Ant Farm Project - #04 - 28 Days Later

Hello lovely Hiveans !

I already showed and explained all the parts of the ant farm, which are the arena and the gypsum nest. I also talked about the nutrition plan based on seeds and grains in combination with water and just only a few dead insects as a protein source. In the last episode, I then explained how the ant colony was finally connected to the setup. This episode here is dedicated to the evolution of the farm and the behavior of the ants after one month of their existence .. 🐜🐜🐜🐜 .. 😁

Securing the Entrance of the Nest

One thing that I noticed right away is that the colony closed the hose between their reagent glass and the arena completely with the stones that they collected. They were super effective and fast in this regard. This is done to protect the colony from intruders, as the smallest the entry, the better the chances are for enemies to spot the entrance. In addition, they are able to close it completely in just a few seconds by adding more stones to the small opening. This is highly strategic by them 🤓

I also figured out that during all the times, there is at least one ant sitting in the hose as a guard. It is not always the same one, and they are changing in an interval of a few minutes. What I could not identify is if it is a team of a few workers that are sharing the task, or if it is the whole colony that has guard shifts. Based on my research, I assume that this is the task of a few ants.

Decoupling of the Gypsum Nest

In all this time they were constantly exploring the gypsum nest, but the frequency became less and less every day. After one week, I only spotted an ant in there every two days. I assume that the size of their actual colony is still far too small that they consider settling there.

Thus, we decoupled the nest for now in order to avoid that they use it as a trash depot in the future. They were already transporting some leftover from their seed and grain diet there, and we don't want it to become dirty. After the winter rest, which will start very soon, we will couple it to the arena again. These will take a few months from now on. During this time they only repopulate very slowly, but they do. Let's see if they will migrate next year then ⏰

Their Diet and Eating Behavior

The Messor Barbarus ant are collectors, and as such they prefer a diet of seed and grains. To supply them with their beloved food, we put a little bowl into the arena where they can collect it from 😍

They took all of them from the bowl and transported it into their glass in just two hours. They love to keep their food in their nest and not outside. This is quite logical, as in free nature the food has to be secured from other species that feed in seeds. In the future we hope that they will migrate into the gypsum nest and use one of the chambers there as a food storage, but this is future music 😉

In the beginning of their settling, they neglected proteins completely, but we still offered them in a regular basis to them in the hope that one day they will grab some. Proteins as very important for reproduction, Thus as the colony should grow they need some to, also their main diet as collectors is still based on seeds and grains. Luckily they now accepted the proteins 😁

This gives us hope that the colony is going to grow, and next year will be large enough to completely migrate to the gypsum nest. They hopefully will store their grains there, build a larvae chamber and find a new home there 😉

The Ants Build a Trash Depot

For getting rid of the trash that they produce, the ants like to build a trash depot. In nature, they just bring the trash outside and hope that n time the wind will blow it far away. But in such a closed environment this cant happen naturally. They already tried to use the hose to the gypsum nest as a depot, but since we decoupled it from the arena, they choose a new place. Therefore, they us the furthest away corner in the arena. We remove the trash manually every week 🗑

We Added Heating Mat to the Setup

One thing that we recently bought is a heating mat. These are an important addition to an ant farm. As the Mesor Barbarus colony is native to warmer regions than here in Germany, we put one under the reagent glass. In the future we will use the mat for heating the gypsum nest. This mat has not too much power, but it assures a constant temperature of at least 20 degrees. The winters here in Germany can get freezing, and we want it to be as comfortable as possible for our little colony. Ants only repopulate if they feel comfortable, and this includes not only a safe nest and good supply of food, but also the right temperature.

Why Do I Not Show the Colony in the Glass?

I actually would really love to show you the actual colony inside the glass and how it grew over the time. I can tell you that it already doubled from about 10 to 20 ants, but I will not make pictures of them. The reason is quite simple: It destroys the comfort of the colony and creates huge stress. If ants see sudden light in their nest and the whole nest is shaking in addition, which happens when I remove the paper cover, it creates huge stress for them. In nature this normally symbolizes the attack on the nest and as a reaction ants do the following: They eat their larvae so that enemies can't steal them. This would be devastating for our little colony at the moment. If the colony once settle into the gypsum nest, I will make a lot of pictures for you. Until then, we all need to be patient. Especially me. The next picture shows you an ant that transports larvae back to the nest after I once opened the cover for a second. Luckily the larvae was not eaten 😓

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_{All pictures were taken by myself, ©Hive account@adalger, with a Xiaomi Redmi Mobile Phone. For information gathering I used several articles on Wikipedia}