Hello! This week I bought the first formicarium with a colony of reapers: a queen and 30 workers. So the question immediately arose of how to populate ants in a formicarium from a test tube. Next, I will share the experience and emotions that I received during the week. They are sweethearts! Before starting, I studied many forums and VK groups in order to understand how to relocate ants quickly and without hassle. So read the article to the end and find out my story, which will save the life of the colony and save time, money, and nerves. Especially if you are a beginner.
How to get and where to get ants for a formicarium?
Reaper ants or steppe ants are one of the easiest species to keep for beginners. At the head of such a colony is a queen, which lays eggs and contributes to the growth of the family.
How to get and where to get ants for a formicarium:
- Buy a small colony, which is sold in small tubes. Typically this is a queen along with 10, 20 or 30 workers.
- If you are not ready to spend money on purchasing a colony, you can do the following. In nature, females and males mate in spring. These ants, unlike the usual ones, have wings. Later, after fertilization, the queen gnaws off her wings, descends underground, or climbs under a stone or dry tree. There the process of digging holes and laying eggs begins. During the mating period, it is necessary to get out into the steppe and look for similar insects with wings. Fertilization of the uterus occurs only once in a lifetime; it works with the accumulated sperm capacity, laying eggs. Some time after fertilization, the males die. Next, the queen begins laying eggs.
- As soon as you have a queen, you need to transplant it into a test tube with moistened cotton wool, and place there a small piece of walnut, the size of a match head, and a few dead mosquitoes. This is because ants in nature also eat dead insects to provide themselves with protein.
The most remarkable thing is that the whole family consists of females, males, and workers. Workers are females, but with underdeveloped reproductive organs that cannot produce offspring. They are the ones who do the cleaning, some are nannies, and feed the offspring. In such a family there are individuals who carry out cleaning, carry dead insects and debris to a designated place so as not to clog the formicarium or nest. It is worth noting that entomologists consider ants to be the most developed of all insects. It is believed that an anthill is a single whole organism, each of which has its own purpose and purpose. The work is distributed, everyone knows what to do. The queen lays eggs, other insects feed them, another caste cleans and protects the anthill from attack by other insects.
Murashka
Relocation of ants
I will analyze the most complex and common option. I take the hose for connection. I plug one end with cotton so that it can be easily pulled out, leaving a tail. If you do not plug the tube immediately, the ants may have time to escape.
1) An empty tube of suitable diameter 2) Plugged one end of the tube.
I wrap the other end tightly with cotton wool.
Wrap cotton wool around the tube. There's too much of it here.
Next I take a test tube. The task is to quickly pull out the current cotton wool from the test tube and insert our second end of the tube in its place. At the same time, one of the ants may have time to escape. They love to do this.
The colony is ready for relocation
The next step is to install the die for the tube in the opening of the entrance to the formicarium. I thread the relocation hose through it. I stick my hand into the arena and pull out cotton wool and a hose for relocation.
My die/rivet looked like this. Important: first we insert it into the formicarium, then we insert the relocation tube into it.
We combined an incubator and a formicarium.
It looked like this in life because I took too much cotton wool.
Now close the lid and cover with a cloth.
Let's go study myrmecology, just read a couple of books.
What to feed ants at home?
Of course, harvester ants can exist peacefully if they are fed with poppy and sunflower seeds, but in the presence of protein, the family develops much faster, and the individuals are larger in size.
What to feed ants at home:
- Don't be surprised if the first insects are small. This is understandable, since the queen spends her own energy feeding and raising them, which may not be enough. The next generation will be larger due to additional feeding.
- Add grains from time to time, and do not forget about dead insects. These could be small cockroaches, worms, or mosquitoes. This food can be found at any pet store or ordered online. Nowadays, keeping a formicarium is quite popular; finding food for ants should not be a problem.
- Buy food in special stores. Canary mixture is also suitable.
