Greetings fellow ant keeper! Im a musician from austria so please excuse my english So I nursed a nearly dying ant colony of Messor Barbarus from 5 to a thriving empire of a few thousands in the last 3 years. I decided to add a new nesting space (in additon to my AntsCanada hybrid nest), so I build a new nest out of Ytong-Stone. They immediately started to eat the Ytong so I decided to make a new nest using modeling plaster. There are many stories of dying ants in very dry plaster so I first let it dry and after setting up I moisturized it again a bit. After a few hours I found a handful of dead ants at the bottom of my nest and disconected the setup. I build some test setups and Im always finding the same reaction: my ants die if they are in a plaster nest.
Anybody found similar problems with their ants? (btw Im using keraquick plaster).
Thanks for your responses
Messor Barbarus - Deaths in new nest
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Re: Messor Barbarus - Deaths in new nest
Either you are putting them in too soon, the plaster brand has pesticides, or your specific shipment was exposed to somethingeleyon wrote: ↑Wed Mar 18, 2020 9:11 pmGreetings fellow ant keeper! Im a musician from austria so please excuse my english So I nursed a nearly dying ant colony of Messor Barbarus from 5 to a thriving empire of a few thousands in the last 3 years. I decided to add a new nesting space (in additon to my AntsCanada hybrid nest), so I build a new nest out of Ytong-Stone. They immediately started to eat the Ytong so I decided to make a new nest using modeling plaster. There are many stories of dying ants in very dry plaster so I first let it dry and after setting up I moisturized it again a bit. After a few hours I found a handful of dead ants at the bottom of my nest and disconected the setup. I build some test setups and Im always finding the same reaction: my ants die if they are in a plaster nest.
Anybody found similar problems with their ants? (btw Im using keraquick plaster).
Thanks for your responses
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