2 replies to this topic

[Russell]

Hi All 

 

   This year is my daughters and my first year collecting ants and our first Camponotus Nanitics just started hatching out. See pics below. 

    We have 13 queens we found this year. All 13 laid eggs and 5 now hatched out Nanitic ants. It took aprox 2 months and we actually saw a queen opening one of the cocoons today to help the ant out. 

 

Question; 

 

1, We have some in the standard 16 x 150 test tube so when the colony gets large enough would we likely need to move them before fall and overwintering to a new test tube as I know you normally don't move to a formicarium until at least year two?. 

 

2, We have some in 25x150 test tubes. When the colony does get big enough how would we move them to a small formicarium as it is too large to plug into the standard port?. Would we gently "dump"them into one and out of the tube or have to make some sort of reducer?. 

 

Thanks in Advance for any advice?. 

Russell 

 

 

 

[AntsMaryland]

Find the size of test tube that does fit in the port and buy that and all the sizes between that and yours (hopefully isn't many) than you can connect all those tubing together which than fits into the port you have. Shine a light over the test tube and they'll move right in. It is never recommended to just tap the ants into something as this can hurt the brood, nanatics, or the queen herself. To be completely honest, I wouldn't bother moving the colonies into anything new until next year (assuming they have at least 3/4 of the water still in the test tube of course). Hope this was some help. Message me if you have any clarifying questions. Good Luck. Best Regards!

 

-AntsMaryland

[Kevin]

You can take a piece of vinyl tubing that fits in the port, then wrap papertowel, electrical tape, cotton, etc to make it large enough to be snug in the 25mm tube.  You can also buy a 25mm stopped and drill the tubing size right through the middle.