The Total Ant Guide!

[CabboAntsGuy]

Hello to any of you have clicked on this topic and are interested in it. I know most of you are expecting a full blown break down on keep ants, but that is not exactly what this is. This is a place where anyone may come and post any bits of information they have or would like to share. Please refrain from asking questions here. This page is for posting smaller bits of info rather than putting it all into one big post. Feel free to post any information you may have regarding the first stages of keeping ants, long term info, food, or hunting tips.
Please try to keep post related to general species and not one specific species.

Thank you everyone. This is now really the communities page, but i will be on sometimes to monitor and maybe offer my own info.
Please regard the way this page works and have fun!

-Cabbo

[AntsLuxembourg]

I feel like I should start with some general info then.

Food.

It's the most important part when it comes to antspecies. In my oppinion there are basically Normal Ants, Harvester Ants and Fungus Ants.

Normal Ants or most ant species eat insects. But not every species likes the same kind of stuff. So where to get your food for them? Well you can go to a petstore that sells pets like snakes, spiders, scorpions or lizards. They ususally sell the stuff you need to provide food for your colony. The most common ones are Mealworms, Superworms, Crickets or Cockroaches. You can ask your local petstore if they have them and if not ask if they can order them. For example a local fish store also might sell at least some meal worm.
But until you get life insects, you can also feed them with some honey. But careful. Some species actually drown as they are heavy enough to sink into the honey and get stuck.
Alternatively you can also soft boil an egg and offer them some eggwhite or try fishfood.
Some species also enjoy to keep aphids which provide them with sugary liquid that they can drink.

Harvester Ants mostly only eat seed. Seeds4Life baby. ;P
I have written a pretty big list with what they may like or not already in my thread over here. https://forum.AntsCanada.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=18552&p=72515&hilit=messor+barbarus#p72515
What you can do if you have the chance, go out and pick a lot of dandelion flowers. Those with the white head. If you only cut of the head, then they will take care of picking the seeds and cutting of the white flighting stuff. However I recommend to at least trim them a bit as the white stuff will leave a mess in your setup that you need to clean up. One good sneeze and wooosh. Everything becomes a fluffy white winter wonderland. You can also get lose bird seeds like sunflower seeds. You can also try pepper seeds as they are easy to collect.
They may enjoy insects but as far as I know they mostly only eat seeds as those can be stored for a very long time.

Fungus Ants or better known as Leafcutter ants will grow and eat their own fungus. However they need leafs in order to grow their fungus. You may need to do some research on your species in particular but it should be possible. They also may use oatmeal to grow their fungus. So offer them a bowl if you like. Oh and enough space to grow their fungus.

Generally all the ants love them some honey, however I know that for example messor barbarus doesn't like it and they will deliberatly just throw their garbage on it. They are crazy in regards to their seeds and mostly only favor them.

That's it so far with my general Guide for you guys. If you need more info then ask your question in the forum. I'm mostly active in Ant Care and Ant Keeping (https://forum.AntsCanada.com/viewforum.php?f=25) and offer my help and advice to everyone.

[Alexandros]

Messor Structor ants are very picky and also don't like honey. I tried to give them dry protein (dried canned crickets and such) too a lot of times but they only smelled it. They are a little bit low producing, meaning it will take time to have a big colony size. For example, it took 7 months for my queen to start producing eggs after she had about 30 workers. I think that Messor Structor queens take time and often stop for a few months to take a brake before laying eggs again. They also love to dig and like poppy seeds. They like to eat their prey freshly killed or even alive (but your colont has to have enough workers/majors and such). That's all the information I have so far.

[RiceAnt]

Info on acrylic nests

I have a lasius niger colony.
I put them into an acrylic nest, which apparently is good for 1 to 50 ants (depending on the size of the ants).
That, I feel, was a mistake. Even if the description says 1 - 50, don't do it, because they put their waste into the back of the nest, which is not healthy. You can't open the nest without unscrewing every layer of the nest.
Also, for acrylic nests, be aware that lasius niger workers (or workers of that size) can actually climb through some tiny gap, in the nest and through the sponge that is used to keep the nest hydrated.

Also, for the acrylic nests, don't put too much water, as the inside can condense with droplets, and the ants do not like that. And the water also dries up faster than what the manual says, you have to fill the water twice a week, not once a week.

Hope that helps for anyone!!

[RiceAnt]

test tube water


Also, for very very beginning antkeepers, be careful that when you put the cotton over the water in the test tube, that you push it enough so that the water soaks up to the front of the cotton ball (don't push it too far in and have water seep in to where the queen will be either).

I did that before, and the queens couldn't dig to the moist part of the cotton ball (dying from lack of hydration in the process), so just be aware of that.

[SolenopsisKeeper]

Odontomachus do not eat sweets very often and Camponotus usually lay eggs in batches meaning you will have sudden decreases and increases in worker population.