Ants
Incubator
With the stable development of the ant family, problems may arise with the supply of food inside the incubator, since curious ants will try to run out at any opportunity to explore the surrounding world, and the most daring, courageous and aggressive individuals may attack, since they will regard the intrusion as a threat to the colony.
Of course, such conditions exclude the possibility of quiet feeding, and it is necessary to expand the formicarium area by connecting an arena.
The arena is a structure that plays the role of space outside the nest. In this territory, the ants will collect food, remove garbage, and study various decorative elements previously placed by you. This option greatly simplifies the process of feeding insects - it is enough to simply place a feeder with a treat (syrup, other types of food insects, seeds) in the arena.
Reaper ants: maintenance and care at home
Your goal is to place the tube containing the queen bee in a dark place and check once a week. In about a month, the family will increase in size. On average, you will see about 30 new individuals in one month. Later, the insects will begin to develop much faster, because the queen will have assistants who will look after the new eggs, feed them and take out the trash.
Reaper ants, maintenance and care at home:
- To develop a colony, you need a cozy formicarium or farm with a large number of passages. Do not rush to open all the compartments at once, freeing them gradually as your family grows. This is necessary so that the ants do not get lost.
- Excessive space can cause death, severe stress, which will negatively affect the strength of the family. Ants need constant moisture. Despite the fact that reapers live in the steppes, where it is quite dry, they still choose places where moisture accumulates. Therefore, be sure to put cotton wool soaked in water into the chamber to maintain high humidity. Do not place the truss near a window, on a windowsill, or in places where there is a draft. Ants do not live well on the balcony. Choose a cozy, shady place where little insects will disturb you.
Goosebumps
Can ants live without a queen?
Despite the fact that harvester ants are the easiest to care for, significant problems can arise when introducing a new queen.
Can ants live without a queen?
- Yes, but there will be no new family members, and the inhabitants of the colony will simply live out the life that is intended for them. If you want the family to develop, a womb is a must.
- On average, the queen lives from 5 to 25 years, depending on the type and the quality of care for it. There are individuals that live up to 28 years.
Insect
When to start relocation
It’s easy to choose the moment for the ants to move. If there are already more than 20-50 workers in the incubator, then it’s time to relocate. Check the instructions for the exact number. The colony's strength should be enough to keep the formicarium clean.
If there are less than 20 worker ants, then wait until the colony increases in number. A small number of ants means poor control of the territory; garbage will be scattered anywhere. Where there is trash there is a chance of mite infestation and mold growth. This is an unpleasant matter.
I heard that ants are given solid resin and calendula flowers so that they disinfect the area. I haven't tried it myself.
I gave my ants a day to rest after moving them. For them, vibration is a strong stressor. The poor fellows are also nervous. I think: let them rest, at the same time the formicarium has warmed up. And then he carried the poor reapers in the forty-degree frost.
Relocation may take a week. Normal terms are 3-5 days.
The movement of ants is a movement into the formicarium passage system, and not into the arena.
Reaper ants: the queen died, what should I do?
There are several ways to deal with the problem.
Reaper ants, the queen died, what to do:
- Plant a new queen. This works with any type of ant, but not with reaper ants. This species is the most problematic, since after the death of the queen, the workers even carry the old queen piece by piece and protect it in every possible way. They are aggressive towards new individuals. That is why it is impossible to simply take and pour the old colony into a new formicarium. Members of different families will simply kill each other, the strongest family will survive. The main problem is that new inhabitants of the old formicarium can kill the queen. Accordingly, two families will be left without a queen. You risk ruining two families instead of one.
- If you want the family to develop successfully, to add a new queen to the family that is left without a queen, you need to place the queen in the arena and cover all the holes in the incubator with a metal, steel mesh. Ants will not be able to harm the queen. Pay attention to how communication occurs. It is necessary that the antennae of the ants touch the uterus, they will get used to each other. If there is no aggression from the ants, you can open the exit from the incubator. Most likely, the workers will accept the queen. If open aggression is observed, then the queen must be taken away, because the soldiers will destroy it.
