What do you feed your ants in general

Posts and questions relating to ant diet & nutrition. Let us know what you’re feeding your ants.

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Fulkol
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What do you feed your ants in general

Post: # 17395Post Fulkol
Tue Feb 21, 2017 4:34 pm

I just wanted to have a topic where people can share their pictures/thoughts about feeding ants in general, hopefully there will be a discussion going on.

Here is a picture of a meal of few days for my lasius colony of 20-30 workers and 10-20 egg and the queen (not sure of exact numbers because their nest is underground and in soil.
Usually 1-2 ant do basic groundwork around the nest, there is 1 scout and 1 forager for constant hard parts chewed for the larvae, when fresh food is given usually 5-6 start to forage for a few hours.

Image

The food shown on the picture are:
Raw honey (furthest on the pic)
Acacia tree honey (closest white drop)
Linden tree honey (right brownish drop)
^all mixed with water ofc

A meal worm cut in 3 pieces + the head (I kill them by ripping their head off and I noticed my ants love if I include the head as well because it can be carried by one worker and they always bring it inside the nest as it)

And the purple drop on the left is a mixture of water, 2 types of honey, sugar and BCAA food *****(raspberry flavor :D ).

In the background you can see my basic water tube with cotton and the bonsai tree which has the ants nest at it's roots. (If you've read my other topic about this outworld you can laugh now, well, they managed to move in :D )

Martialis
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Re: What do you feed your ants in general

Post: # 17396Post Martialis
Tue Feb 21, 2017 4:47 pm

Food. :P

But in all seriousness, I feed chicken, honey, and basically anything else I can.
Keeper of

Selliing:

Fulkol
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Location: Budapest

Re: What do you feed your ants in general

Post: # 17534Post Fulkol
Sat Feb 25, 2017 9:19 am

Another feeding day for my girls

Lasius Niger colony 20 ish workers + brood + queen

Image

The scout already found the goods!

Image

She just loves the raspberry syrup

Image

The dish of my other queen (only queen and a few egg, she is semi-claustral, this should statisfy her needs :D )

Image

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notmyidea
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Location: Victoria, BC, Canada

Re: What do you feed your ants in general

Post: # 18174Post notmyidea
Thu Mar 16, 2017 10:35 pm

That's a lot of food for a small colony. They eat that all up in a day?

I feed mine:
distilled water
honey water (1 part honey, 4 parts water)
frozen fruit flies

I tried feeding cut up mealworms but they seem to prefer the fruit flies

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MadVampy
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Re: What do you feed your ants in general

Post: # 18176Post MadVampy
Fri Mar 17, 2017 2:24 am

I feed my Solenopsis colony 10 crickets a day (protein), I give them 1 KitKat a week (sugars) and they go thru a water tube every two weeks (of course my soil nest has a bottom layer of substrate that is watered once a week so they get moisture from there also.
MadVampy

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Name is also Mike but please don't confuse me with Mikey Bustos, two different people. :lol:
Keeper of Solenopsis Ants. :twisted:

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idahoantgirl
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Re: What do you feed your ants in general

Post: # 18197Post idahoantgirl
Fri Mar 17, 2017 1:14 pm

I bought a container of live crickets and froze them. Now about every day or every other day I get one out, break it into three pieces, and set it in the outworld. This is their favorite protein. I will also sometimes give them little baby pieces of whatever protein I had that day occasionally. (Meat, seeds, nuts, egg, whatever) for sugar, I generally provide them with a test tube of sugar water connect to their hybrid nest and I will also give them whatever sugar I have laying around (Honey, maple syrup, apple sauce) My colony is tetramorium and has 100-200 workers.
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

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idahoantgirl
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Location: Idaho, USA

Re: What do you feed your ants in general

Post: # 18198Post idahoantgirl
Fri Mar 17, 2017 1:14 pm

MadVampy wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2017 2:24 am
I feed my Solenopsis colony 10 crickets a day (protein), I give them 1 KitKat a week (sugars) and they go thru a water tube every two weeks (of course my soil nest has a bottom layer of substrate that is watered once a week so they get moisture from there also.
Holy cow! How many ants do you have in that colony?
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

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notmyidea
Posts: 60
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 3:30 pm
Location: Victoria, BC, Canada

Re: What do you feed your ants in general

Post: # 18225Post notmyidea
Sat Mar 18, 2017 2:08 am

idahoantgirl wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2017 1:14 pm
.. for sugar, I generally provide them with a test tube of sugar water connect to their hybrid nest and I will also give them whatever sugar I have laying around (Honey, maple syrup, apple sauce) My colony is tetramorium and has 100-200 workers.
What proportion of sugar to water do you use for your sugar water? For the other sugars you mentioned, do you mix them with water or give it to them pure :?:

Serafine

Re: What do you feed your ants in general

Post: # 18227Post Serafine
Sat Mar 18, 2017 3:21 am

I made a colony journal on formiculture where I've listed everything I did ever feed to my ants, including the ratio of their sugar waters (usually 3:1 or 4:1 water:sugar).

http://www.formiculture.com/topic/4167-serafines-camponotus-barbaricus-welcome-to-lazy-tube/

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idahoantgirl
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Location: Idaho, USA

Re: What do you feed your ants in general

Post: # 18243Post idahoantgirl
Sat Mar 18, 2017 6:21 pm

notmyidea wrote:
Sat Mar 18, 2017 2:08 am
idahoantgirl wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2017 1:14 pm
.. for sugar, I generally provide them with a test tube of sugar water connect to their hybrid nest and I will also give them whatever sugar I have laying around (Honey, maple syrup, apple sauce) My colony is tetramorium and has 100-200 workers.
What proportion of sugar to water do you use for your sugar water? For the other sugars you mentioned, do you mix them with water or give it to them pure :?:
I don't really have a ratio, I just mix in some sugar to water and taste it to see if it's sweet. It should be pretty sweet since you want the maximum energy possible in one ant sip. For the other sugars, they don't need it to be mixed with liquid, but maybe you could just for the honey since ants can get stuck in it
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

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