Messor barbarus colony

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Flammable

Messor barbarus colony

Post: # 33883Post Flammable
Thu Feb 08, 2018 10:24 am

Hello
I am new to ant keeping and I need some help with my Messor barbarus colony.
About a month ago I bought a Messor barbarus queen with 8 workers. Since then, the queen hasn't laid any eggs at all.
From what I have read these type of ants are sensitive to stress so I try to leave the nest alone as much as possible (looking about once a week for 5min to check for mold and the overall progress)
Am I impatient or am I doing something wrong?

Some additional information:
My setup contains of a test tube (covered from light) attached to a small outworld (+/- 3cm diameter circle) by a 10cm tube.
The workers are pretty active and there are usually 2-3 workers scouting the area at any given time. I feed them honeydough, fruit flys, seeds and suger water that came with the colony roughly twice a week.

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Jadeninja9
Posts: 732
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:00 pm
Location: SF Bay Area, California

Re: Messor barbarus colony

Post: # 33884Post Jadeninja9
Thu Feb 08, 2018 2:07 pm

You’re doing everything fine and infact it’s okay to check up on them every day. You have to feed them everyday so. Yeah and about the queen not laying eggs, some species have different cycles where they’ll lay eggs and stop then lay again then stop. Or it could be because hibernation is happening right now in cold climates.
Keeper of:
1x Camponotus Hyatti
1x Lasius alienus colonies
1x Tetramorium immigrans

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