The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

Hi guys

I'm new to this hobby. Started looking into it 4 weeks ago, mainly because I am a dart frog keeper, and I was investigating their natural diet,which includes ants. So I started watching Mikey's video on youtube and got absolutely fascinated...so here I am, 4 weeks into googling like mad trying to gather as much infos as possible, with my first queen (Lasius niger, bought here in the UK from a local website, with her dozen workers, absolutely marvelous.

At this stage I have a couple of questions, but I'm sure more to come

1) queen and workers seem very very active, they don't look into hibernation at all. It looks to me they have been kept indoors. Should I induce hibernation, or is too late? I have read that a pin drop on honey in the test tube is all they need at this stage. Correct or should I leave them alone?

2) one of the workers has two heads. Is it common in ants to display mutations like this?

Thank you for your replies
Alex

Really? I've never seen anything like it. Can you make a photo?
I recommend hibernating them.

Not very good with camera but I will give it a go

Alex

Welcome to the hobby Regarding the honey drop, you may want to consider cutting out a small piece of aluminum foil that will fit in the test tube and put the honey on the foil. It helps keep the test tube clean and non-sticky.

ooper01 wrote:Welcome to the hobby Regarding the honey drop, you may want to consider cutting out a small piece of aluminum foil that will fit in the test tube and put the honey on the foil. It helps keep the test tube clean and non-sticky.

Yea like ooper said, I use wax paper and sugar water. Either way it makes clean up easy and you really don't have to disturb the ants too much, pull the cotton out pull out the foil or paper and stuff cotton back in, fast and easy.

welcome fellow brit. and please post pic of the 2 headed beastie please

hi guys

First of all, thank you for the welcome and the tips
This morning I went to take a picture of the two headed worker and, well, it has been destroyed.

The pictures below are not very clear. These are my first attempt at macro, so forgive the poor quality, but you can clearly see the body, although it's not obvious that it had two heads.

What I didn't realize, with my aging ***** eye is that there are also eggs.
Now the question is: shall I proceed with the hibernation or wait ?





Thank you all
Ale

These are small larvae and will not continue developing without hibernation.
You can hibernate them now.
Good luck!

yep def hybernate them. my lisus niger queen and her one worker is in the fridge and my messor barbouers is in the bathroom

Very strange places to keep your ants , luckily I don't have these problems in Brazil.

Good luck with your colony friend, they seem very healthy. Merry Christmas!