The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

This is my first time really getting into ant keeping (as a kid I used to get those little farms where you would get sent a batch of workers) and after scrolling around in the forum I decided it would be a good idea to document it! I only just realized to start this so I will post an abbreviated history of what has happened . A week or two ago I went outside to clean my yard, I had recently got back into antkeeping from Mikey and had ordered some test tubes. Anyway, I was walking around when I was surprised to find a queen ant walking around on our walkway! I was so surprised, I grabbed her up and ran to set up my first test tube. I put her away in a drawer and hoped for the best! Later that week I was cleaning my grandma's house and I found two queens there. There had been a lot of rain, and her house is pretty old making for a lot of colonies flying I think. I got those two in test tubes and around that time I saw that my first queen had laid eggs!!!! Woot!!! At that point I found an almost dead queen laying on our porch (she died a few days later). My final queen for now was found another few days who actually had a broken leg. Around this point one of the two that I found also laid eggs. It almost seems like the queens have different personalities. One of my queens with eggs is very calm when I check on her, but the other one absolutely freaks out. Very interesting to observe. Well, the next time something interesting happens I will post!

Yay! Happy ant keeping!

A quick update. I now have three egg laying queens!! I may have missed some others since I am hesitant to check on them and disturb them. The queen with the broken leg has a massive pile of eggs! One of the five queens died, so I will check on the fourth today to see if I have four laying queens.

you guys have nice usernames lol

Jadeninja9 wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 25, 2017 7:12 pm

you guys have nice usernames lol

Yea I saw her username and when I was making my account I decided to use that! BTW: the fourth ant was dead, but I found another tetramorium while taking out the trash tonight!!

haha nice

New update! One of my queens now has four or five workers !! Since the queen is tetramorium the nanitics are super small. I'm really excited for this queen, I think she'll be the one who I move in to the tetramorium hybrid nest that just arrived in the mail. Should I give them a bee larvae, or a portion of a larvae for their first meal? Hopefully the rest of my queen's eggs start hatching soon!

Idahoantguy wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 14, 2017 8:27 pm

New update! One of my queens now has four or five workers !! Since the queen is tetramorium the nanitics are super small. I'm really excited for this queen, I think she'll be the one who I move in to the tetramorium hybrid nest that just arrived in the mail. Should I give them a bee larvae, or a portion of a larvae for their first meal? Hopefully the rest of my queen's eggs start hatching soon!

I don't think it matters. Ants cant overeat, so half or full doesn't really matter. if you want, you can probably cut it in half so that they can get to the inside juices.

Another quick update, and some questions which I will post on the main forum as well. I still only have one queen out of eight that has workers, but as far as I know they all have eggs. I connected the one with workers (she now has probably 20, up to a test tube portal as a starter formocarium, and I just gave them their first real meal! Honey and a crushed bee larvae! So I keep them in a drawer with the rest of the queens, every time I want to feed them I have to open it. I think it disturbs the rest of them. Should I move her out of the drawer and just keep them covered with a towel? Or should I just move them into a hybrid nest and connect the portal? Or even move them into the nest with a outworld?
Thanks for the help!