5 replies to this topic

[goonius]

We have a beginning colony of pogonomyrmex badius housed in a hearth from Tarheel Ants. This is our first experience in trying to raise ants, so forgive me if I leave any crucial information out or use incorrect terminology.

Our formicarium is kept on a table in our carport outdoors to keep temperatures similar to what the ants would naturally encounter. Our queen was caught on June 29 and the first nanitic worker emerged on September 1. We added a number of different seeds to the outworld, and the queen and nanitic both have come up and hauled them into the nest. The problem is that they don't seem to be discarding them again, and now some have grown furry yellow mold, particularly one that is resting on the screen above the water compartment.  

I had thought the ants would do their own maintenance, and am now wondering if it is worth the disruption to open the glass and remove these contaminated seeds? Will the ants eventually take care of it on their own?

If we do need to remove the seeds, is there any way to make it less traumatic to the ants (and avoid being stung!)? Like maybe cooling the nest first?

[Scrixx]

Ants indeed do cleaning and maintenance but with such a small colony it they probably do not have the numbers for effective maintenance. It would be difficult for one queen and one nanitic to maintain the entire nest. I would open and remove the moldy items since it is a small colony and should be easy to do. With only two ants to watch, it's not a big deal at all.

 

The Hearth combined with your local environment may be too humid, Pogonomyrmex need a dry location to store seeds to prevent germination and mold. There's also the issue of the Hearth being too large for a founding colony. It is normal for colonies to designate areas of the nest as a garbage and waste location when the nest is too big than what they need. In the wild, these extra areas can easily be closed off and they can dig a different direction. They cannot do that in our limited nest space. 

[goonius]

We returned home this afternoon to find our queen dying. It's devastating to have made it this far only to lose her like that. We had previously had issues with mold in test tubes, so had thought the hearth would be a safer bet. Thank you for the reply and advice. We will definitely try to learn more before next year's nuptial flight so we can better care for them. 

Edited by goonius, September 7 2018 - 1:47 PM.

[CoolColJ]

next time you can put them in the fridge for 10mins or so to make them go to sleep and then do maintenance

 

But mold, the black stuff should not kill a queen.

They usually die from natural causes, the attrition rate is high with queens, at least 30-40% will die

Edited by CoolColJ, September 7 2018 - 4:29 PM.

[goonius]

next time you can put them in the fridge for 10mins or so to make them go to sleep and then do maintenance

 

But mold, the black stuff should not kill a queen.

They usually die from natural causes, the attrition rate is high with queens, at least 30-40% will die

Good to know on the maintenance front.

The mold was yellow and only on some of the seeds -- perhaps some quinoa or bahia grass seeds, primarily? Not sure if that lends any valuable info or not. Certainly wish we had kept more queens. We found tons. They had all been drowning in a friend's swimming pool. We released the rest in our yard. Hope they've fared better than our two captive ones did.

Appreciate the response and info.

[DaveJay]

There's a good chance that some of the released queens have nested under cover in your yard, lifting rocks, wood etc might yield another little starter colony, it'd be worth looking imo.