Myrmecology - ant keeping

Hey all,

I thought I'd let you all in on one of my hobbies... ant keeping!

In November I bought an ant. It came through the post (poor thing) in a test tube and it had a little clutch of eggs when it arrived. It's a carpenter ant. Camponotus Ligniperdus to be precise. The queen is nearly an inch long and the nanitics (first offspring ants) are about 1cm long.

For those that are thinking "ant farms sound like a kid's toy"... I thought so too. But it's proven to be a really interesting journey so far. I've learned so much about ants and I've witnessed quite a lot even though my "colony" is only 4 ants and the queen. It's been a very slow growing colony and I'm putting that down to a cold house at my parents. Now that I've moved house, I'm hoping they will take off and really thrive.

At this point in time, I've got an OmniNest from AntsCanada which looks like this:



The idea is that the ants live inside the acrylic nest and there are chambers to replicate their natural habitat. It's about £100 but it's definitely worth it. It will last longer than me and other formicariums (ant farms) usually have a rock which has chambers carved into them and a sheet of glass placed over the front. The formicarium I have has the advantage of being fully dismantled to allow for cleaning and access to the inside should I need it.

Along with the nest is the "outworld" which is connected to the nest via a tube. The outworld simulates the space outside the nest (like when you see ants roaming in the garden when their nest is under a rock somewhere). That's what I've been doing today. I've been making an outworld for them.

I've taken a large lizard pen and filled it with plaster. I've then placed some aquarium gravel in the bottom, along with some driftwood.





This is going to set and I will then drill a hole in one corner, underneath the "ground level" to simulate an opening between the nest and the outworld.

The outworld is the place when I will place food. The ants then collect the food, bring it to the nest entrance, eat it and then enter the nest. Some ants will never leave the nest and will be fed by feeding from other ants' social stomach. This is a stomach which is solely for storing food for other ants to eat from. The idea is that they don't need to keep food in the nest, and risk a mould outbreak. Instead, they keep food in their bodies and keep the nest clean. When the colony picks up in numbers, the ants will be assigned "castes". They will be born into different roles. Some will stay in the nest and take care of the eggs, pupea and larvae. Some will be soldiers with strong mandables. Some will have wings and will fly away to mate. As a result, the ants in the nest rely on others to forage.

The outworld is also a graveyard and rubbish tip. The ants are very civilised! They don't want to deal with mould so they take out their rubbish into the outworld to keep the nest clean. When an ant dies, it releases a pheremone which lets other ants know it is dead. They have poor eyesight and pheremones are their way of communicating. When they die, the other ants take it to the outworld (fun fact... if an ant dies and releases the pheremone onto another ant, other ants will try to carry this ant outside thinking it is dead, just because of the pheremone!). There will be a spot in the outworld that ants decide to place their rubbish and dead friends. My job is to clean that up for them and give them more food and water.

I'll stop here for now. I've actually got some video footage of mouth to mouth feeding. You can actually see the queen's tongue (and beardy thing!). I've also got footage of an ant being born and taking it's first steps. Catching this on camera was really interesting to watch! I will upload them and then put a link on here eventually.

I'll be keeping you all posted on what happens to the colony. At this point in time I have 4 ants and a queen and they are all sat in 1 chamber. They are eating honey and drinking water and taking care of a small clutch of eggs and one larvae. Unfortunately they dont seem to like using the tube so getting them to use the outword may prove difficult. Also, it's gtting close to hibernation time so things might get pretty boring for a while.

 

That's fab, always wanted one when I was younger. Will they need vegetation in the outworld? What do they do for water?

 

I'm currently sat here watching them run into the outworld and run back inside the nest. They're gathering stones to make a nice floor (I guess they don't like the clear floor).

Ants need a few simple things... water, sugar, protein and heat.

A puddle is dangerous because an ant will drown. Instead, the ant nest has a sponge which they can suck water out of. The nest is also very clever! The layers of acrylic trap water between them and the ants can drink water from the sponge by sucking any part of the wall.

For sugar, I hide drops of honey (very small drops) around the outworld. This triggers their foraging urges and simulates their natural habits. They also get sugar water or sugary foods like bananas on occassion.

Protein... well they feed on very small flies and they like little scraps of ham etc. I've tried feeding them half a waxworm but the colony doesn't have any soldier ants with big mandables so they didn't manage to eat much of it.

Heat... that's where my colony has suffered. It's tricky to get heat right. Different species like different heat and humidity. Too warm and the nest can become too dry or too humid. To cold and the ants act and grow very slowly. The ants also need (well not need, but thrive from) hibernation. The colony will all go into "stop mode" over the winter and then act much more efficiently in the spring.

You can add vegetation into the outworld but adding live plants brings more complications. Rotting plants causes mould which is a big threat to ants. Also, plants need soil. Ants like to dig in soil and you'll end up with the ants moving their nest into the soil (it's darker which they love). Also, watering the plants is also a problem (mould again). I will be adding some plants to mine but I'm going to make sure they are "air plants". Ones that just grow using the moisture in the air and sunlight to grow. That means there will be no soil or water to deal with.