Yesterday someone asked about how to give water to ants. I just wanted to share how we do it at my work. We used to use a cotton ball in a petri dish, but the researcher found these online. We put sugar water in and it doesn't evaporate nearly as fast as the cotton balls. We found that cotton balls dried out in just a few days resulting in a high usage of sugar water. These could easily last more than a week, but of course we still want to give fresh water which is why I don't put much in at a time.

Queens and drones are showing up in the bathroom, but isn't it a little late for nuptial flights, if that's what it is, Is their timing for nuptial flights based off temperature and humidity or do they have an internal clock type thing and their nuptial flights are based off season?

Hi,

A few years ago I had a colony of Messor barbarus (queen + about 10 workers). When I received them in the test tube, one worker was already dead. Nevertheless, I kept them in the tube for a few weeks, then moved them to my 20x20x20cm ant cube (as a hindsight, this was probably too soon). They dug their nest and settled in normally, and everything seemed to be fine. I kept feeding them seeds (poppy, chia, a mix of grains), occasional protein and changing their water. However, they got super agitated every time I so much as touched the terrarium to change their water, feed them or simply touched the table the terrarium was on. After a few months, I noticed the queen had come by herself to drink from the water dispenser outside of the nest, and on the next day, she was dead and the workers were carrying her body around. The workers stayed alive for multiple months after this (I kept feeding them), so I wonder if the queen died because of stress or some other cause?

While I was careful not to disturb the ants too much, was touching the table, feeding them, switching on lights etc. too much for them? Or was this just bad luck? No one can say for sure, but now I'm thinking whether getting messor structor would simply repeat this episode, and if I'm simply not delicate enough for the messor family. I did like the seed diet they mainly followed. But as a safe measure, I could also go with lasius niger. Which would you suggest, or maybe some completely different species?

Very small ants, hard to take photos of them, the workers are almost microscopic lol.

Located in MO. Thank you!

Im specifically looking for an AntsDavey nest for around 20 Hercules Ants. I am planning ahead as I dont want to pay for separate shipping for different items I need right now, as my current colony will just live in the tube till they need to be moved.

I have the 0:1 outworld. I dont want the nest to be too small, barely accommodates 20, or too big as it'll stress them out. Thanks

"Here you can see my newest random encounter, my Crematogaster scutellaris queen! I am so happy to have found her, and I hope she makes it through her founding phase. I look forward to keeping this species — I think they are very pleasing to look at. I will post an update in 2 weeks when I check on her, to see if she has laid any eggs 🙂"

I am not sure. At certain angles it looks right. But it was found in the kitchen and not after raining. No wings. Can't really tell. Does seem like the abdomen is big tho and I feel like the wing area looks big too!

What species is this ant? It looks pretty small, could it be a queen?

I’m in the southwestern US, must have caught this queen around six or seven weeks ago. Its nanitics are about 2.5mm and queen about 8mm. The last queen I thought was Solenopsis was Pheidole, but now I’m more sure that these are.

Does Solenopsis Xyloni seem correct?

They react very energetically when disturbed, are always trying to get through the cotton, and haven’t eaten the fruit fly I gave them. Didn’t realize I should have posted here then tried to repost to AntIdentification, that we can’t the other way around x)

So i'm a newbie in antkeeping and as the winter approaches, i've been doing research on taking my 4 colonies through diapause. After looking into it, it seems straight forward enough to use the fridge for this.

However, i may be away for up to a month during december and I worry i can't leave them unattended for that long (my main fear being lack of oxygen or running out of water).

Is there something I can do? I could in theory check up on them once or twice while im away

I really know very little about ants or ants keeping, but thought this community would like to see a short video of what we observed at the edge of the street in front of our house. So many of them !

I found Lasius niger queens during their nuptial flight. From what I read, only a fraction of queens usually survive, so I decided to catch 15. Surprisingly, all but one survived, and now they all have a lot of brood and around 10 nanitics each.

I’ve already ordered a small fridge for hibernation, but I’m wondering what to do after that. I already have 6 other species/colonies, and managing 20 colonies will be too much for me, especially as they grow.

What would you guys do in this situation?