13 replies to this topic

[SheepForgeBoi]

So I plan to buy some wingless fruit flies as food for my young lasius niger colonies. They won't need many a week and you buy fruit flies 50 at a time and its very cheap. Instead of rearing the fruit flies can I just freeze them all and give them to the ants later?

 

Thanks

[Hunter]

you can but if you keep them in a cheep cup setup they will last longer and ants i have love them alive.

[noebl1]

I recently started feeding fruit flies to my colonies (including Lasius) now that I found a local store that sells them. They don't really seem so far to care whether they fruit flies are alive or dead.   I'll probably look into doing my own cultures and freeze some as well.  

[ZllGGY]

do your own cultures is actually pretty easy and i plan on setting my colonies up for the purposes of being sold on here but don't have any ants right now to feed them just getting my feeder colonies ready

[Hunter]

if you need help with colony's i have 15, i can give you pointers if needed

[ZllGGY]

if you need help with colony's i have 15, i can give you pointers if needed

so many fruit flies. you have other animals you feed them to?

[Hunter]

my ants, and my snake will some times eat them, i mostly just sell the pupa to people

[ZllGGY]

my ants, and my snake will some times eat them, i mostly just sell the pupa to people

ah i see. i only have 2 active fruit fly colonies and my dubias just started producing reproductives about a month ago and i also have a starting colony of green banana roaches on the way for when i start keeping other things

[Hunter]

cool

[CallMeCraven]

Flash freezing the fruit flies by dumping them into a frozen cup is my preferred way of feeding the flies to my ants. They don't seem to mind the cold flies, so I would imagine freezing them would be just fine, I just wouldn't plan on keeping them to long as the freezer may dry them out to the point where they won't be desirable to the ants.

Edited by CallMeCraven, March 13 2018 - 7:31 AM.

[drtrmiller]

My experience has been that frozen fruit flies are readily accepted even a year or more after freezing. I highly recommend the practice.

[noebl1]

My experience has been that frozen fruit flies are readily accepted even a year or more after freezing. I highly recommend the practice.

 

Do you have a recommended storage mechanism for the fruit flies? Ziploc bags, tupperware, etc?  Thanks!

Edited by noebl1, March 13 2018 - 8:41 AM.

[drtrmiller]

I used a funnel to guide the flies from the culture container into a plastic test tube. It may help to chill the flies for a bit in the refrigerator so they don't crawl out so quickly. Thicker plastic resists moisture loss better in a freezer, and is therefore recommended for long-term storage.

Edited by drtrmiller, March 13 2018 - 8:47 AM.

[noebl1]

I used a funnel to guide the flies from the culture container into a plastic test tube. It may help to chill the flies for a bit in the refrigerator so they don't crawl out so quickly. Thicker plastic resists moisture loss better in a freezer, and is therefore recommended for long-term storage.

Exactly what I was looking for, thank you very much for the response!