# Into Ants? Check it out!



## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Hey guys as some may know i keep pet Ants. Well I have started uploading some Ant videos onto YouTube if ya like em let me know leave a comment or something lol totally up to you!. here the linky.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CanadianTropicana

FYI im using a Kodak Easyshare C813 camera lol so dont expect 1080p. ahahha.

Also on Twitter. was sorta bored so... if your bored u can twitter with me! lol

http://twitter.com/Kellyzero1


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## Byronicle (Apr 18, 2009)

that is sick, i love ants too. when i was younger i would dig up ant hills in search of the queen but always to stop half way realizing that i have a conscious!

so what exactly do you do? get a queen and male and start a colony?


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Well, The real only way to start your own colony is when the mature colonies in the wild have nuptial flights of male and female ants(princesses). 

During those evenings(usually) if you go ant hunting and find any queen ants with there wings off then they are ready to start a colony and are searching for a nest. Which you can synthetically provide with a glass test tube setup.

You can ID these ants easily since they have a larger thorax then workers(middle part) since they had to have wing muscles to fly. If you look closely you can see where the wings were.


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## Byronicle (Apr 18, 2009)

is that what you did?


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

That is what i did, My colonies(or Queens) are all caught from the wild. Purchasing is illegal. (since some species that could be sold would be invasive).


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## Byronicle (Apr 18, 2009)

that is awesome, i would love to attempt this. always like a social complexity of these arthropods


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## bae (May 11, 2007)

Every year we have an invasion of ants with wings in our living room. It's an old house and we figure their colony must extend into the stone foundation and when they do this nuptial swarm thing they come up through a crack by the former fireplace. We've never managed to get them sealed out, and of course when they are swarming like this they aren't much interested in baits, nor are they taking the borax back to the colony.

This annual event lasts a few days in June, and I usually just vacuum up all the ants I can find. But this year I'm going to look at them more carefully, and maybe start my own colony! Dropping the wings means they have mated, right? Do the females have larger abdomens?

I like your video. The music suits it very well. How does the queen know where to dig? Or does she just dig at random until she finds one of the holes you've made in the stone?


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## Byronicle (Apr 18, 2009)

if anyone finds one, I would love to buy it off of you  after seeing some more videos, I am hooked!


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

@ Bae Thanks for the compliment, The ants do have nuptial flights usually in spring and fall. Some species at both times in the year others only once. 

Mated Queens do drop there wings when ready to start a colony they also do have larger abdomens but in some species the workers are roughly the same size and also have large abdomens so you need to look at the thorax and see if it housed wing muscles which makes it larger then the workers. 

Queens are usually not very fussy about where they are placed to start a nest. although they prefer small areas where they are able to get the feeling that they are closed in, like in a test tube or in my case a Pumice nest i made. I added dirt to allow her to customize her cell so it feels more natural. So when i finished the nest i locked her in there with the possibility of three cells and she walled one off and then fixed one up and left the other open for her own reasons i suppose.

These pictures Below are some of the more common species you may find in the Toronto Area. But the Camponotus are pure black, that picture is just an idea of what to look for if you go Anting. The sizes in the photos are very close to there actual size in the species (Queens). And some detailed Info.

@ Bryonicle lol you would have better luck catching you own since not every queen is successful you may need 5 or so to be guaranteed one colonies success.


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## Byronicle (Apr 18, 2009)

i once did find a queen when I was a kid.

it freaked the bleep out of me...


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## Cory (May 2, 2008)

Really cool ! The fiance already nixxed the idea of it for me so I will have to live vicariously through you and your ants lol.


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

lol no doubt, its hard to grasp the concept of keeping ants secure... lol but yes ill be updating videos on the progression of my colonies


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## bae (May 11, 2007)

Thanks for the excellent pics and info.

Those 'fire ants' (Myrmeca rubra) aren't the same as the notorious fire ants that are causing ecological havoc wherever they've managed to get established, are they? I've got colonies of them in my garden. When I accidentally open one when digging, they have a characteristic odor to them.

I don't know which species does its nuptial flights in my living room, but they are fairly dark, and not all that large. Now I'm actually looking forward to the annual invasion!


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Well there is a good chance those are the Fire ants' that have the burning sting. But there are other species that do look closely related so it would be hard to tell if they are the exact species. Are the ants orange? or dark red? If they are orange then they are Citrus ants which do have a citrus odor. the Red don't have much of an odor since they use stingers and don't spray Formica Acid which would be my other guess since it smells.


