Hi everyone,
Yesterday I walked all over in search of aphids and finally found some. I have made a simple design that works like a flower vase. It's a pill bottle with a hole in the lid just big enough for the branch the aphids are on to fit in, so the ants don't go into the water inside the pill bottle. It's about five inches high and I have about 20-40 aphids on it. It has now been 24 hours since they where introduced and they are currently being tended by a slave F rufa group minor to my F aserva colony. It seems the F aserva workers don't care but the F rufa has been taking care of them all day. My plan is to try it next with my Leptothorax muscorum colony. When the branch gets wilted I'm just going to replace it with a new one from the same tree, but so far it's been good.
Yesterday I walked all over in search of aphids and finally found some. I have made a simple design that works like a flower vase. It's a pill bottle with a hole in the lid just big enough for the branch the aphids are on to fit in, so the ants don't go into the water inside the pill bottle. It's about five inches high and I have about 20-40 aphids on it. It has now been 24 hours since they where introduced and they are currently being tended by a slave F rufa group minor to my F aserva colony. It seems the F aserva workers don't care but the F rufa has been taking care of them all day. My plan is to try it next with my Leptothorax muscorum colony. When the branch gets wilted I'm just going to replace it with a new one from the same tree, but so far it's been good.
