Mixing foods for Lasius niger

Posts and questions relating to ant diet & nutrition. Let us know what you’re feeding your ants.

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RuinedDrone
Posts: 79
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2020 3:33 pm
Location: UK

Mixing foods for Lasius niger

Post: # 77349Post RuinedDrone
Wed May 05, 2021 1:39 pm

I have been trying to grow up my colony but even after a month or so out of hibernation the colony is still small.

So what i decided to do to insure they get what the need is this

1. Tube of fresh water (this is still the first tube they ever had from before winter)
2. tube of sugar water
3. I cut up mealworms, strawberries, meat, other fruit, in to small bits and mix it up in to a very lumpy mix (jsut really a mound of bits of varius food) and place small amounts (half a pea size) in with them every 2 days.

Does this sound ok for a food source,

They are in a test tube and i feed them in the portal, I see one or 2 come out an walk over it and feed a bit during the day but the numbers dont seem to be growing for the last 3 weeks (still only 20 - 30 workers). There does seem to be a fair amount of brood in the testtube.

So the colony is not dieing jsut growing very slowly. Should i expect that this first brood after the hibernation may take a while to mature and then as they emerge things should start happening a bit faster?

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AM1C39
Posts: 1012
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2020 12:17 pm
Location: Canada, ON
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Re: Mixing foods for Lasius niger

Post: # 77353Post AM1C39
Wed May 05, 2021 3:44 pm

Hear are some techniques to make the colony grow faster: https://youtu.be/yG7MjUxB0MA.
My current colonies:
-Miniature Military(formica neogagates)
-Black Hearts(crematogaster cerasi)
In search of new camponotus colony
[Have a look at antmaps.org]

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