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

thats way too neat Tropicana  I really love how they talk to each other and how they check out things that they come across with their antenna things. :3

I used to watch the ants take the fence highway during the summer and it was neat when they would meet up with other ants along the way. lol


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## bae (May 11, 2007)

Citrus ants sounds like a good description. They are a sort of yellow amber color and quite small.


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Thanks Cid, it is very neat watching them communicate, and ant roads are awesome to watch lol, so much going on in that small world. 

@Bae those are definitely Citrus ants or Lasius Umbratus/Flavus. they rarely surface since they are 'Farmers' of Root aphids.


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## bae (May 11, 2007)

Tropicana said:


> @Bae those are definitely Citrus ants or Lasius Umbratus/Flavus. they rarely surface since they are 'Farmers' of Root aphids.


Aha! I've seen them in the act, too. I guess as a gardener I should regard them as Bad Guys, but I seem to have no shortage of veggies and flowers, so I'll let them get away with it.


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Oh i wanted to throw out a website that a friend of mine recently started. He sells Formicaria(ant nests) and is checking the laws to see if he can sell the Queen ants that are native here only to locals which means GTA PEOPLES! lol.

Anyways if your interested check out.

http://www.mikeybustos.ca/antscanada.asp


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Neat!

We get these at my folk's place too. We once found a queen carpenter - she was more then 1 1/4" long. Huge bugger.


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Ah very cool, I have 2 carpenter species currently myself. They are beasts when it comes to chewing up prey to working on wood. they recently shown a bit of interest trying to chew through there Plaster nest.. ahha.


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## bae (May 11, 2007)

Tropicana said:


> @Bae those are definitely Citrus ants or Lasius Umbratus/Flavus. they rarely surface since they are 'Farmers' of Root aphids.


I see from your signature that you've got colonies of these guys. What do you feed them?


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

The workers drink a 50/50 honey mix and also chew up crickets(muscle) for the protein needed for the queen/larvae. The ants also drink the hemoglobin aka blood of the insects as nourishment.


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Well thought i would update for my carpenter ants. Heres a few pics since i did the video on YouTube. The Ants have fed many of the larvae and they are growing at a amazing rate.


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Well the Carpenter ant colony is eating like a machine lol 4 crickets and a mealworm a week. Two of the larvae have cocooned or -Pupated- so ill have a few more workers soon!. woot


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## Octavian (Sep 30, 2009)

Do you ever use some of the ants to feed your fish?


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

When the colonies population gets to large i will have to try it. but currently they need all the workers they can get lol.


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## Byronicle (Apr 18, 2009)

lol can you feed ants to fish?


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

you sure can, although the fish in stores now are not as aggressive towards wild prey lol they know what flakes look like though!.


I have fed my fish ant larvae before and they loved it.


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## Byronicle (Apr 18, 2009)

interesting...

well if people do not have your own ant colonies, one great way to harvest ants is to leave fries on the sidewalk and in 30 minutes, Presto! You got ants.

Preferably McDonald's fries as they seem to be the tastiest with all that yummy oil and what not!


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

haha that does work, honey is one of the strongest ant attractors i know of.


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Heres 2 videos of my Carpenter ant Colony.





 (second Part)


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## Octavian (Sep 30, 2009)

How big is the structure that houses your ants? What is it made of? Could you post some full pictures showing the entire structure?


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Sure Oct, Heres the picture. Its an 18" x 12" x 1 1/2" piece of plaster. ( made the tunnels with a mold.


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Hey guys made an updated video, Heres all 3 if you want to watch 1.0,1.1,1.2 all at once.





 v1.1





 v1.2


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## papik (Oct 6, 2008)

i was expecting to see some traditional ant farm with tunnels and sh*t.... lol...... that just looked gross........ no offense.... creepy


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

ah no worries, its mainly a viewing nest so you can see the colony do its work. the traditional Dirt farms do work but they often collapse on the ants when there colonies get big and they can barely expand.

My ant farms are more practical for keeping ants in the end. And all that dirty looking stuff inside, well thats them using it to make walls to block chambers and then also stuff rooms with garbage until it gets full then they remove it into the outside part.


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

what are the ants with the big bums again??.. I like those ones a lot


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

You may be thinking of the repletes from the honey pot ant species. They fill up on sugary liquids for the colony as reserves if theres a drought. 

There is a species around here which 'almost' has the same large bum look. they are called false honey pots and although there bums dont get super large like the real honey pots they do look big lol. I plan to find and capture this species of ant this 'anting season' since they look really interesting.


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Check out the first male ant to eclose in the colony. 




The colony is up to 1 queen, 100 workers, 50 pupae, 50larvae, and 100+ eggs.


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