New fire ant queen!

[NoviceAntKeeper]

Hi, I’m going to be following the progress of my first fire ant queen, who got her first worker today!!

[NoviceAntKeeper]

By the way, should I name them Flaming Salsa, Burning Empire, or the Blazing empire? (Sorry for bad fiery names lol)

[NoviceAntKeeper]

By the way, should I name them Flaming Salsa, Burning Empire, or the Blazing Kingdom? (Sorry for bad fiery names lol)

[NoviceAntKeeper]

Fed them a tiny drop of honey today. As expected, they loved it. For some reason though, the workers are sleeping a ton.

[NoviceAntKeeper]

The workers are all active now! It's so fun to watch them scramble around. In a few days, I will try to post a picture of their progress, and I will attempt to raise them in 3 test tubes connected to a test tube portal, connected to an outworld, with the test tubes as the main nests. Has this been successfully attempted before?

[justb06]

By the way, should I name them Flaming Salsa, Burning Empire, or the Blazing empire? (Sorry for bad fiery names lol)

I think the Flaming salsa isn't a bad name. It's personally my favorite!

[NoviceAntKeeper]

Lol ok! I forgot about this, and didn’t post lol. Anyway, they have 50-80 or so workers, and I gave them a whole cockroach yesterday (it was exactly the size of the feeding space in the AC test tube portal). They have a test tube of sugar water and a piece of tubing with some cotton blocking it, and I put it there so they could at feel like they were going to escape (hehe). How’s your colony going?

[NoviceAntKeeper]

At this point, the colonies brood reaches the end of the test tube, and that’s in only 52 days (7 weeks and 3 days). Solenopsis sp grows so fast! I’m wondering about what nest to get them, though, any recommendations?

[ANTLORD]

I've never kept ants before lol, just got interested this month, but I've seen enough videos to give some tips. You could try buying the AntsCanada formicariums, but they are a bit expensive. As an alternative, you might try filling a container(one with breathing holes obviously) with soil and letting your ants use the space as they like. Or, a cardboard box. Benefits of using the cardboard is that you can cut tiny holes for air yourself, and also cut a passageway to to other parts of your habitat, such as the outworld if you plan on getting one. I'd recommend viewing the tutorials on AntsCanada's channel if you are really interested. You should also try migrating to a platform like Blogger or Squarespace for this journal, because it won't get much attention here. Put the link here in case anyone reads this thread, but I doubt it gets much attention. I'd have written before, but I just got into this forum this week. If you want help setting up your blog, just ask, because I'm pretty good with web development and website design, so I'll be able to help with that. By the way, GREAT JOURNAL! I was speed reading this during my spare time and loved the detail and description. Add some color to this with images and more detail, and I am sure it will be one of the best ant keeping blogs on the internet.

[antnest8]

A cardboard box would have to go through a lot of proofing, especially if you have Solinopsis. The humidity in the box will start decay and the ants could find all of the cracks if not filled with glue or something (lots of glue has poisonous scents so choose carefully). Finally there would not be any sight through the box.

I forgot to mention that Solinopsis has powerful supermajor that would chew through the cardboard and the glue, I would suggest tubbaware if you don't want to buy expensive items. A good solution would also be getting a cheap aquarium or plastic terrarium. You also don't need to worry about airholes if you use an ant barrier. You have the top of the container open and put on baby powder, vasaline, fluon and other options. (just search Ant Barriers for Ant keeping and a plethora of videos will come up) This way you don't have to worry about opening lids when there are 3 million ants in your container