Help Mold In nanitic Queen setup

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Romonster
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jul 02, 2018 9:29 pm
Location: Massachussetts

Help Mold In nanitic Queen setup

Post: # 39604Post Romonster
Mon Jul 02, 2018 9:45 pm

I have just gotten into antkeeping, and i caught two queens in the wild, one a couple weeks ago, and one today, and i thought the setup was going nicely, but its been so hot and muggy where i am that mold is growing in my setup. Im broke so i made a homemade setup, using old spice jars as capture containers, then modified one to be a water tube. I put the tube with the queen and some wet napkins inside a plastic rice container along with the water tube after i stabbed holes in the container with my knife.But the setup has mold, and the container smells so fowl, but ive seen her alive and moving just today. My first queen has brood, so i cant remove any thing with mold without endangering them, what do i do. Should i just try to connect her tube to an empty one and hope she moves, or should i try to release her and focus on the new queen.

Romonster
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jul 02, 2018 9:29 pm
Location: Massachussetts

Re: Help Mold In nanitic Queen setup

Post: # 39605Post Romonster
Mon Jul 02, 2018 10:05 pm

This is a link to the image of the setup https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oUA68znN1OlAlijHjmpYeKnccNVJ9xDo/view?usp=sharing sorry i cant figure out how to post/ share an image, and yes i watched the video, but google drive doesn't appear to have the ability to do what he described, and yes the queen is in there, she and her brood are hidden in the napkins, which is part of the problem, cause it means i cant just remove them.

AntsLuxembourg
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Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2018 7:17 am
Location: Luxembourg
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Re: Help Mold In nanitic Queen setup

Post: # 39626Post AntsLuxembourg
Tue Jul 03, 2018 1:53 am

So about your setup. Could you perhaps send more links with pictures of your setup? I would like to see a bit more and could you also mark or point out the molt? About using your own homemade setup. That should be no problem.

You perhaps could replace the napkins with cotton. Shouldn't be very expensive. Then you should go to a home depot store and look for tubing with an inside diameter of 12mm. Then you place a big and thick piece of cotton inside one end add some water to it and then seal the water with a second piece of cotton. The rest of the space inside the tube (only use like a piece of 15-20 cm of tubing but take a whole meter if you can) should be more than enough space for the queen to rest.

This should be a nice solution to keep the queen inside for a longer period. So it kind of buys you some time. :D
The cotton and tubing is actually quite cheap here in Luxembourg so I don't think it should be too expensiv. I am not sure if you can buy testtubes in a drugstore or something but if you could find a testtube then that would be much better of course. :D
Doing some proper research is the best way to start an antcolony.

Need help or want to help? https://forum.AntsCanada.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=18153#p70566

Currently not keeping any ants anymore.

Romonster
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jul 02, 2018 9:29 pm
Location: Massachussetts

Re: Help Mold In nanitic Queen setup

Post: # 39715Post Romonster
Tue Jul 03, 2018 3:22 pm

Okay so here is the folder with all my photos of my ants. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CPSGOEtyLTGcyKUBeDvaMTjj2x92mFUk The last and latest photos are closeups of the napkins inside the jar the queen is in, and on them you can see small mold spores growing. I would remove the napkins, but when i tried i noticed a lot of brood on them, and i dont know how to remove them with out killing them, in addition, if i just take the queen and no brood, then im worried what will happen to her. so that is my conundrum, would opening the container and blowing air in with a fan for short bit help, cause AC did that when he had a mold problem?

AntsLuxembourg
Posts: 1578
Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2018 7:17 am
Location: Luxembourg
Contact:

Re: Help Mold In nanitic Queen setup

Post: # 39765Post AntsLuxembourg
Wed Jul 04, 2018 3:07 am

alright to get the brut safely of the napkins you could use a soft brush but I would recommend you try to get something like tubing and cotton to place your queen inside.
Doing some proper research is the best way to start an antcolony.

Need help or want to help? https://forum.AntsCanada.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=18153#p70566

Currently not keeping any ants anymore.

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