Feeder Insects

[dinoman9877]

So as I await patiently for my queen hunt tomorrow, I've come to realize a huge issue. Feeder insects.

Where I live, we have Petco in the nearby area, and I think a PetSmart nearby. Petco sells live crickets and superworms, PetSmart sells live or dead crickets and dead mealworms. I can't find live mealworms anywhere.

My mother agrees that the superworms could be okay to raise. (Not crickets. Too noisy and smelly for her liking. Any I get will not be permanently kept, so I'm probably looking at buying only a couple every few days.)

On a side note, I can still feed the adult beetles to the ants, right? Not as a live food, what with the whole pungent chemical defense. I'd wait until after natural causes took them.

Now according to Mikey, these two insects, even when gut-loaded, aren't a well balanced diet for ants. But there's one itsy-bitsy issue...

I am NOT going to raise termites or cockroaches! That's a no from me, and that's definitely a no from the woman who is, again, helping me get started with this and, more importantly, owns the place these insects will be inhabiting! We already have carpenter ants in droves where we live, we don't need the perfect wood destroyer in our home. And neither of us can stand cockroaches, of any kind. We lived in Florida, once upon a time, and the cockroaches (palmetto bugs as they are known where we lived), got big. Like...BIG!

And on top of that, I once had one such bug crawl up my leg and into my pants on the way to school. Of the few experiences I remember of my childhood, that one stands out in my mind and likely will forever. That experience makes it so that I will NEVER, not in a MILLION YEARS, go near a cockroach. I will kill one on sight if it is in my home and get it out as quickly as I can.

With these issues in mind, that leaves me no options that I can think of, and I don't think I can just substitute bugs with something like a piece of hamburger or bologna.

So what am I going to do? I don't want to risk capturing wild insects due to potential for pesticides, and I know ants love to be jerks and get picky about their protein source and just completely ignore certain foods on certain days.

[idahoantgirl]

So as I await patiently for my queen hunt tomorrow, I've come to realize a huge issue. Feeder insects.

Where I live, we have Petco in the nearby area, and I think a PetSmart nearby. Petco sells live crickets and superworms, PetSmart sells live or dead crickets and dead mealworms. I can't find live mealworms anywhere.

My mother agrees that the superworms could be okay to raise. (Not crickets. Too noisy and smelly for her liking. Any I get will not be permanently kept, so I'm probably looking at buying only a couple every few days.)

On a side note, I can still feed the adult beetles to the ants, right? Not as a live food, what with the whole pungent chemical defense. I'd wait until after natural causes took them.

Now according to Mikey, these two insects, even when gut-loaded, aren't a well balanced diet for ants. But there's one itsy-bitsy issue...

I am NOT going to raise termites or cockroaches! That's a no from me, and that's definitely a no from the woman who is, again, helping me get started with this and, more importantly, owns the place these insects will be inhabiting! We already have carpenter ants in droves where we live, we don't need the perfect wood destroyer in our home. And neither of us can stand cockroaches, of any kind. We lived in Florida, once upon a time, and the cockroaches (palmetto bugs as they are known where we lived), got big. Like...BIG!

And on top of that, I once had one such bug crawl up my leg and into my pants on the way to school. Of the few experiences I remember of my childhood, that one stands out in my mind and likely will forever. That experience makes it so that I will NEVER, not in a MILLION YEARS, go near a cockroach. I will kill one on sight if it is in my home and get it out as quickly as I can.
With these issues in mind, that leaves me no options that I can think of, and I don't think I can just substitute bugs with something like a piece of hamburger or bologna.

So what am I going to do? I don't want to risk capturing wild insects due to potential for pesticides, and I know ants love to be jerks and get picky about their protein source and just completely ignore certain foods on certain days.

so I suggest buying a pack of live crickets, and freezing them to kill them. this will also kill off any mites or anything else that's on them. Then, when your colony needs a new cricket, just go into the freezer and pull out a cricket, break off the head and thorax so the ants can get into the goodies inside and throw them into the outworld. I suggest using this method on crickets instead of mealworms because crickets are much more nutritious than mealworms.