172 replies to this topic

[dean_k]

Lucky day for the ants because I found a flying chilling on front door. It was 1 degree Celsius and the fly was barely hanging onto life. I caught it in a small tube and left it in garage because I was leaving for work.

 

After coming back home, I froze it for an hour and threw it into the outworld. Below long 27 minutes video was taken 30 seconds after I threw the fly into the outworld. 30 seconds because I was booting up my laptop and getting ready to shoot.

 

They attempted to drag it into the nest but it proved to be too big for them, so they started to dissect it. Legs went first and they took them into queen's chamber.

 

Edited by dean_k, December 5 2014 - 4:45 PM.

[dean_k]

Took another video roughly an hour later.

 

They finally manage to move the fly into primary food chamber and they are drinking juice from cuts they made.

 

[dean_k]

I see a new pupa now. The colony is slowly getting its lost members back.

 

In the video, They've moved the fly to queen's chamber now. You see a headless, legless, wingless fly. Workers are sucking its juice out of a tiny cut on its gaster from time to time. I am not giving them Blue 100 until they decide to take the fly out of queen's chamber. They've already taken out two fly legs to outworld which I took out.

 

A queen, probably the dominant one, is getting a royal bath by a worker in the video (5 min mark). A worker is tirelessly licking her gaster and thorax.

 

Something to note: They are no longer storing eggs by the blue foam anymore.

 

Edited by dean_k, December 6 2014 - 4:44 PM.

[dspdrew]

They definitely do clean each other a lot. I watch my ants through my microscope and see them licking each other constantly.

[dean_k]

Just a short video and update.

 

You can see the hollow fly. It's been dug out from bottom of its gaster, so I assume it is only a carcass now and they've taken it out to outer chamber. I assume they will take it to outworld soon. I put a cube of Blue 100 early today but they haven't bothered with it. I can only assume that the fly has been too delicious.

 

[dean_k]

Ants don't like the same diet over, over, and over. They may get really excited by a new diet but they tend to show less and less excitement when you keep giving them the same food.

 

I've been rotating Blue 100, occasional insects, and zoo-med mealworm. They always rave insects but constant supply of them in middle of winter is not possible, and I've run out of zoo-med mealworms a while ago. So, I've had only Blue 100 as their protein source for past few weeks and they are showing less and less response to it. After the big fly I gave them a week ago, they've stopped responding to Blue 100, so I tried few new protein diets. Crystals told me egg yolk. She wasn't sure whether it was raw or boiled they liked.

 

I gave them raw yolk yesterday. They hated it. Whenever their antennae came in contact with it, they ran backward at full speed. Today, I gave them some pieces of completely boiled yolk and there was a positive response. They even took a small piece into queen's chamber within minutes.

 

This video is about that. Early part shows a forager fooling around egg yolk pieces. The rest is workers chewing a small piece of boiled egg yolk.

 

[drtrmiller]

Indeed, small colonies have different nutritional responses than larger, more mature colonies.  I think you'll find that the larger your colony gets, the more consistent and less picky they are when it comes to feeding.

[dean_k]

No video but there has been a major change in their behaviors lately.

 

They are super active now. Last night, I saw 10 of them outside as if they are looking for food. Unfortunately, they are completely ignoring Blue 100. I am on verge of ordering some live mealworms from a local pet store to feed them.

 

At the same time, I see no more eggs. Previous eggs all turned into larvae and no eggs laid since. There is one pupa and about 20 ~ 30 larvae of varying sizes.

[drtrmiller]

When mine get like that, I switch to Green 600 for a few days, followed by a few more days of fasting before going back to Blue 100.  

 

You can substitute sugar water prepared 1:9 sugar to water if you don't have Green 600.

[Crystals]

How odd, all of my Myrmica colonies were really active the last 2 days.  More active than I have seen them before, with record numbers of foragers out and about.

They weren't really interested in the hummingbird nectar or the piece of mealworm - which is odd because they usually swarm insects.  They did take to the fresh water I offered, but they are still unusually active, although not quite as much as they were yesterday.

[drtrmiller]

Hopefully we can use experiences like this to learn what may be going on and help others.  

 

Sometimes I think we forget that ants are animals, and don't simply respond to constant user input like a machine would.  Variance in diet and environment is important to maintaining the natural growth cycles.

[dean_k]

How odd, all of my Myrmica colonies were really active the last 2 days.  More active than I have seen them before, with record numbers of foragers out and about.

They weren't really interested in the hummingbird nectar or the piece of mealworm - which is odd because they usually swarm insects.  They did take to the fresh water I offered, but they are still unusually active, although not quite as much as they were yesterday.

 

Hmm..., interesting, So, they are acting similar at the almost same moment. I can hardly call that a coincidence. Something, like a bio-clock inside them, must have went off.

I'd like to know what for though.

 

Very interesting nevertheless.

[Crystals]

My Camponotus were also more active than usual. Considering how close we are, relatively geographically speaking, I wonder if that low front going by and the flood of cold air behind it might have had something to do with it.  The peak of activity was just before the temperature started dropping.

