278 replies to this topic

[100lols]

Super excited for the nest!!! But you definitely have time. Your spoiled ants have a tiny bit of room to grow still in their current setup lol

[Ernteameise]

Cleaned out their rubbish dump today and filled up the water-

and got attacked by a vicious major.

You hardly feel them- their mandibles are made to crush seed, they cannot pierce my skin.

 

[ANTdrew]

“Aghh! A mammal! Attack!!!”

[100lols]

Even beautiful in battle! Love those red heads. I haven’t been bit by my harvesters yet… I’m really curious as to how it feels actually lol.

[BleepingBleepers]

You gotta pretend that it's hurting you, otherwise, when you put it back in the nest, it's going to be laughed at by all of its ant buddies.

 

Look how big its head is (that's what she said..err....)

 

Can't wait until I get my first major so I can do the same thing! I've been bit the F out of by giant centipedes, so I can't wait!

[Ernteameise]

I went to the cinema with my sister yesterday and got some popcorn.

I have heard that Messor like their popcorn, so I shared one piece with them.

And yes, it proved quite popular with the girls.

 

[Rrar]

Nice photo! What camera do you use? I use a Sony one.

[Ernteameise]

Nice photo! What camera do you use? I use a Sony one.

I am using the old hand-me-down Lumix digital camera my brother gave me (it was his old one).

[T.C.]

Popcorn is not a very nutrient dense food. So I'd give it rarely.

[BleepingBleepers]

Good luck with your colony and just want to come by and also thank you for your thoughts and comments on my journal as well. I've been taking pictures and videos, it's been fun.

 

And I still can't get over the head size on that Major that's gnawing at you from above. I just got my first Major several days ago, now I got 3 of them and waiting for at least one to head to the outworld so I can let it bite me too.

 

I did get bit by one of the regular workers and most of the time it doesn't get through my skin, but a week back, one ran up my hand and bit area of my skin that's thinner and it did hurt a bit. That sucker was trying real hard to bite the hand that feeds it!

 

Anyhow, love the journal, keep up the nice pictures and/or videos!

[Ernteameise]

Good luck with your colony and just want to come by and also thank you for your thoughts and comments on my journal as well. I've been taking pictures and videos, it's been fun.

 

And I still can't get over the head size on that Major that's gnawing at you from above. I just got my first Major several days ago, now I got 3 of them and waiting for at least one to head to the outworld so I can let it bite me too.

 

I did get bit by one of the regular workers and most of the time it doesn't get through my skin, but a week back, one ran up my hand and bit area of my skin that's thinner and it did hurt a bit. That sucker was trying real hard to bite the hand that feeds it!

 

Anyhow, love the journal, keep up the nice pictures and/or videos!

Ha, awesome.

Mine sadly (luckily?) are not much into fighting. They attack my hands, yes, but soon lose interest and I never had any serious bite yet.

What is not to love about majors?

My girls are still in diapause, will get them out beginning of March.

 

Love your pictures, btw.

[Ernteameise]

Mack (Tarheel Ants) came back to me again-

so what happened, he basically scrapped the nest he had made for me for reasons he will disclose in detail later.

He re-built the whole thing and says it will be 100% better.

I am amazed how much thought and effort he is putting into this- other companies would just have sent the product without giving much second thought.

[100lols]

Definitely look forward to the upgrade!!! Diapause is zooming by. Hope you’re well

[Ernteameise]

Right.

Mack from Tarheel Ants came back to me.

The monumental works have concluded.

My custom nest has been shipped!

Mack also sent me a couple of pictures.

I think the girls will appreciate the new spacious place.

 

The custom nest is a modified version of the normal Nucleus.

 

What do you guys think?

These are the pictures Mack sent me- the nest is still on the way and might get stuck in customs (like last time I ordered from Tarheel Ants). German customs seem to have some kind of interest in ant nests....

It will arrive maybe end of this week (if I am lucky) or next week.

My girls have already woken up and have taken their first protein meals and I have the first new brood to admire. The queen is healthy as far as I can tell.

 

 

 

In addition to this nest, I also will be getting a Mini Hearth XL and Mack also packed another Mini Hearth as a appreciation gift for my extensive patience. I think my starter Lasius niger colony will really love that.

 

I am really impressed with the work this company is doing and the amazing customer communication and service.

[Ernteameise]

Here is a picture of how the colony looks today.

As you can see, there is already some brood and the queen is looking healthy.

Half of the adult ants live in between the rocks in the outworld, so what you see here is only half of the actual colony.

The weird thing with Messor is, since they hardly do any trophalaxis (also apparently not to the larvae), they spread the food (ant bread and protein) on the floor and the larvae basically lie on top of the food and can gorge themselves.

Also, funny thing, since some people on here have said that they feed fish food, I tried again with fish food. Last year, they ignored it, but over night, they had licked up all the gel fish food that I had offered (the Tetra Delica).

I am in hope that this year, they might be less fussy?

But in any case, also picked up some of their beloved crickets at the pet store.

 

[Ernteameise]

The girls enjoying a protein meal of their beloved petshop crickets.

 

[Zeko]

Its amazing how diligent people are with journals:) Best one so far:)

[100lols]

Mack’s work never disappoints!!! Can’t wait!!!

The girls are looking good. I wonder how they will react to the new space since they seem to like to be spread out so much.

[Ernteameise]

OMG, I am so excited!

So today a HUGE parcel arrived at the post office.

I am impressed, sending it with DHL express is expensive, but fast (took a week in the end) and I could do all the customs stuff online and only paid 50 Euro of customs duty in the end (I thought it would be more).

So today, it was a massive exodus / moving day for all of my ant colonies.

The large Messor barbarus colony now has around 500 workers, and they just needed more space.

Mack built an amazing custom nest for them.

And here is the new setup and the move and what happened, in pictures:

 

 

The new nest for this colony, including a red cover

 

 

Nest and outworld- I chose to have little decoration since Messor are messy and are known to trash their place

 

 

The new expanded habitat for the girls

 

 

I also fitted a heat mat at the back

 

 

I added some seed and water (and their toilet!!!) to the new outworld to make it more attractive

 

 

After I moved all of them to the AntCube (I had the acrylic nest in the fridge for 30 min, so they were asleep and I could just move them over using a soft brush) the girls were seriously unimpressed. However, they have calmed down already now

 

 

Well, at least I am sure that the next generation is save and the eggs are in good hands.

 

I know that on here there are some discussions about how to move colonies and if one should give them time to move or just take matters in your own hands and move them over- or, as one member on here put it the other day "just dump them in". I actually think that one BIG stress is much less harmful than lots of little stresses like adding light and different temperatures to try to motivate the ants to move over a period of weeks. But I will leave this up for debate and we will see how this colony develops and if there will be any harm from this big move.

[Ernteameise]

Here is a little update 1 day after the move. The ants have calmed down and have resumed normal operations.

The Messors have not yet moved into the new nest, but they are already checking it out and they go foraging up top for seed and water.

The connecting tubes are busy walkways.

 

If you were wondering where the colony was living if they had not moved into the new nest yet. Well, they are sitting huddled together, forming a tight bivuac in the AntCube.

If I did not know better, I would say they were sulking.

Here they are, all squeezed together:

 

 

But the new nest is of much interest, and there is a busy walkway in the connecting tubes:

 

 

 

They also enjoy their food: