ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Wildbird]

Hi all

Despite last month's disaster my queen now has 10 or so helpers and she still has a few eggs which the workers are now tending. I am surprised by how infrequently they venture from the test tube although I am putting half a cricket in the basin every other day and they do venture out to eat it or at least grab some innerds for the queen to eat. On the other day I am putting out honey water and I am assuming they are eating it although I have never seen them, they would surely have starved by now if not.

They have also partially filled in the test tube with sand/soild so I covered it over to make it dark although Miszt did say she was light reared.

As we are now in the middle of Sept I was thinking of the winter, I have secured a spot in a fridge which will hold them at about 5 or 6 degrees which should be ok. As you may remember I bought the mini ant farm which although small is a perfect size for the fridge.

My plan is to make up a new test tube half filled with honey water with the usual cotton wool stopper and put that in the basin part of the mini ant farm, Assuming the queen agrees to move into the new test tube there should be plenty enough water and food for the winter. I could also add a dead insect once a week or so if needed.

I was planning to start introducing them to the cold over a 5 week period before I hibernate them, i'll keep them in the fridge from the end of Oct until the end of Feb. does this all sound sensible??

If not can you point in the correct direction.
My one concern is that the honey in the test tube may go off at some point despite being mixed with water. Is this a risk??

I'll post some pics so you can see how Miszt's queen is doing
Thanks as always

Paul

[Wildbird]

Most of the questions have already been answered

Thanks

Paul

[JimmyVe]

Nice Wildbird. Look up yourself a few things. lol

For questions you can not find, ask...

[miszt]

Be careful putting them in your fridge, make sure you dont have any frost spots, an easy way to combat that is to wrap the farm in a couple of layers of bubble rap


The honey wont go off in the fridge, and it shouldnt go moldy, however, it will probably seperate and you'll end up with lots of encrusted sugar, this isnt to much of an issue, as long as you dont want to keep ur test tube after hibernation (or dont mind tryin to clean it...big mission lol)