12 replies to this topic

[BleepingBleepers]

Like if I feed live feeders to my carpenters and they're spraying it with formic acid, people say it smells like vinegar and sometimes it soaks into the substrate and whatnot.

 

How long does that smell linger? Both the smell and the negative effects it can have if you breathe it in.

 

 

If formic acid is bad for your respiratory system, would having colony of ants next to a child's bed cause any issues long term? What if it's in the person's bedroom like 5 ft away?

[ANTdrew]

Don’t feed live feeders. One of the great beauties of ants is that they do NOT need live food. Besides being unnecessary, you risk introducing trash mites into your setup, especially with commercially raised feeder insects, which are often sold teeming with the loathsome creatures.

[BleepingBleepers]

Don’t feed live feeders. One of the great beauties of ants is that they do NOT need live food. Besides being unnecessary, you risk introducing trash mites into your setup, especially with commercially raised feeder insects, which are often sold teeming with the loathsome creatures.

Alright.

 

But lets say I throw in prekilled insects and they still attack by spraying . Any thoughts on the original question?

[Virginian_ants]

It's probably not enough to deal any damage.

[ANTdrew]

They won’t do that.
Don’t feed live feeders. One of the great beauties of ants is that they do NOT need live food. Besides being unnecessary, you risk introducing trash mites into your setup, especially with commercially raised feeder insects, which are often sold teeming with the loathsome creatures.

Alright.

But lets say I throw in prekilled insects and they still attack by spraying . Any thoughts on the original question?

They won’t do that.

Edited by ANTdrew, August 3 2023 - 8:33 AM.

[CAantz]

My camponotus attacked anything, dead or alive, with formic acid and I never noticed any smell or negative health effects.

Edited by CAantz, August 3 2023 - 11:39 AM.

[BleepingBleepers]

My camponotus attacked anything, dead or alive, with formic acid and I never noticed any smell or negative health effects.

Yeah exactly, mines do too. Like bugs that are prekilled, they sometimes still attack and spray it. And it's not just because of that, based on what I read, it's in their nest too and they're not attacking anything in there, maybe also from the bugs they sprayed?

 

Is your colony located where you sleep? I'm trying to see if there's any issues if the colony is kept close to a person, especially when they sleep. Either that or in a smaller room. It shouldn't be an issue in a room with central air units and tons of ventilation but I don't always have that, especially in the cold months. I keep them on my computer desk because I take my breaks by watching them, helps me relax and think, so I was wondering.

 

The ventilation in my room is so so, I do got a fan but it's not on all the time (noise and cold).

Edited by BleepingBleepers, August 3 2023 - 12:23 PM.

[CAantz]

The ventilation in the room I used to have them in is terrible and my parents work in there, so I don’t think there is much risk of anything happening to specially if you have any kind of ventilation.

[BleepingBleepers]

The ventilation in the room I used to have them in is terrible and my parents work in there, so I don’t think there is much risk of anything happening to specially if you have any kind of ventilation.

 

I'm looking through your posts. Do you have any colony you have couple hundred worker ants?

 

I would imagine there's not much smells coming from colonies that have like 20 or even 100 workers. I'm talking about a colony in their 3rd year or something with hundreds, maybe a thousand (carpenter ant size) workers that spray formic acid.

Anyhow, so large® colony and formic acid smell build ups and effects on health in close proximity in a somewhat low ventilation room.

 

Curious on that.

 

And I'm still wondering how long the formic acid smell lingers on the area that's sprayed.

 

It seems like a lot of ppl either have them in a separate room or higher amount of ventilation in the room.

[Virginian_ants]

I have a Camponotus Castaneus colony with 100 workers and they spray every thing I give them and there is no smell. These are similar in size to ca-02 just slightly smaller.

[CAantz]

The ventilation in the room I used to have them in is terrible and my parents work in there, so I don’t think there is much risk of anything happening to specially if you have any kind of ventilation.

 
I'm looking through your posts. Do you have any colony you have couple hundred worker ants?
 
I would imagine there's not much smells coming from colonies that have like 20 or even 100 workers. I'm talking about a colony in their 3rd year or something with hundreds, maybe a thousand (carpenter ant size) workers that spray formic acid.
Anyhow, so large® colony and formic acid smell build ups and effects on health in close proximity in a somewhat low ventilation room.
 
Curious on that.
 
And I'm still wondering how long the formic acid smell lingers on the area that's sprayed.
 
It seems like a lot of ppl either have them in a separate room or higher amount of ventilation in the room.

That’s a good point. I don’t have Camponotus anymore, but the ones I did only had up to 30 workers.

[BleepingBleepers]

I have a Camponotus Castaneus colony with 100 workers and they spray every thing I give them and there is no smell. These are similar in size to ca-02 just slightly smaller.

 

If you have them close to you (like where you work and sleep) often, keep tracking it and note any respiratory issues. I'm kinda interested and I guess we'll see especially when there's several hundred of them.

 

The guy from The Ant Network used a filter on his aspirator as he noted the harm of breathing in formic acid. Of course, with our case, it won't be as concentrated and often, but smaller amounts over longer periods of time.

 

I'll continue to read up info on this. I'm not as concerned about this yet as my colony is still really small, but it's interesting.

 

So not trying to sound any alarms, just wondering. Thanks for the input, guys.

[Locness]

I moved my honeypots with a manual aspirator and let's just say it was a bad idea. Didn't really hurt when I was doing it, but the next day it felt like a really bad sore throat. It was mostly gone the following day.