New to ants and a few question.

[RuinedDrone]

After having watched the channel for a while my daughter (10) started watching it with me and as most kids has a healthy fasination with insects. She caught a queen about 5 weeks ago and put it in a small bug jar. Thinking nothing would happen (but hoping it would) we where both a bit suprosed to see eggs a few days later.

By the way i have kept Fish before but not ants so was not really expecting this hence the newbi questions. I would like to make sure tis queen and her babbies get though and dughter can experince the growth in to a colony.

I really have 2 (or 3) questions.

1. I am guessign she will be OK in the Jar its a bit bigger than a test tube but she seems happy and eggs are now larva, she has access to water so unless any oen can give a good reason to move her I was planning to wait till the brood has hatched and then move them in to something like the Hybrid nest (she is a Lasius niger queen) rather than stress her trying to move her with Larva.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Mwg8cdfMk49qzoPC6 - pic of her current enviroment

2. I keep hearing about "Mold", my daughter put some dryed dead leaves in to the nest and while not moldy I have been conserned they might casue mold. She has kepts her eggs / larva on the clean plastic floor and it all looks very clean but should I be conserned or leave her as she is?

3. My local pet shop sells Jelly pots, I know ants will need water and suger and protin and they will get this from insects etc, but I jsut wanted to know can ants survive on jelly pots? I read conflicting views that say they have every thing ants / insects need. I dont want to feed them on just this but I just would like to know if they are fed as a suplement what % of there diet / intake should it form.

Cheers for any advice.

[CabboAntsGuy]

1. She should be fine and I would leave them in the jar until about 20 workers before moving them and then move them into a medium size container.

2. If you get mold try to urge the queen to move somewhere else, it will be harder in a jar, but not impossible, or you could add Springtails to clean up junk and mold.

3.I would still give them Bugs or some other source of protein for sure. Jelly pots will most likely not be enough.

Have fun
-Cabbo

[RuinedDrone]

HI,

Thanks for that, sounds like (fingers crossed) things are going OK. I am sure later i will have more newbi questions to ask but for now I shall leave her to her self. setting up Cam has been fun so we can watch her with out disterbing her. lets hope in another 3 or 4 weeks we have some more ants helping her out.

Cheers again for the help

Aaron

[CabboAntsGuy]

One more thing, If you live in a location that gets cold during winter, your queen will most likely hibernate. During that time you do not have to feed her anything or her workers, they will slow down and not move much at all. they should also be hibernated in a cooler place. If you need any more info just ask.

[mileslanham24]

I don’t know if this is the correct way to ask a question but I am going to try. I recently created a terrarium and dumped out an ant colony living in my flower pot into the Terrarium. I am not 100 percent sure the queen didn’t get lost or survived. What are some signs that the colony has a queen or not.

[CabboAntsGuy]

You'll know in a month or two when they all die off. lol, But if they are actively searching for food you should be fine.

[RuinedDrone]

Well she seems to be OK so far, Not long before we see some nanitics I think



(why does video not show?)

[CabboAntsGuy]

You can't post videos to the forum, you have to post them to an exterior site (youtube) then post the link here

[RuinedDrone]

I was trying to use the youtube tags, but it does not seem to show the video if i just put in the id, although it does put in the spacing?

So the below (with out quotes) just is a blank space

"[youtube]"vahe6-bWPu8"[/youtube]"