- There is another option for introducing a new queen into an old family. For these purposes, it is necessary to place the old formicarium, in which there is no queen, in the refrigerator. A decrease in temperature will help reduce the motor activity of the ants; they will go into suspended animation. It is necessary to take a completely new, clean, dry formicarium and place the uterus in the center of the arena. Next, you need to place the ants that have fallen into suspended animation into the arena one by one. Due to decreased motor activity and loss of orientation, the ants may not understand that this is not an old queen, but a new one, and will accept her into the family.
Ant
Why do ants die in an ant farm?
Although ants are very easy to care for, there are a number of diseases that the insects are susceptible to.
Why do ants die in an ant farm:
- Poisoning
- Incorrectly selected diet
- Parasites and diseases
- Disturbance of the microclimate in the formicarium
- Queen Death and Molds
Most often, insects suffer from fungal diseases, as well as parasites. The main signs of infection are high insect mortality and strange behavior. Often such insects walk in circles or crawl, freezing in one place. Ants die in whole groups.
Ants
What do ants get sick with in a formicarium?
To save insects, it is necessary to relocate to another formicarium and disinfect the individuals. To prevent the disease from entering the new farm along with insects, it is necessary to place cotton wool moistened with Antibak 250 into the arena. A test tube is placed next to such cotton wool. As soon as 20 individuals get into it, they must be moved to a new place of residence. Most often, ants die due to microclimate disturbances. This is facilitated not by a decrease or increase in temperature, but by fluctuations in humidity.
What do ants suffer from in a formicarium?
- Ticks . They appear in the form of formations on the bodies of insects, similar to droplets. There may be several such drops on the ant's abdomen and head. To get rid of the parasite, it is necessary to reduce the temperature and humidity levels. Of course, this will have a negative impact on the ants, but the mite is more sensitive to such microclimate changes than the ants. Often, professionals use a predatory mite for these purposes, which destroys the parasite. However, this is also a dangerous parasite; only professionals resort to this method of control.
- Fly rider . For soldiers or breadwinners, she does not pose any danger by defeating the queen. Such a parasite lays a larva in its interior. After a while, the queen lays a large red-yellow cocoon. After a while the uterus dies. Take a closer look at the uterus, before laying the cocoon of the fly, it increases significantly in size. It is very difficult to fight the parasite, so such a family will die. It's time to prepare a new queen.
Goosebumps
Benefits of ants in the garden
People have always had an ambivalent attitude towards these insects. Not as categorical as, say, to moths, or various kinds of crawling bugs. After all, even kids know that this living creature has many useful functions for humans and nature. But not everyone knows which ones exactly. It's time to find out how ants in your garden can affect the health and appearance of your vegetation.
To begin with, it is worth understanding how the life of these creatures works. Firstly, they are far from alone. Therefore, if you see this representative of the fauna in your garden, know that dozens of its fellows are lurking very close by. In fact, in a large ant family there is a fairly clear hierarchy.
The head of each clan is the queen. Each such female is assigned several males. It is very simple to distinguish them from the rest of the working class - individuals close to the uterus, like the queen herself, have wings. The life of fertilizers is short-lived; they die as soon as they fertilize the female.
So, this whole large family needs something to eat. The diet of these small creatures includes spider mites, caterpillars, and even fly larvae. There are few gardeners who have not encountered such pests attacking their garden beds. Therefore, very voracious mustachioed guests can become a real salvation for your harvest.
In order for you to understand the scale of such lunch “clean-ups”, we will present the numbers. If we are talking about garden inhabitants, then the inhabitants of one anthill are capable of absorbing, just think about it, two thousand victims in the form of various insects in a day. And if we take forest dwellers as an example, then the number goes into the tens of thousands.
In addition, insects can do part of your work. How? It’s very simple - they loosen the ground. Not like us, of course; they don’t need tools for this. Living creatures make hundreds of tunnels in the ground. Moreover, we are not talking about superficial passages, as is the case with worms. Sometimes these figures reach one and a half meters in depth. And in these labyrinths the humidity is comfortable for most plants, and the necessary microorganisms settle.
