Digging up a Pheidole Colony!

[SeanSz]

Has anyone ever successfully taken an ant colony from the wild and established it in captivity? I have a small pheidole ant colony in my backyard, and have been wanting to dig it up for about a week. I believe it is Pheidole obscurithorax, which is an introduced species in my area, so it would not negatively impact the native ecosystem. I have some AC ant towers coming in, and would like to hopefully establish the colony in there, and let them grow out. Is digging up the colony a legitimate idea, or does it not work that well? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

[SolenopsisKeeper]

Has anyone ever successfully taken an ant colony from the wild and established it in captivity? I have a small pheidole ant colony in my backyard, and have been wanting to dig it up for about a week. I believe it is Pheidole obscurithorax, which is an introduced species in my area, so it would not negatively impact the native ecosystem. I have some AC ant towers coming in, and would like to hopefully establish the colony in there, and let them grow out. Is digging up the colony a legitimate idea, or does it not work that well? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Trust me, pheidole adapt to almost anything. Wait until a sunny day with high temperatures. I dug mine up by taking the first 6 inches full of soil and brood, and spread it along the ground(I had been doing this for months). I stood there for about 3 minutes, said the queen would be deeper, and was beginning to get up. Then, I spotted her, a beautiful little P. Obscurithorax queen. They don’t go very deep, but only have one queen so it’s difficult to find her in all the brood

[AM1C39]

I have caught two wild colonies but both where not really underground so I did not need to do alot of digging. There was a myrmica alaskensis colony that was living under some bricks but they might of died. I Have a very succesful formica neogagates colony that I caught from some old logs. Catching wild colonies is risky as you might kill the queen by accident --both of the colonies that I caught had multiple queens and I did not harm any of them-- Also, the workers from the colonies might be old ones, so they might die withought being able to make a difference for the colony.

[SolenopsisKeeper]

I have caught two wild colonies but both where not really underground so I did not need to do alot of digging. There was a myrmica alaskensis colony that was living under some bricks but they might of died. I Have a very succesful formica neogagates colony that I caught from some old logs. Catching wild colonies is risky as you might kill the queen by accident --both of the colonies that I caught had multiple queens and I did not harm any of them-- Also, the workers from the colonies might be old ones, so they might die withought being able to make a difference for the colony.

This species always has tons of brood, unless the queen is dead/diapause

[SeanSz]

Has anyone ever successfully taken an ant colony from the wild and established it in captivity? I have a small pheidole ant colony in my backyard, and have been wanting to dig it up for about a week. I believe it is Pheidole obscurithorax, which is an introduced species in my area, so it would not negatively impact the native ecosystem. I have some AC ant towers coming in, and would like to hopefully establish the colony in there, and let them grow out. Is digging up the colony a legitimate idea, or does it not work that well? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Trust me, pheidole adapt to almost anything. Wait until a sunny day with high temperatures. I dug mine up by taking the first 6 inches full of soil and brood, and spread it along the ground(I had been doing this for months). I stood there for about 3 minutes, said the queen would be deeper, and was beginning to get up. Then, I spotted her, a beautiful little P. Obscurithorax queen. They don’t go very deep, but only have one queen so it’s difficult to find her in all the brood

Great info! Thank you very much!