One of the few Pheidole species with truncated majors and queens! similar to Colobopsis.

So i have a messor structor colony of about 70 workers. About a week ago, they moved in their first small nest with an outworld, and they seemed to do great in it. Yesterday I fed them like usual, but about 2h after that I noticed all of the colony moved from the nest to the outworld, near the water feeder, and I have no idea why. The water reservoir of the nest was not full, but it had enough water, and I added more right away. It took them 5h to move back. And even today, I see that they are behaving very weirdly. For every small vibration or when I drop food in, many workers come rushing to the outworld together with the queen. What could be the cause of this?

I have an acoustic drum kit in my room, so I obviously can't keep them in there.

Could I place them in the living room which is downstairs under the room? Or would they still panic, even if I buy anti-vibration pads, towels etc.

If that goes okay, I would like a few species recommendations. I understand that the lasius niger, Lasius flavus, carpenter ants and garden ants etc are recommended. But I would like a slow growing colony, visible to the naked eye (so no nano), then a colony that doesn't require great space when they reach maturity. So maybe 5000 workers or less? Beginner friendly, hardy and not very skittish to vibrations. Or is that insane?

Can someone let me know? I obviously wont buy them if the drumkit will kill them due to stress.

This is my first small ant colony so I don’t have any experience feeding them in the tube. I have inserts that I’ve used in my bigger ant colonies but it’s much much easier to keep them in the tube.

How does everyone else feed small ants in the tube with minimal escapees?

I just got my new Big headed ant colony. To prepare their setup I threw in some dead fruitflies but tipped it too much and threw in too many by accident. I thought i would just have to throw the leftovers away in a few days but the ants disagreed. Within minutes they rushed out in a rage! Grabbing every single fruitfly and dragging them into their nest. Never seen a species with such an agressive response to food. Will they actually eat all of this? Or will they throw most out in the end?

I caught a few Crematogastor Laeviuscula queens a few months ago and more survived than I expected. Anyone in the Austin Texas area interested in buying them? I have several colonies I’m willing to part with and they all have 15-25 workers. I’m asking 40$ but I’m willing to negotiate. PM me for more info. Thanks y’all!

Hello so I have a species of lasias niger well I think they are quite small so im skeptical they're umbratus and i got some eggs from a colony that looked like the same species as mine to brood boost and now they hage hatched they are quiet a bit bigger than my original workers is this because the nanintics are smaller or have I got 2 species living together they are getting along all olay.

Found in Turkey

Can someone help me identify what species of ant this might be? Found it in my house along with a couple other similar looking ones but without the white marks

What the best ant house I can buy on Ali baba ?

using this setup temporarily and its not very efficient

Messor barbarus x3

Lasius niger x2

Tetramorium caespitum (on sand, to give an idea of the size)

she's so tiny wtf

I had a culture of fruit flies on my desk in my work room, and today I realized that the little dust-like brown flecks weren't droppings, but exceptionally small mites of some kind. So small that I couldn't even tell they were moving until a pile of them started shifting. I placed the container immediately into the freezer, and will be disposing of them in a sealed bag in the morning. I know this won't kill them entirely, but it will do the trick until I can properly dispose of them.

It seems unlikely that the mites will cause an issue for my ants directly, but I would rather not have a gross infestation if possible. I keep my colony as clean as I can, but I suspect whatever these are, could really have a field day in a small space.

How seriously do I need to take these mites to ensure they won't become a problem? How much do I need to sterilize and quarantine? Can I expect escapees to die off quickly without their obvious source of food? If so, how long should I wait before bringing in a new culture? I haven't been feeding my ants fruit flies lately (meal worms and fruit, though they seem to prefer flies) so I probably haven't directly introduced any. Additionally, the colony itself had been in a different room. Of course though, with something so small and un-noticed, I imagine it's easy to inadvertently carry hitchhikers.

Reading around on the internet has been inconclusive, with some (laboratory, so different stardards, but still) sources calling for a major sterilization, and others suggesting some people just keep feeding the same fruit flies to their ants. Thanks for any help and experience you can offer.

Caught today. Right after a couple days of storms. Saw them swarming from my yard so I waited until I saw them crawling around clearly looking for a safe place in the dirt. She was trying to go down, not up, figured that was a good indication she was mated.

Most people think "ah if an ant species is tolerant and hardy it's perfect for a beginner", thats assuming the beginner has done the right research. I saw a post today about a kid probably 7-14 age range keeping messor barbarus as a begginer. Now, dont get me wrong there's nothing wrong with that if they did their research and fulfil the ants needs. But no, they ordered a colony of messor barbarus from a website, put them in an empty tube with no water reservoir, no cover, in a smooth plastic tub where the tube can easily roll around, never gave the ants access to the outworld by plucking the tube with cotton and from the image it seems like they've only been feeding then dog food. It's not about if you're a begginer or an expert, it's about if you have done research on the species and can meet their needs. As a beginner myself, Ive also done things that I regret, like checking my first queen to much which resulted in her death, and im very disappointed in myself. But just because someone is a beginner doesn't mean they have to fail all the time. Ive seen beginners get species like Atta or Harpegnatos and they have yielded massive success. Why? Because they did research and met the ants needs. So remember, if you're a beginner reading this, dont buy the ants everyone reccomends, buy the ones that you can properly care for and meet their requirements.

i’m looking for funnel ants, strobe ants , pheidole, nonctus, and possibly polygamous colonies, i have looked everywhere and can’t seem to find any in Australia so i want to see if anybody could sell some to me here, additionally i could be interested in enclosures too.

I believe its a myrmica rubra, a microgyne queen? I found her and then added 6 workerd with the fridge method, they performed trophallaxis, but when i tried adding a second queen i found winged the first queen began to patrol between the two cottons and grab workers to take them somewhere, so i removed the winged queen who was probably infertile anyway. found in turkey.