17 replies to this topic

[YellowRubberDucky111]

Hi! I just started getting interested into ant keeping and was fascinated by the many species of ant and was wondering how i care for one. I have my eye on exotic ants like the honey pot ant in my profile pic. Would keeping honey pot ants be to advanced for the novice? If not what do i need to keep it healthy?

[T.C.]

Getting them going I hear can be difficult. May I ask your location first?

[YellowRubberDucky111]

Getting them going I hear can be difficult. May I ask your location first?

California

[Pleming]

- Very low survival rate during the founding stage

- Special Founding chambers that have substrate help

- Stubburn when it comes to moving them.

- Repletes will not move once they are full

- Queens startles easily during founding and need to be left alone until workers arrive

 

Just a few things I have learned. Other then that they are really fun to watch grow.

 

Also I have killed so many workers trying to get them to move from founding formicarium to a larger one. 

[YellowRubberDucky111]

- Very low survival rate during the founding stage

- Special Founding chambers that have substrate help

- Stubburn when it comes to moving them.

- Repletes will not move once they are full

- Queens startles easily during founding and need to be left alone until workers arrive

 

Just a few things I have learned. Other then that they are really fun to watch grow.

 

Also I have killed so many workers trying to get them to move from founding formicarium to a larger one. 

so not the best ant for novice?

[Superant33]

I have found honey pots to be easy. The above advice to raise with substrate is excellent. Cotton plugged test tubes with sand has worked for me. Always feed your queen before placing her in the tube. Sunburst or something similar works well.

[YellowRubberDucky111]

I have found honey pots to be easy. The above advice to raise with substrate is excellent. Cotton plugged test tubes with sand has worked for me. Always feed your queen before placing her in the tube. Sunburst or something similar works well.

can you send a picture, as i have said before I'm new to this hobby and the only work i could understand from that was "Sunburst"

[Zeiss]

I don't think you should start with Myrmecocystus, but who am I to speak?  My first scorpions were Leiurus quinquestriatus, the Israeli Deathstalkers. 

 

I think anyone can start wherever for keeping ants, but you need to make sure you do your research first.  These ants easily die off and it will most likely happen to you, if you are not ready.  You also have to make sure you are willing to put the time and effort into caring for them.  

[dspdrew]

- Very low survival rate during the founding stage

- Special Founding chambers that have substrate help

- Stubburn when it comes to moving them.

- Repletes will not move once they are full

- Queens startles easily during founding and need to be left alone until workers arrive

 

Just a few things I have learned. Other then that they are really fun to watch grow.

 

I agree with all of this.

 

Usually when moving a colony, if not done forcefully, I lose a large number of workers. I just lost a whole colony the other day trying to move them. They just remained in the old nest until it dried out and they all died.

 

Like Pet Smart does with their pets, I would give these an experience level of "Advanced".

[Zeiss]

 

 

Like Pet Smart does with their pets, I would give these an experience level of "Advanced".

 

I thought they just assigned those at random.

[YellowRubberDucky111]

si sense those ants are to tough, then wht is a exotic ant perfect for the novice

[Hunter]

 

- Very low survival rate during the founding stage

- Special Founding chambers that have substrate help

- Stubburn when it comes to moving them.

- Repletes will not move once they are full

- Queens startles easily during founding and need to be left alone until workers arrive

 

Just a few things I have learned. Other then that they are really fun to watch grow.

 

Also I have killed so many workers trying to get them to move from founding formicarium to a larger one. 

so not the best ant for novice?

 

you could try camponotus or neo/niger

[XZero38]

i would just start out with something easy and local in your area.

[XZero38]

Every ant keeper has their dream colony they want to keep but sometimes that is impossible for various reasons. I started with the common tetramorium species and they have been just as fun to watch grow as all my other colonies. Just because a species isn't exotic doesnt mean that its not fun to keep a colony of.

[EcoAnt]

The first colony I started was Myrmecocystus (Aug. 2017).  So far they have been pretty easy, but I started them by digging a small established colony, so starting with a newly mated queen may be more difficult.  When they were collected we found the queen, about 20 workers, and 1 partially full replete.  We started them in a hydrostone-based container with a rock for the queen and repletes to hide/hang under.  Since then we have added a second chamber (petri dish with hydrostone) connected with tubing that they seem to like to use for pupae.  The colony has doubled in size and we have several repletes hanging under the rock.  We mostly feed them Karo syrup and occasionally put in a mealworm or boiled egg.

 

I probably wouldn't have started with honey pots except that it was the first opportunity that presented itself.  As your colony grows, make sure there is structure for the repletes to hang (a rock or some mesh).  They love sugar, but need a little protein.  Since you live in Oceanside it would probably easier for you to acquire some Pogonomyrmex or Camponotus queens.

 

We are hoping to move our honeypot colony into a display exhibit this winter, so maybe my opinion about honey pots being easy with change.

 

 

[noebl1]

Every ant keeper has their dream colony they want to keep but sometimes that is impossible for various reasons. I started with the common tetramorium species and they have been just as fun to watch grow as all my other colonies. Just because a species isn't exotic doesnt mean that its not fun to keep a colony of.

 

You hit the nail on the head with this one.  I had always really been fascinated by the tropical leaf cutter ants, and I think that's what started me Googling about ants and how I found this forum.  Now that I look back, I realize how unrealistic my ideas were to keep them.  There's a bunch of local interesting species to obsess for, and very often there's at least one (if not more) white-whale species natively that you are going to try to find.  Mine's Pheidole pilifera... someday.   My first real colonies have been Tetramorium as well, and still one of my favorites.

[XZero38]

My dream colony is trap jaw ants. I know ill never have them cause i live in colorado and they just arent present here. The only way ill get a colony of those is either moving to a state that has them or something crazy happens and i find and capture a wild queen here in colorado. At the moment the first thing isn't going to happen and the second one will probably never happen.

[Pleming]

The first colony I started was Myrmecocystus (Aug. 2017).  So far they have been pretty easy, but I started them by digging a small established colony, so starting with a newly mated queen may be more difficult.  When they were collected we found the queen, about 20 workers, and 1 partially full replete.  We started them in a hydrostone-based container with a rock for the queen and repletes to hide/hang under.  Since then we have added a second chamber (petri dish with hydrostone) connected with tubing that they seem to like to use for pupae.  The colony has doubled in size and we have several repletes hanging under the rock.  We mostly feed them Karo syrup and occasionally put in a mealworm or boiled egg.

 

I probably wouldn't have started with honey pots except that it was the first opportunity that presented itself.  As your colony grows, make sure there is structure for the repletes to hang (a rock or some mesh).  They love sugar, but need a little protein.  Since you live in Oceanside it would probably easier for you to acquire some Pogonomyrmex or Camponotus queens.

 

We are hoping to move our honeypot colony into a display exhibit this winter, so maybe my opinion about honey pots being easy with change.

 

Good Luck! If you have to move the repletes to a new formicarium then its going to be a pain. You literally have to move them yourself. They will not move. Had to grab them one by one and this is where the fun starts. Ants getting out everywhere. By the end of the day I had moved all the repletes but had lost dozens of workers and killed 1/4 of the colony. Took hours to find and put the lost workers back in. 

 

 

si sense those ants are to tough, then wht is a exotic ant perfect for the novice

 

As long as you do your homework you can have any species you want, that are local to your state. Just know that things happen that are out of your control, and deaths do occur randomly.