 

I seen your journal with the Camponotus that have a nicer than typical looking "tub and tube" setup going. I like that tall outworld box you got them in.
And space is a factor for me too. They "own" that one horizontal surface in my place as that's all i can ever really offer unless we move.
At some point i'll be forced to start culling their numbers to keep them with in a reasonable colony size for the space i can offer.

they got enough of them going now i have moved to wearing plastic gloves(plastic bag hand covers not latex real gloves) when i need to reach into their space. It's just not possible to not get them on me any more. Still not been bit yet though, knock on wood. They do bite the crap out the gloves.

 

 

10: that all depends on the ant, some of them are really sensitive or have really narrow humidity/temp ranges and such that i see a lot of fail reports on them more than others.

I picked Pogonomyrmex Occidentalis specifically for their appearance of ease of care. And here in the states, it is The Mail Order ant*, so that part made it a real easy pick.

Not too fussy about sugars, so i don't need to buy the pricier ant nectar or futz with mixing my own/worry about bee product contamination. I just drop in a slice of organic apple or some similar fruit once ever 3-4 days swapping it out for the last one starting to go.
They will take in protein (bugs), but their main diet for the larvae is seeds and they will be fine on that alone, with more proteins encouraging them to grow the colony as a faster rate.
And they also love fish flakes which is easier and cheaper than store bought feeder bugs to deal with.

 

They are good for a fairly wide temperature range, being at growth maximum around 80-88f, but not seeming to be ill effected if things swing down to the 60s or up to 90s for a while.
 

And they do diapause as a reaction to environmental conditions rather than a scheduled event they just will do that you can't prevent. Their behavior is, make hay while the sun shines. So you can just keep the "sun shining" if you want, they don't seem to have an issue with that.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

Colony grows, and soaks up more outworld space as they do so.
This morning I found they had drained both water dispensers in the large outworld and moved a few brood out to the new space they dug there.
Not able to get good images of what they did but a handful of them moved into the space.

 

The white sandy material on top of the rock and the empty circle it surrounds is where the water dispenser was. You can see in the background on the right sandy stuff on the other rock too.
The pile up sand on the water dispenser until it starts to leak water out and then lay more sand down around it helping to channel the water out.
They had moved a few of the brood into the dug out overhang there behind that rock. they also started a new hole that goes under the rock on the right side and a little behind(they are there digging on it).
 

So i had to remove and replace water dispensers this morning and hope they have not drained them out when i get home later.

 

 

And now here is what i been wanting to make and post. Seed collecting time lapse.
This is a 30x on my smartphone. Camera is looking down into the large outworld with small outworld and nest in the background. With nest behind the folded paper to shade them from the overhead lighting.

 

 

 

 

This is 15x time lapse. The focus was not on the seed pile at first and is corrected about half way through.
I wanted to compare the speeds a bit. I think 30x feels a little fast while 15x was a little slow. In terms of catchig the aciton of the ants but getting good time compression too. I think 20x-25x would likely be best but my phone skips from 15x to 30x.


 

 

And to point out, the very busy little bit of stick and lefy green decoration on the left side. That's because the lid is off for filming. Anytime i take the lid off they get really busy tryign to climb out and the stick there gets a crowd. Every now and then one lone ant manages to make it to the top edge of the outworld, but it is really rare. They just slip back down most of the time and only make an inch or two of wall climb.

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, July 17 2023 - 9:41 AM.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

The Colony's behavior continues to evolve as they grow in number.

 

Discovery TIP:
They love fresh organic blueberries. Cut one in half and they will dig the seeds out and spend the next few days eating on it.
AND the good find is: it makes their enclosure smell nice like sweet blueberries. A good freshen up from the normal musty barn decomposing seed husk oder their trash pile generates.
Which is not nasty really, but not nice. The blueberries however are a nice waft of pleasant sent when you open the top for cleaning in 2-3 days.
Though if left too long (bout 5 days) will take on the fermenting smell which is not nasty, but not as nice.

And yes blueberries will stain whatever, i got some slightly blue areas in the enclosure now.

 

Just recently in the last few feedings they have really stared to do the mass recruiter thing.
Previously food gathering was mostly confined to a small handful of them. I posted the waxworm image a while back, which was the first time they went group bonkers for anything so strongly.
But that was the waxworm really, as seeds, fish flakes and other bugs would still only see a particular hand full of the colony get significantly involved.

Now when i put a fish flake in, it is swarmed in MASS. In short order the whole flake will have ants surrounding it and holding it together. But they do not all immediately agree about what to do next. There is a bit of a tug of war over what direction to move in. Eventually it will find its way to the connecting tube and be broken up so it will fit through.

Now when i put seeds in there will be enough ants involved that there are always ants at the seed pile gathering some up. When previously there were few enough involved the seed pile was often left alone for periods of time while the few workers moving them were all on the way to/from the nest. Though other ants would be around and walking over the seeds, but just ignoring them while only a tiny % of the colony did the foraging work.


