SolenopsisKeeper wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 10:46 pm
JaydenScheepers wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 10:42 pm
SolenopsisKeeper wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 10:31 pm
Ahh. That makes more sense now, sorry for misunderstanding. Changes are very minimum, unless she drags prey to the nest. You also may notice distinct looking sand grains that she has moved somewhere… one thing to do is actually make prey easy for her to carry back to the nest, then you will see some food disappear.
Also, to make her move on her own, just put a test tube that has some moist substrate, and a small opening relative to her size
Indeed I am looking for food to disappear, and some substrate in the nest or forming a more narrow entrance into the nest. Although last time I didn't have substrate, I'll show you the setup I have her in when I figure out how to send proper pictures onto the forum. I usually feed her small termites, workers I always keep alive when feeding my ants so they still have the experience of hunting in the wild. However I always pre-kill the majors and super majors.
Do majors in your species spit “acidic glue”? Otherwise, it should be fine, but nothing can go wrong with pre killing them. I kill mine by picking them up, the soft bodies are always harmed in my hands(Sorry termites)
There is actually a big colony of those termites in my area, they gather in huge quantities in the tree they nest in, and every now and then I see them doing these huge raids ( I'm glad I'm not a plant ).
The termites in my area are pretty diverse, and there are many termite mounds. We have those dark colored acidic termites, we have fungus growing termites, and we have wood eating termites. I actually caught a pair of alates, which I believed to be fungus growers, but to my disappointment they died. They dug a nice founding chamber and everything, however I think the mistake I did was making it too moist.
I usually feed my ants the wood eating termites, because I can get to them without having to destroy a part of their mound. Therefore having minimal damage done, but sometimes I feed them some of the fungus growers and they usually have nice big and beefy workers, they also have really big super majors. I crush the head of the super majors because I don't want those big jaws injuring my ants. However I may keep the small majors alive just to give my ants a challenge. Kind of like practicing for the big prey, who knows if my colonies get big enough, maybe I'll start feeding them the super majors alive and see how they deal with it.