9 replies to this topic

[Ryan1207]

I am intrested in ant keeping but the only queen I have found is a lasius social parasite and I can't find any lasius brood or workers so I might order some of those ants in for a commercial ant farm. The question is if I can get a variety of ant workers to live together I think it would be very entertaining. I know that ants use pheromones to tell who is friendly. So I was wondering if there was a way to take the identity of the ants and make them all start blank and put them together and they will make there own. If there is anyway to make this work and any place you know where they sell a variety of worker ants please let me know.

[EstuaryAnts]

You could try getting brood from one species and mixing it with another.

[LC3]

Ants are a bit finicky when it comes to mingling with other species, most non-social parasites will not accept brood from different species and almost especially not from different genra (Although it has happened before. However never from different sub families). Even certain social parasites will only parasitize a certain species. For your information it's pretty much impossible to erase an ants pheromones once they set in. So in the case of mature workers it's most definitely impossible to erase their pheromones.

[Batspiderfish]

This would absolutely not work with your social parasite. I suggest letting her go, and waiting to find a fully-claustral species. 

[Ryan1207]

This would absolutely not work with your social parasite. I suggest letting her go, and waiting to find a fully-claustral species.

I was not going to use my social parasite of you thought I was. Yesterday I was ant hunting and the sky closed and it started down pouring really bad. Needless to say I didn't catch any queens lol. I will be letting my social parasite go. I will try for a fully claustral queen.

[Ryan1207]

You could try getting brood from one species and mixing it with another.

That might work. I could try that, but where am I gonna get the brood?

[Crystals]

I usually note locations of wild nests in case I find a parasitic queen.  For most nests in my location they either form mounds or are tunneled beneath an object like a piece of wood or stone.

For the mounds I usually stop by the nest about an hour after the sun has started hitting it and use a small garden spade to turn a few scoops of dirt over.  If I see some pupae, I use the shovel to scoop them up and use featherweight forceps to grab the pupae before dumping the dirt and workers back on the nest.

I often turn objects over.  I often find Lasius beneath pieces of wood with pupae piled up at any time of the day.

When it comes to parasitic Lasius I have had unusually good success at getting them to adopt almost any other Lasius species I have found in my neighborhood by adding pupae to their setup.  Then again, I only boost with four to ten pupae to prevent any problems when the queen's own brood starts to develop.

[Batspiderfish]

Mixing brood between species (excluding social parasites) isn't good for the colony.

[sgheaton]

I'm sure this is a no go as well....

 

HYPOTHETICAL: Say you have the same species of ant in two different containers. Numbers aren't important so lets assign each container 100 workers+1 queen. 

 

If you attached the two containers..... would:

A - The two sides fight each other in an all out bloody ant war until only one queen is alive - making her scent be the dominant pheromone. (101+100-43 that died gloriously in battle = 158)
B - The same species workers welcome their long lost brothers from another world until.....they find a rival queen who must die! (101+100=201)

C - The two stay to their own containers while the workers simply do their working duties between the two containers, not really knowing or noticing as the space is large enough that dominance hasn't been established 

[Batspiderfish]

I'm sure this is a no go as well....

 

HYPOTHETICAL: Say you have the same species of ant in two different containers. Numbers aren't important so lets assign each container 100 workers+1 queen. 

 

If you attached the two containers..... would:

A - The two sides fight each other in an all out bloody ant war until only one queen is alive - making her scent be the dominant pheromone. (101+100-43 that died gloriously in battle = 158)
B - The same species workers welcome their long lost brothers from another world until.....they find a rival queen who must die! (101+100=201)

C - The two stay to their own containers while the workers simply do their working duties between the two containers, not really knowing or noticing as the space is large enough that dominance hasn't been established 

 

It's usually pretty pointless to try to impose human narratives on other animals. The two colonies will do the best to survive in their abusive little amphitheater, which will probably involve killing their sole competitor. This situation would probably not occur in the wild, if the colonies have space to avoid each other.