My Lasius Niger Colony!

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TheColonialist
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Nov 30, 2019 1:48 pm
Location: England

My Lasius Niger Colony!

Post: # 65885Post TheColonialist
Tue Dec 03, 2019 7:10 pm

So my colony arrived today, ive been excited for its arrival! 30-40 workers and a ton of brood! what is not to be excited about!
well i opened the package, pulled out the testube and to my horror.... mould lots and lots of mould!
what makes it worse ive been called out to work!

I couldnt even tell before i left the house, if the queen is alive she seemed stuck within the mould! as you can imagine im at work now panicing about my new colony!

I hope the queen is alive! I have a new test tube prep'd, my new formicarium is running late, as soon as i get in from work i will be prepping a temporary container with the new test tube wrapped in red acetate, and will place their current nightmare of a testube inside hoping given the state of it they will make a quick move to the new choice of home!

What is my best course of action? my plan is to connect the two test tubes hoping i can force a move, i will be taking pictures to show the carnage of their current predicament, so worried right now and annoyed at how they have been left, they should have been moved to a new test tube at the first sign of mould!

Day 1 of my colony not great news to share with everyone! i will update tomorrow night once im back at work and let everyone know if the queen is alive, if i can save them! im praying to the ant gods they can be saved!

These are the pictures i had been sent prior to the colonies arrival!
Image
Image
Image

what i will show you tomorrow will break your ant loving hearts!
1 x Lasius Grandis - 20+ Workers
1 x Messor Barbarus - 5 Niantic's
1 x Lasius Niger - Critical Condition (New Colony)

Hawkeye
Posts: 1557
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:38 pm
Location: Almelo

Re: My Lasius Niger Colony!

Post: # 65921Post Hawkeye
Fri Dec 06, 2019 8:43 am

TheColonialist wrote:
Tue Dec 03, 2019 7:10 pm
So my colony arrived today, ive been excited for its arrival! 30-40 workers and a ton of brood! what is not to be excited about!
well i opened the package, pulled out the testube and to my horror.... mould lots and lots of mould!
what makes it worse ive been called out to work!

I couldnt even tell before i left the house, if the queen is alive she seemed stuck within the mould! as you can imagine im at work now panicing about my new colony!

I hope the queen is alive! I have a new test tube prep'd, my new formicarium is running late, as soon as i get in from work i will be prepping a temporary container with the new test tube wrapped in red acetate, and will place their current nightmare of a testube inside hoping given the state of it they will make a quick move to the new choice of home!

What is my best course of action? my plan is to connect the two test tubes hoping i can force a move, i will be taking pictures to show the carnage of their current predicament, so worried right now and annoyed at how they have been left, they should have been moved to a new test tube at the first sign of mould!

Day 1 of my colony not great news to share with everyone! i will update tomorrow night once im back at work and let everyone know if the queen is alive, if i can save them! im praying to the ant gods they can be saved!

These are the pictures i had been sent prior to the colonies arrival!
Image
Image
Image

what i will show you tomorrow will break your ant loving hearts!
Being ground dwelling insects, ants are quite used to living amongst moulds and are impervious to the effects of most of them. In fact some ants actually farm moulds/fungus like leafeater ants for example.

My advice at this point: first take a deep breath the situation probably isn't as dire as you thought.

Second get a Tupperware box or something that can act as a temporary outworld. Preferably with a transparent lid. Fill it with a shallow layer of sand.
Third get a clean tube and prepare it to house the colony.
Place the new tube in the outworld at a light angle, so the water end is below the entrance.
Make sure it is secure and can't roll around in the sand.
Cover it with leaves or something and cover that with some more sand/dirt.
This will secure it in place, help get a stable temperature and obviously it will be nice n dark.
Place a drop of honey about 2 cm down the tube on a small piece of foil. (This should make the ants want to explore the new tube)

Then place the mould infested tube in the box, on top of the soil, without the outer cotton wad.
Make sure the tube won't roll around.
If you have a transparent lid, place it on top. If not use plastic foil to cover the outworld.
Shine a bright light at the old tube in the outworld.

The ants will likely want to move out and will settle in the new tube. If not, the extra airation (due to the outer wad missing) will lower the humidity in the tube. That combined with the bright light will likely mean that the conditions inside will suddenly become unfavourable to whatever mould is in there. So chances are good it will die out.

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