Yuku free message boards

I don't usually feed my queens protein when i keep them just to go with the more natural selection of things, but this time i decided to boost my Tetramorium queen if i could. I fed her a baby cricket and to my surprise she fed it to all her larva in a manner of minutes. I fed her another one today but i haven't checked to see if she had started on it yet. I'm glad she took food, all her eggs are larva now, which number at about 32. I hope to see some pupae soon as the larva are pretty large.

So this queen never stops eating, though this is the first time i have had a queen take on the feeding of 30 some larva at once using her own body nutrients, keep in mind i didnt start to feed her until her larva had passed the first instar level. Heres a shot of her with some advanced brood, some of the totally white pupae are difficult to see against the cotton but there are about 5 now. which will become Pupae soon. The larva with the dark spots have recently fed on a dead cricket.

It's very interesting and somewhat refreshing to have such a fast growing species of ant. I can't wait to have her workers foraging and growing to the point i have to move them. I already have a thin ant farm style set up for them ready to go. I even have connecting hoses to a small 5 gallon fish tank foraging area. Again a minor update, the brood has grown and she actually laid 2 more eggs which i was surprised at, usually queens lay their initial brood pile and work on thos until their first workers arrive, then they start to lay again. So this must be from my previous feeding of protein.

On a side note, i fed my Mymercocystus workers a drop of Muscle Milk i had left over from work one day, they loved it....it contains vitamins and is very high in protein, and on top of that it was a sweet banana creme flavor lol. Might try giving each of my queens a drop and see if they take it. So far the human food has not inadvertaintly killed my ants, no random chemicals in the milk or anything like that so it should be safe for ants.

Heres another shot of my Tetramorium queen.