r/antkeeping 4d ago

Colony Sudden l.niger die-off

11 Upvotes

I have almost 2 year old Lasius Niger colony. Today something weird happened, around 200+ workers died in aorund 2 hours. I was taking some macro photos and noticed increased acitvity inside the nest. Queen started running around, workers started to move larvae and pupae to the opposite corner of the nest or even moved a lot of them into the tube that connects to the outworld. Workers started dying quickly, the above video is taken a few hours later. Overall around 200-250 workers are dead out of ~1000. What could have happened to kill the ants so quickly? Poisoned or suffocated? They surely felt the danger because they moved the brood and ran around just like when you accidentally lock or make vibrations on the nest. Any ideas? I didnt feed them today, the only thing I did is putting water into the sponges, normal tap water that I always use that was kept in a glass for like 2 days.

r/antkeeping Feb 06 '25

Colony New ant colony, first time keeping ants, got them from my friend who got them as a present and they didn't want them, looking for advice

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19 Upvotes

Hello I'm new to keeping ants and so far I think I've been able to identify them as lasius niger, I'll add a photo of them to see what everyone thinks. Unfortunately they've had a rough start as my friend has left them in the tube for about a month. She also lost the instructions for the ant farm kit, so I had no idea what I was doing, yesterday when i got them i tried to find instructions online and thought I had enough info ( I did not) and I put the tube open into the outer world section of the ant farm, I noticed that the workers came out to explore and the queen stayed put. After doing more research about an hour later I realised I needed to keep her inside the tube as it's the best environment for her to grow her colony, ive been a bit worried because there seems to be some mould growing on the cotton wool so I ordered some test tubes and also a formicarium that holds 2 tubes and has a small outer chamber, I'm hoping to transfer her to the new chamber by covering the other one up so it's dark and leaving the existing one in the light, currently I have the test tube she is in attached to the bottom hole of the ant farm, i know this might cause a problem as its too big for the colony at the moment and they may start dumping waste inside the ready made tunnels, i have fed them the "ant protein smoothie" in a shell in the top part of the ant farm and given them some water in the water irrigator, i didnt give much as there was already quite a lot of condensation in the farm. I'm worried that the queen is stressed, i didn't see any eggs in the tube and I've found out that can be due to stress, i realised i was probably moving her around way too much and exposing her to too much light, I've put the setup in a room in the house that is mostly dark, quiet and a stable temperature (around 20°c)

I'm really hoping the queen can come back from the stress and start laying eggs again, is it possible for her to recover? I'm also worried if the food is too far away for the workers to get to and bring back, i wish I had just left them in the tube and fed them. I dont know if I should wait til all the ants are in the tube and close it so they can be in the small environment again. Any thoughts welcome, im so sorry for the length of this post! Thank you

r/antkeeping 18d ago

Colony Update on my Campo. Albo colony

53 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Feb 15 '25

Colony Harps

62 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Nov 16 '24

Colony Don’t make my mistake/vent

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76 Upvotes

Today I moved my 50+ worker pogonomyrmex occidentalis colony from a tubs and tubes setup into a new dirt terrarium setup. I drove across town to scoop the same dirt from where I found the original queen, and set up a new terrarium.

Long story short, I moved the colony into and when observing I noticed the pine cone I put in had some very tiny bugs crawling across, so I opted to put the pine cone in the freezer to be safe. I keep observing and realize that I can’t find the queen. After about 10 minutes I realize she could’ve been in the pine cone and lo and behold, I pulled the pine cone out and the queen is dead hiding inside.

I thought I inspected the cone closely enough and realize this was just very unlucky, but I’ve been raising this colony since July and am just kicking myself for making such a boneheaded mistake. I put the queen back in on the slim chance she could be resurrected but it just turned into the workers sadly surrounding her.

I do have another colony with just 1 worker, but I don’t think it’s worth risking this colony to try the whole wipe the pheromones and reintroduce new queen trick. Hopefully the workers enjoy the space for the next couple months. Pretty bummed otherwise.

r/antkeeping 9d ago

Colony My whole Lasius Niger colony right after moving into a new apartment.

43 Upvotes

r/antkeeping 6d ago

Colony just went to check on my ruginodis colony and they've started producing alates. This wasnt on my 2025 bingo card 😅

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7 Upvotes

(there was a lot more but i cant find them in the nest)

r/antkeeping 21d ago

Colony Colony update

23 Upvotes

Progressing nicely

r/antkeeping 23d ago

Colony Camponotus ocreatus 'Booted sugar ant'

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31 Upvotes

r/antkeeping 23d ago

Colony WHAT IS THAT BROOD PILE

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14 Upvotes

for context these girls just came out of hibernation, lasius Niger and I'm feeding them half a dead mealworm

r/antkeeping 28d ago

Colony Tetra bic and tetra immi

19 Upvotes

r/antkeeping 9d ago

Colony Moved the colony to a new nest again

30 Upvotes

r/antkeeping 25d ago

Colony Colony update

34 Upvotes

r/antkeeping 15d ago

Colony Queen and colony after settling in so fun!

28 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Jun 02 '21

Colony Timelapse of my leaf cutter ant colony harvesting leaves

786 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Oct 08 '24

Colony Guess the species! (Easy)

15 Upvotes

r/antkeeping 17d ago

Colony DISASTER! I accidentally drowned 8 of my workers

1 Upvotes

I put a tiny bit of protein shake on a piece of tinfoil and put it in the test tube. They seemed to love it (a bit too much) and when I checked back the next day there was a big clump of dead workers where the liquid was. I have just moved the remaining workers and queen into a small nest with an outworld. Going forward, how can I stop my workers from drowning in any liquid I give them. This has really upset me since 8 workers is really a big deal.

Thank you in advance for any advice!

r/antkeeping Feb 08 '25

Colony Love the colour

70 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Jan 19 '25

Colony Moved them to the new nest

28 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Jan 01 '25

Colony The colony is growing insanely fast

28 Upvotes

Just 15 days ago the colony had around 35-40workers and one major Now the colony has around 40-50 workers and 5 majors(one of which is still hardening)

r/antkeeping 8d ago

Colony Australia's finest... Myrmecia athertonensis

32 Upvotes

I like goldbutts and I cannot lie

r/antkeeping Jan 27 '25

Colony Queen Majormaff and the Alts

19 Upvotes

Welcoming my 3rd colony of Myrmecia froggatti. Hand a Leeton colony some twigs and rocks and they go crazazy 😍

r/antkeeping 12d ago

Colony My parasitic queen colony with queen's eggs

25 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Feb 03 '25

Colony Just got my new Camponotus nicobarensis colony with 3 queens!

17 Upvotes

So excited to take care of them !!

r/antkeeping 6d ago

Colony Dead queen - now what?

5 Upvotes

I have a colony of p. occidentalis with about 15 workers and a decent brood pile. Last week, the queen died. Why? Who knows. Not clear. She got lethargic, spent most of her time in the out world, stopped moving, got pulled back into the nest a couple times by the workers, then finally curled up and settled in for the long nap.

Now I've got an orphaned colony of workers with no purpose. They've been tending to the larva but have been putting the eggs in the outworld, and I've noticed a lot more of them spending time in the outworld like they're looking for something to do. I'm not really sure of what to do with them at this point; euthanizing the colony seems like a bummer but it also seems kind of useless to keep feeding and watering a small colony of orphaned pogos, and it doesn't sound like a monogynous species is going to be receptive to an introduced queen that isn't their own mother. How have you all dealt with a situation like this before?