Update on my Solenopsis Invicta Soil Nest

[MadVampy]

Ok well it's been awhile since I posted any videos (been so very busy at work) but I thought I would do an update on my Solenopsis Invicta soil nest. I feed them today and I decided to do a short video.

A little history: Back in April of 2015 I moved my fire ants into a handmade soil nest https://youtu.be/ZTTHmJbBFbQ and about 2 months later one day I saw a dead queen that they had taken to the trash pile, well my heart sunk a little thnking that the colony that had grown so (including a nuptial non-flight, you can see it in my videos) had lost their queen and was going to die out. Not a happy day for me by any means. Well I decided to take one of the queens I had caught and try and introduce her to the colony in an attempt to save it, they found her and convinced her to move into the nest (never saw her again). From there it was a sit back and see what happens time for me. Well a few months ago I went and fed them a large cockroach and was surprised to see how many sisters there were! A few days later during a hot day (was like 85* outside and probable 90* inside, I forgot to turn on the A/C) I looked in one of the entry tubes to the nest and saw to my surprise a very large amount of eggs and pupa! YES!!!!!! The transplanted queen was accepted and was part of the colony! I was so happy!!!

Well since then the colony has grown and I've been keeping it at bay as far as size (didn't want it to explode like Mikey's Fire Nation had) by controlling the temperature in the room.

Ok well that's enough babbling from me! Here's the little video I shot this afternoon when I got home.

[MadVampy]

Another quick video update:

If you go for a real soil nest there is always the chance they will not allow you to see into the nest, and these girls want their privacy! With that being said you never truly know how many there are in their nest and you for sure never see the queen....... well until you feed them that is! I fed them some superworms and the colony reacted as any would, they swarmed the food and gave me a small glimpse of just how many there might be!

[SpeciesK]

I don't have experience yet. Do ants eat all the parts of the crickets so nothing is left but powder, or do they eat the insides and leave the hard cuticle behind so it looks like cricket skins left behind?

[MadVampy]

They will eat all the soft innards out of every piece of the cricket. I have seen them toting the head of the cricket into the nest at times. All that is usually left is the exoskeleton that I end up cleaning out of the outworld.

[MadVampy]

Another feeding time with my Solenopsis colony. Gave them some crickets to attack and eat. They had all 6 crickets subdued in less than 5 minutes and started in on eating them. The colony is really starting to take off in size, think I need to get serious about building them additional living space. I also did a short time lapse of them eating and dragging the crickets around. Enjoy.

BTW I have to come up with a name for the colony. Any thoughts?



Time Lapse

[SpeciesK]

Matches make fire. The ants are in a box. There are twenty thousand. So the name: Matchbox Twenty Thousand
I kinda thought they would tear the crickets apart and carry the parts around like trophies while chanting Orc songs and vandalizing