7 replies to this topic

[NZAntKeeper]

Hello everyone, my family and I will be going on holiday soon and I'm wondering how I can ensure my colonys survive. So here's all my colonies stats
1 Nylanderia colony - atleast 170 workers
1 two queen Nylanderia colony - about 40 workers
1 Pheidole Vigilans colony - about 50 workers 3 majors
1 Iridomyrmex colony - 15 workers
2 Monomorium Antarcticum colonys - both have about 17 workers
1 Tetramorium Grassii colony - about 40 workers
Of course the colonys will have more workers by the time we leave.
I have about half a pot of Latic acid protein jelly from Antkit which I will give to all of the colonies once we leave. Only 2 of these colonies are in nests (big Nylanderia colony and smaller Nylanderia colony) the rest are in test tubes. I will put an extra full tube or two of water in for all the colonys but I don't know what I will do for sugar and insects. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks

Edited by DylanTheAntKeeper, April 16 2017 - 8:43 PM.

[JasonD]

For the nests: Sugar water test tubes. Buy freeze dried insects on amazon and just put extra in - they shouldn't spoil in 2 weeks. 

 

For the test tubes: Do they have outworlds? Might be time to place the test tubes in outworlds.

[NZAntKeeper]

Alright I'll try that thanks. I heard ants don't eat freeze dried insects. I have ordered 100 live mealworms to breed so I could just put loads in for them? Would that work? And all the test tube colonies are in outworlds except for the Iridomyrmex colony. I will put them in one soon

[Vanko]

Don't you have any friends 😃? Just find someone who could care for them.

[NZAntKeeper]

I do but none are into ants. But hopefully they will be fine on their own if I just dump a whole lot of food in there

[drtrmiller]

Plain water is the most important thing they'll need. Sugar water will spoil in a few days, and freeze dried insects are no good except for some desert ants.

Place them in the coolest room of the house to lower their metabolism. 19-21 C would be ideal. You'll likely see some brood cannibalization, but there's no way around that without human intervention at least once weekly with fresh insects.

[Kevin]

Once, I lost an Apheanogaster colony because it fell off the rack and turned out months later in my pool table ball return (the rack was on the pool table). They all survived with about 20-30 workers living off little water left in their test tube and likely some kind of mold or fungus growing off the cotton of the test tube. Water is what keeps ants alive, you should figure out someway to hook up a tank of water to your nests.

[Serafine]

The most important thing is water. If they have an abundance of water you can add some dry stuff with sugar coating like banana chips to the outworld. The ants can lick off the sugar from these.

Protein is a bonus, adult ants barely need any protein and I'm pretty sure the brood can go into some sort of stasis where it doesn't need any either. Ants in the wild have ways to deal with two weeks of terrible weather where they can't forage and they usually aren't as well-fed as captive ants to begin with.

You can also overfeed them before you go, that should easily get them through the first week, probably more.

Edited by Serafine, April 17 2017 - 5:22 AM.