They can saturate the soil not only with oxygen. For example, where these insects live, there is 10 times more phosphorus. Such soil is also saturated with potassium, its content doubles. In addition, these are not just useful substances, but soluble substances that the root system is able to “absorb.”
In addition, without these numerous insects, many representatives of the flora may simply stop reproducing at a certain point. Because it is the ants who spread their seeds around. There are as many as three thousand such species. Moreover, there are those for whom this is the only way of reproduction, violet, for example.
Although not all, many are ready to eat both the insects themselves and their acid. And not even because they have special nutritional properties. But because they can help say goodbye to insomnia, dizziness, and even alleviate the symptoms of hepatitis.
In addition, by the presence of this little thing at the dacha, you can easily understand whether the area is suitable for planting vegetables and fruit trees. After all, such living creatures will not be found in poor soils. So the presence of such neighbors can be considered a sure sign of healthy and fertile land.
Reaper ants: reproduction
Ant reproduction begins in April, when the queen returns from her flight, chews off her wings, and climbs into the hole. Before the onset of summer heat, there are already several worker insects that can be engaged in foraging.
Reaper ants, reproduction:
- At the initial stage, the queen lays eggs, which then turn into larvae and pupae. The pupa does not have a dense shell, so its development can be observed. As mentioned above, the harvester ants have a division into castes and each one does his own thing. The larvae cannot move independently, so they are fed by nurses, nannies or wet nurses. Reaper ants mainly feed on grains that are ground into flour by soldiers. They differ from other inhabitants of the farm in their larger size and massive head.
- This is due to the fact that they have very large jaws that are capable of grinding grains into small pieces. The crushed grains are handed over to ordinary workers, who then grind the pieces into flour. The nurse mixes flour with saliva and feeds the larvae. It is worth noting that an ordinary working female is also capable of laying eggs, but they will also be workers. In order for an egg to become a female or a male, it must be laid by the queen. Only she has a supply of sperm inside her abdomen, which is capable of producing full-fledged, sexually mature individuals.
Ants
How to raise a queen ant?
It is almost impossible to grow a uterus at home, this is due to some peculiarities of fertilization.
How to raise a queen ant:
- Even if there are several males and females in the formicarium, for the uterus to become full-fledged, it needs a supply of cells from the male. Insemination occurs only during flight; therefore, insects cannot mate in the formicarium.
- Therefore, it is worth allowing the farm to survive without a queen. The lifespan of working goosebumps is 3-5 years. You can try to disband the family into formicaria with queens.
Family Many interesting articles about ants can be found on our website:
Ants: types, features of external and internal body structure, reproduction. How many legs and eyes does an ant have?
Dream interpretation - ants: why do you dream about ants in a house, apartment, on your body, legs, head, hair, a lot, in large quantities?
Signs about ants in the house and forest.
Ant bites on humans: how to treat, what to apply, how to get rid of itching?
There is no need to overly moisten the formicarium, as this provokes mold growth. Factors such as loud noises, bright lights, or strong odors can cause death or illness in the colony. Try to keep the farm in shaded, quiet areas.
How to properly moisturize a formicarium
To ensure a comfortable life for ants, it is necessary to maintain a certain level of humidity in their home. In the formicariums offered by ANTKingdom, special humidification chambers are provided for this purpose.
If there is a lack of moisture in the living chambers, ants begin to accumulate near the drinking bowls and humidifiers in the arena. The main thing is to pay attention to this in time and restore the required humidity level as quickly as possible.
Monitoring humidity levels based on insect behavior is very difficult. This problem can be solved using a hygrometer - a device for determining air humidity, which can be purchased in our online store. It will help you easily determine how much water needs to be poured into the chambers. completely solving this problem.
If you are just starting to master the rules of caring for an ant farm, be careful with moisture, trying to find the optimal water level in the formicarium chambers. The best solution is to buy a hygrometer, otherwise mistakes cannot be avoided.
