need help about ant farming/ants in general

[guillaumebesner]

Hello,

I have 2 main colony's, all is going great so far, but after 5 weeks I already have mold in one chamber. I try to put the insect I give as good on a spike so they have a hard time bringing entire carcass back to the nest. The ideal scenario would be that there is no mold at all and nest stay relatively clean for as long as possible.

I was thinking of using the smaller hole connector that would link nest and outworld ... My question is .. can the farming ants bring back very small quantity of food back to the queen and other ants? or do they have to bring back back a cricket leg or head to feed the rest of the colony that will not venture to the outworld ?

I want to avoid mold problems as much as possible, but at the same time I don't want to put much restriction to my ants for food collection. They are about 25 members each.

thank you

[harvesterant]

You mentioned several chambers, which may be the reason for the mould. A common problem antkeepers have is giving their colony too much space, which causes the ants to use one room as a dump. This does not answer your question, but large formicaria for small colonies are not always a good idea, because the ants often end up depositing their waste in one of the rooms. If there are ants in that room, then this is not a problem, but if it is an empty room then the ants have likely decided to use it as a dump.

If there is already mould, it would be worth moving the ants into a new formicarium if possible. Ants should find a way to bring food back to their colony even if it is held down and needs to be divided, but some species of ants prefer to keep their food on one piece. I have not tried keeping insects in place, because I have not had the same problems, and do not know the answer. If there is already mould where the ants live, this could be potentially life-threatening to them if it gets worse, therefore I would recommend finding them a new home (I have once lost a colony due to mould).