And it is a change in the % of the colony getting involved to be sure. When they were fewer in number a smaller % of them would get involved in any food gathering process. But it seems real clear that the % of the colony willing to come out has gone up as their numbers have too.

Which makes sense to me when you consider that just 10%-15% of a 10-30 colony would set them back a meaningful amount. Compared to loosing 30%-40% of 200 strong colony, they'd still have well over 100 left.
Giving them the ability to forage more food in less time with a larger mass of workers, while not risking so significant a set back in their colony's overall strength (ability to recoup from losses) now that they are great enough in numbers.

 

Real neat seeing the mass recruiter behavior in action.

Here they are being naughty with their water dispenser. They pile sand onto the screen and then connect more and more out around it to channel the water out of the dispenser.

 

 

Nest watertower. Queen and an ant holding an egg clutch next to her can be seen.

 

Here's one apple slice brood party about 5 days ago

 

Here's another one from this morning.

 

They always bring out some brood on the first overnight with a fresh apple slice.

[Locness]

I haven't given my P. Cali any fruit yet, but you've convinced me. I'll give it a try this week.

[Ernteameise]

This is a great colony.

It is awesome how they swarm that fruit!

If I give mine fruit, they will taste it, and some workers will come and eat from it, but they never swarm it like that.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

I'm pretty sure the colony added at least 10 new workers in the last two days alone. There are so many callows with a lot of white on them still to be found in the main nest area. I need to really get moving on their next nest or i won't have it ready in time (my first make so i need time to turn out a few fails too).

 

The large outworld has a foraging schedual of some kind now. There are alwasy some ants out there, and with the underhangs and areas they have dug out, about 15-20 ants are alwasy out there just hanging around doing nothing.
But then a couple times each day the outworld gets busy with many many more ants comming out to it and  basically just exploiring around in what seems ot be a forgaing mode time. If i drop seeds in near this time they will be collected a whole lot faster than during off times when only 1-3 may get involved.

 

Not fed them any bugs for a while now as they seem quite content with seeds and fish flakes. Fish flakes superceed seeds for food, and all the larvea get a red line in them from the flakes. I plan to do a few waxworms again whenever the next outworld arrives.

They have managed to start dirtying up the plexi in the small outworld/nest space. Slowly but surly as one or two climbed the wall they'd leave pee or poo or sticky fruit juice behind. Making it easir to climb that much farther up as time goes on and that layer of flith reaching higher. While they can't just run up the wall and out, they can climb it well enough now, anytime i open it up, i will have to capture an escapee or two. I need to figure out a good way to clean the walls inside, but plain water and q-tips ain't really cutting it. I don't want to have to fluon as it dries hazy and i don't ike the athestcis of it.

I also found that it is the apple slice that has them hangout the most in the small outworld. When i took it out and did not replace it for a couple days the ants tended to saty in the nest proper more, not congrgateing so much or for as long in the small outworold.  I also discovered they were not really that inot kiwi fruit. I tried offering a slice of organic kiwi as i knew it had a lot of small seeds and thoght they might dig them out. But no they only ate on it a little bit and mostly covered it in dirt, didn't touch the seeds.


As usual when they have an apple slice, they tend to move some brood (not the bulk) out to it during the overnight darkness.
Here's another couple brood party shots from this morning.

 

 

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, August 4 2023 - 9:02 AM.

[ANTdrew]

My tip would be to actually cut a hole in the lid, so you don’t need to remove it for you to drop in food and such. That may wreck your aesthetic, too, though. Another option would be ordering new lids with magnetic vents from THA.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

My tip would be to actually cut a hole in the lid, so you don’t need to remove it for you to drop in food and such. That may wreck your aesthetic, too, though. Another option would be ordering new lids with magnetic vents from THA.

 

I have the magnetic lid and added vent on this model (fallen fortress).
The add on vent is good for pulling older things out with long tweezers. But the hole is too small for a whole apple slice like that. Also the space is small enough in there, i killed one once dropping in blueberry. It sounds funny now as i say it but at the time i felt bad. It slipped out of the tweezers and landed right on one.

There's just so many that swarm when i open it up, i got to set the apple slice down real slow or someone's gonna get crushed.

And that's where the plastic gloves come in these days, they can only barely get a grip and fall off with the lightest shake/brush.

I can take my time slowly lowering the apple onto the ground as ants scurry out from under it.

 

But just look at em. They love the apple slice so much i can't deny it to them.

[ANTdrew]

Yeah, that’s why I mentioned cutting the hole first since you can make a larger opening. The vent holes are only really big enough to drop small things in. A woodburning tool makes cutting/ melting out a hole easy, but I get if you wouldn’t want to do that on a nice custom setup.