I need help to start an ant farm

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AntDudeUSA
Posts: 87
Joined: Sat May 12, 2018 5:33 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: I need help to start an ant farm

Post: # 37885Post AntDudeUSA
Fri Jun 15, 2018 9:59 pm

Zinjifrah wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 9:39 pm
Hi everyone, I recently moved to Mexico City, I have been watching AntsCanada YT channel for a wile and decided to start my own ant farm, I have been succesfull catching two antqueen, but I have not been able to make them survive :(, I did not have test tube, because I was not looking for ants when I collected them, so I used a candy plastic tube instend. I dont know why but It generated bacterias really fast and my ant queens died, I dont know if it was because I used too much cotton or because I didnt clean it properley, It feels terrible, because the second queen manage to lay eggs :(, Sorry fot the bad Quality photo and my terrible english. Regards.
Hello friend welcome to the ant family :D I'm sorry to hear about the two queens chances are they were just not really ready many queens can just die for no real reason its one of the problems ant keepers face I wouldn't feel too bad about it. the best thing to do is to just go to your local **** or medical store and buy some test tubes you can also by them online and make a test tube setup. after you make the setup put a queen in there and find somewhere that is dark and quiet and put her there and just forget about her for about 4-5 weeks and she should have laid eggs. do not look at her every day just put her up and forget about her if you look at her a lot or disturb her you can stress her out and she will eat her eggs or die. don't worry about cleaning the test tube until she has a few workers when it comes time to clean them the best thing to do is to when they have a few workers like 10 or so move them into a new test tube how to do this is to tape the two together and put the one that they are currently in under a light but wrap the other one up so its dark and they will move into the darker one sorry for the really long paragraph I hope this helps

-AntDude
Keeper of
x1 Camponotus Penslyvanicus
x1 Formica Subscerica
x1 Tetramorium Caespitum
x1 Solenopsis Invicta
x1 Pheidole sp
x1 Dorymyrmex Bureni

Masterchief
Posts: 31
Joined: Sun May 06, 2018 5:50 pm
Location: Elk Grove, CA

Re: I need help to start an ant farm

Post: # 37948Post Masterchief
Sat Jun 16, 2018 5:42 pm

A good clean test tube is super important for the start of the colony! I personally also had ton of trouble finding test tubes to buy in the beginning.. The internet is definitely the place to go. I of course caught my Queen's before I had a glass test tube tho. A good temporary or starter tube is to go to a florist and pick up a water tube for a single stem rose. They are good because they are typically free and never used(just be nice and tell em why you want them)! I wouldn't recommend using a housing that's had food or any other contaminant in it. Also, leaving them in the dark and only looking at them No More than once a week is huge! Good luck with your future Queens!
Keeper of
1 Liometopum Occidentale (Velvet Tree Ant)
1 Tetramorium (Pavement Ant)

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