This is my journal on Tetramorium caespitum. I would like to share a little from my relatively new colony. Anybody who dislikes capturing mature colonis by digging – don’t read this thread. My view on the matter is that digging is OK as long as it is a common species. Anyway, this is not going to be discussed in this tread. First picture is a Tetramorium-worker. I really think they look cool and powerfull. But they are also very small, only 2,5-3,5 millimetres (queen is 3 times larger).
Tetramorium ceaspitum
I’ve got a lot of colonies with various ants and would like to make journals, but most of them are hosted in varying temporary solutions. I guess most of us would like to have something nice and appealing to show off, and that’s the reason why I’ve been holding a little back. But today I really feel like sharing, so here we go – a really bad temporary setup, that have been “temporary” for 5-6 weeks so far - pictures later on. I'll try to make a blog on ants as well.
I’ve never had a colony of these, and I never found any queens or nuptial flights either, so I decided to dig one up. The colony seemed pretty small based on the fact that ants on the surface seemed busy, but were seen only in a small number. However, a vast number of workers immersed as digging began, and I realised that the colony was much bigger than expected. I dug up probably 25 kilo dirt, and I didn’t even go that deep. Dirt was put in a large plastic bag. The site was a considerable walking distance from my home, so I had to borrow a bike trailer for transportation. When home, I immediately transferred the soil into to large containers, each about 150 litres. Tetramorium caespitum are really poor climbers, but to be on the safe side, both containers were lined with Fluon to prevent escapes.
One of the containers, without dirt.
Initially I planned on letting the dirt dry out a bit and pick up workers along the way. This was tedious work! I probably spend a couple of hours over the next few days picking workers, but it took forever and I realised that there were at lest a few thousand workers and possibly even ten thousand or more (Tetramorium caespium do have great numbers, one colony can consist of up to 80.000 workers). Also, the dirt was difficult to take apart, because there were a lot of plant roots. I was afraid of harming too many workers, and of course also the queen (since this species are monogyn). I was also afraid to harm the brood. It was impossible to remove manually – it was hardly visible.
I decided on a new route. Instead, I would be patient and let the dirt dry out some more. The next 10-15 days, I did a little work on the containers each day. This was in May, and the weather was still relatively cold here in Denmark – hence the drying took quite some time. But each day, the outer centimetre or so would have dried up, and the ants would have moved brood and themselves closer to the centre of the dirt. Because of the relatively cold weather, almost no ants would be outside the nest, so I was able to brush off and scoop up a layer of dirt each day, almost without interference from the ants. Off course they would be alarmed and come out eventually, but all I needed was half a minute each day.
After doing this for a week or so, I started laying small test tubes in the two containers. The test tubes were set up with some water in the bottom third, contained with some cotton wool. Due to the fact that the dirt was almost dried up, every morning I would find several tubes filled with workers and some brood. I emptied the tubes in a smaller tub, removed some of the dried dirt and put the tubes back in the containers. This was repeated a week or so, until almost no workers were found in the tubes in the morning. I had of course been watching out for the queen, but sadly I had not seen her – not one single time. :-(
I then carefully excavated the rest of the nest in search for the queen and possibly the last few workers, but no luck. I got rid of the rest of the dirt, and started focusing on the tub, that had become the temporary home for my new Tetramorium colony.
New temporary home.
This tub has been their temporary home for the last 3-4 weeks. It is about 20 centimetres in diameter and 10 centimetres high. The sides are painted on the inside with diluted Fluon. Initially, I put two small pieces of green floral foam in the tub to maintain some humidity and to hold drinking water for the ants. They found however, that since I didn't provide any media or dirt, the foam would make a nice home. It took them only a day or two to totally hollow out the foam.
I have no idea how many ants there are, but I recon there must be at least 5000 workers and probably more. Actually, there are a lot more than the visible ones inside the floral form. The big brown lumps in the lower part of the picture are dark rye bread with whole grains. They seem to love it as long as it stays moist. Initially I gave them some mixed birds seed, but most of the seed seems to be too hard for them to crack. I also tried a handful of mixed nuts, grains and seeds, that I chopped to pieces. This was a success! They seem to like chopped pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds among others. And of course all sorts of insects and human meat-foods. The yellow straw was filled with sugar water. I think it lasted 2-3 days tops – these girls are really hungry!
The reason why I write this post is that the queen actually is there! Jubiiii. This colony was degraded to be frozen or something later on since they were queen less, but the other day I was watching and feeding them together with my kids. The kids found some caterpillars, and we feed them to the ants. Suddenly something big and black crossed from one floral foam block to the other, and behold – it was the queen herself. This means that the colony suddenly is interesting and worth writing about. I don’t know how I could miss her when transferring ants to the tub, but she must somehow have been covered in workers or something. As of now, I don’t know where she is, but I’ve seen her, and that is good for now.