[dean_k]

Their activity level has gone back to normal, at least for now. Last night was the most active night ever. There are now 3 foragers as usual.

 

Good news is that I now see 3 pupae and I think I see a new batch of eggs.I can't really tell how many eggs at the moment. One of pupae seem very close to eclose.

Myrmica larvae seem to have different activity levels by size. I've seen small larvae move its head around very often while big larvae hardly ever move.

 

[dean_k]

They've been firmly refusing Blue 100, not even touching it. I ordered phoenix worms but they are likely to arrive all dead because Canadapost screwed up and they missed their service standard. Heat pack won't last 4 days. Still, they might eat the dead ones.

In light of this utter failure, I decided to order flightless flies as well as 100 mealworms. Supercrickets ships only on Monday even though I chose Canadapost Priority (1day, premium service, rebranded Fed-Ex), so I will receive them on next Tues or at least Weds (24th! Close call).

 

Meanwhile, they've been accepting boiled egg yolk and egg white. I found it weird that they started to reject Blue 100 at all cost, so I threw away my current batch and cooked a new one which I placed it in this video. Hopefully, they will take it. Otherwise, they will go through some protein shortage for a week or so.

 

A pupa is about to eclose. I can't locate 2 other pupae, but they are there somewhere.

 

The video focus on the outworld at 5:30. They've been fairly active. Not as active as before when I saw 10 of them outside but there are still 3 or 4 of them out, actively exploring. I am pretty sure they are looking for a better source of protein. Green liquid is Green 600.

 

The current colony count is 2 queens & 15 workers.

 

P.S. These girls no longer care about intensity of light. I guess they got used to being filmed so often. They've become fairly resistant to disturbances as well and don't panic as easily as before. But the workers all flee into the nest when I open the outworld which makes my job of replacing food a lot easier.

 

Edited by dean_k, December 17 2014 - 5:17 PM.

[drtrmiller]

It's unlikely they'll eat Blue 100 as long as they have access to Green 600.  

 

My own observation tells me that when offering two competing synthetic foods, with one sweeter than another, the worker ants will usually selfishly guzzle the sweeter one (Green 600), and won't have much interest in the lesser sweet one (Blue 100) until the colony is very hungry again.

 

I wouldn't be too worried about them. They seem like they're doing great.  Ant larvae can go a long time without protein; and so as long as your workers aren't refusing every food offered, and are staying hydrated, your colony should continue to grow.

[dean_k]

They accepted Blue 100 for weeks even while sugar water was present. They've consumed all blue 100 they've stored as you can see from the video. ( From 6: 10 )

 

It was after I gave them the big fly. They've been completely refusing Blue 100 since then.

Edited by dean_k, December 17 2014 - 5:31 PM.

[drtrmiller]

That is a very interesting observation.  I'm not entirely certain what to make of it, just yet, but it will probably be important information going forward.

 

Your journals are highly detailed, and therefore extremely useful.  More people should strive to maintain the level of verbose detail in their journals that you do.  Doing so is the only way I'm able to test, troubleshoot, and design better products.

[Crystals]

Don't be worried if they don't accept any protein for 4-5 days.

 

I suppose you are going to attempt to culture the fruit flies and mealworms?  They are very good starters and easy to care for.  I find Myrmica like mealworms (I have never seen them ever turn them down when snipped into thirds), and they go absolutely crazy for fruit flies.  I often feed live flightless fruit flies to my Myrmica just for the fun of watching them hunt. A couple of times I have actually seen my Myrmica 'jump' off of things to land on a fruit fly.  I usually have 4-5 cultures of fruit flies in various stages just in case one dies for some reason.  My cultures last about a month from start until it isn't producing anything.

 

Around the time you get a lot of callows eclosing, you will likely notice that they will start guzzling sweets to feed the new callows.  Not as noticeable with Myrmica as compared to some other species, but if you look for it, you will see it if you get more than 10 eclosing in a day or so.  I tend to offer various fruit juices at this time just to give them some variety.

[dean_k]

I kind of have no choice. I've relied on Blue 100 as their main protein source but it is as if they are telling me that they don't want it.

 

If they were rejecting all kind of protein, I might even think that it's time for hibernation but they are accepting boiled egg pieces but they don't go crazy over boiled eggs and they go dry too quick at which point they take the pieces to outworld for me to pick up.

 

I am still not really prepared to culture but I've read that it is possible to keep mealworms in fridge for a long time by letting them go dormant with weekly feeding which is what I am hoping to do.

 

I've read up on flightless fly culture also and I will see how it goes. I think they dig flies more than worms. I tend to give the whole bit and let them do the work. Even the big fly I gave them few weeks ago, I gave them the whole bit. I find Mymrica tidy. They take out waste to outworld for me to pick up. You can see how fairly neat the nest is from the latest video (6:10).

 

They take garbage out for me to pick up. I can't ask more than that.