Breeding ants

Learn how to obtain ant colonies for your formicariums or sell your ant colonies locally in a legal and ecologically-friendly manner through the GAN Project.

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Cal113
Posts: 80
Joined: Fri Mar 17, 2017 8:49 pm
Location: Louisville, Co

Breeding ants

Post: # 18335Post Cal113
Mon Mar 20, 2017 6:16 pm

Hi, I'm new to antfarming, but is it possible that if you have two queens from different colonies that when they produce alates that you can take those alates and mate them and then sell those possibly for the GAN project?
Keeper of:

x3 Tetramorium caespitum queens (small colonies);
x1 Pogonomyrmex barbatus (med colony)
x1 Formica fusca single queen; (small colony)
x2 Unknown sp.; (founding)
x1 Temnothorax rugatalus (med colony)

jwatson16202

Re: Breeding ants

Post: # 18338Post jwatson16202
Mon Mar 20, 2017 7:05 pm

It's unlikely that ants in captivity will receive environmental cues for nuptial flights

jwatson16202

Re: Breeding ants

Post: # 18339Post jwatson16202
Mon Mar 20, 2017 7:05 pm

Also ants mate in flight, how are you likely to contain them?

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idahoantgirl
Posts: 1521
Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2015 11:52 am
Location: Idaho, USA

Re: Breeding ants

Post: # 18348Post idahoantgirl
Mon Mar 20, 2017 9:44 pm

Short answer, no. Ants often fly a ways away from the nest to mate.
Proverbs 6:6-8

Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!
It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.

Keeping Tetramorium immigrans, Tapinoma Sessile

Martialis
Posts: 1576
Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2016 5:30 pm
Location: Indiana

Re: Breeding ants

Post: # 18350Post Martialis
Mon Mar 20, 2017 10:06 pm

Artificial insemination of ants is possible but requires precise tools to induce mating.
Keeper of

Selliing:

Cal113
Posts: 80
Joined: Fri Mar 17, 2017 8:49 pm
Location: Louisville, Co

Re: Breeding ants

Post: # 18387Post Cal113
Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:23 pm

What if you gave the normal environmental ques(as much as possible) like watering the formicarium to simulate rain? Then you closed the windows and isolated the ants to a room? I'd this a possibility?
Keeper of:

x3 Tetramorium caespitum queens (small colonies);
x1 Pogonomyrmex barbatus (med colony)
x1 Formica fusca single queen; (small colony)
x2 Unknown sp.; (founding)
x1 Temnothorax rugatalus (med colony)

jwatson16202

Re: Breeding ants

Post: # 18388Post jwatson16202
Tue Mar 21, 2017 9:20 pm

Still very unlikely
It's not just rainfall, there's temperature, humidity, some suggestions of pheromonal cues from neighbouring colonies

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