[added big to the forum thread title --antdude]
Tetramorium ceaspitum
I’ve got a lot of colonies with various ants and would like to make journals, but most of them are hosted in varying temporary solutions. I guess most of us would like to have something nice and appealing to show off, and that’s the reason why I’ve been holding a little back. But today I really feel like sharing, so here we go – a really bad temporary setup, that have been “temporary” for 5-6 weeks so far - pictures later on. I'll try to make a blog on ants as well.
I’ve never had a colony of these, and I never found any queens or nuptial flights either, so I decided to dig one up. The colony seemed pretty small based on the fact that ants on the surface seemed busy, but were seen only in a small number. However, a vast number of workers immersed as digging began, and I realised that the colony was much bigger than expected. I dug up probably 25 kilo dirt, and I didn’t even go that deep. Dirt was put in a large plastic bag. The site was a considerable walking distance from my home, so I had to borrow a bike trailer for transportation. When home, I immediately transferred the soil into to large containers, each about 150 litres. Tetramorium caespitum are really poor climbers, but to be on the safe side, both containers were lined with Fluon to prevent escapes.
One of the containers, without dirt.
Initially I planned on letting the dirt dry out a bit and pick up workers along the way. This was tedious work! I probably spend a couple of hours over the next few days picking workers, but it took forever and I realised that there were at lest a few thousand workers and possibly even ten thousand or more (Tetramorium caespium do have great numbers, one colony can consist of up to 80.000 workers). Also, the dirt was difficult to take apart, because there were a lot of plant roots. I was afraid of harming too many workers, and of course also the queen (since this species are monogyn). I was also afraid to harm the brood. It was impossible to remove manually – it was hardly visible.
I decided on a new route. Instead, I would be patient and let the dirt dry out some more. The next 10-15 days, I did a little work on the containers each day. This was in May, and the weather was still relatively cold here in Denmark – hence the drying took quite some time. But each day, the outer centimetre or so would have dried up, and the ants would have moved brood and themselves closer to the centre of the dirt. Because of the relatively cold weather, almost no ants would be outside the nest, so I was able to brush off and scoop up a layer of dirt each day, almost without interference from the ants. Off course they would be alarmed and come out eventually, but all I needed was half a minute each day.
After doing this for a week or so, I started laying small test tubes in the two containers. The test tubes were set up with some water in the bottom third, contained with some cotton wool. Due to the fact that the dirt was almost dried up, every morning I would find several tubes filled with workers and some brood. I emptied the tubes in a smaller tub, removed some of the dried dirt and put the tubes back in the containers. This was repeated a week or so, until almost no workers were found in the tubes in the morning. I had of course been watching out for the queen, but sadly I had not seen her – not one single time. :-(
I then carefully excavated the rest of the nest in search for the queen and possibly the last few workers, but no luck. I got rid of the rest of the dirt, and started focusing on the tub, that had become the temporary home for my new Tetramorium colony.
New temporary home.
This tub has been their temporary home for the last 3-4 weeks. It is about 20 centimetres in diameter and 10 centimetres high. The sides are painted on the inside with diluted Fluon. Initially, I put two small pieces of green floral foam in the tub to maintain some humidity and to hold drinking water for the ants. They found however, that since I didn't provide any media or dirt, the foam would make a nice home. It took them only a day or two to totally hollow out the foam.
I have no idea how many ants there are, but I recon there must be at least 5000 workers and probably more. Actually, there are a lot more than the visible ones inside the floral form. The big brown lumps in the lower part of the picture are dark rye bread with whole grains. They seem to love it as long as it stays moist. Initially I gave them some mixed birds seed, but most of the seed seems to be too hard for them to crack. I also tried a handful of mixed nuts, grains and seeds, that I chopped to pieces. This was a success! They seem to like chopped pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds among others. And of course all sorts of insects and human meat-foods. The yellow straw was filled with sugar water. I think it lasted 2-3 days tops – these girls are really hungry!
The reason why I write this post is that the queen actually is there! Jubiiii. This colony was degraded to be frozen or something later on since they were queen less, but the other day I was watching and feeding them together with my kids. The kids found some caterpillars, and we feed them to the ants. Suddenly something big and black crossed from one floral foam block to the other, and behold – it was the queen herself. This means that the colony suddenly is interesting and worth writing about. I don’t know how I could miss her when transferring ants to the tub, but she must somehow have been covered in workers or something. As of now, I don’t know where she is, but I’ve seen her, and that is good for now.
[added big to the forum thread title --antdude]
