1 reply to this topic

[GeoAnts]

Hey Guys,

 

I live in Utah and we have had a crazy winter- I keep my ants in my garage as it has pretty good insulation and I keep them in insulated boxes. I have never had problems with it, for the two years I have used it as most of the time the coldest it will get is like 15 degrees here in the winter (fahrenheit) maybe once or twice a winter. Last night though, it dropped to about 1 or 2 degrees fahrenheit and my ants water reservoirs froze in their setups. I took the colonies inside, as most of my queens and small colonies were lying on the floor seemingly frozen. I know that they often can recover from this though, and due to ants brilliant resiliency most of my colonies and queens survived. I screwed up, and I will figure out a new system to hibernate my ants. But in the meantime, as my ants are awake should I place them back into hibernation?? We are still in the middle of winter and I want to give them the hibernation necessary but don't want to mess them up even more if I put them back into hibernation and it messes them up. I probably could have handled this a little better, but I'm learning- so any advice for if this happens again and how I could have handled this better is very welcome.

 

Thanks, 
 

Geo Ants

[T.C.]

You should have left them in the garage. I leave mine in the garage during -20 temps here with no issues.  If you put them back out when it's so cold, you take a huge gamble on killing them. If you can put them in the fridge to finish their hibernation term.