Carpenter Ant

[Faltang1090]

What kronicka has said is true. Except I am in the business I see them every year lol

[joeysgreen]

So not an ant you'd want to breed in your house eh

What species would you suggest as safe for an antfarm project?

[FrogPimp]

The fact that it is still alive means it is most probably a queen. Males die very soon after their nuptial flight.

These winged "swarmers" are born in the spring and they leave their nest to mate. The males then die, and the females disperse to establish new colonies all by themselves.

[Stan Schultz]

... so I have always wanted to take two sliding glass doors and glue them together filled with dirt hang it on my wall and drop in a qween ant!!! ...

This probably won't work really well. First, because carpenter ants normally don't live in dirt. They prefer burrowing through rotted wood, which may be difficult to arrange. Second, the ants don't appreciate the light in their nests, so they cover the glass with detritus to block out the light. So, either you're going to have to cover the glass with a light proof cover of some sort, in which case all you'll end up with is a black rectangle hanging on the wall; or you'll end up with a dirty, brown, glass rectangle hanging on the wall with the ants glaring at you through the cracks in their barrier.

Also, be careful about how big you make this thing. Gross weight is a big concern because you're thinking about hanging it. And, a sheet of damp dirt/sawdust, etc. 1 cm thick and 1.5 meters square is not going to be light either. It might even snap the glass or drop the bottom out of your ant farm.

...Q#1 ????So do you think this may be a qween ant?????? ...

If it seems to have an inordinately large "hunch back" and a fat abdomen, almost surely. Also, it'll be something like a centimeter or centimeter-and-a-half long. Males don't have a pronounced hunch back, are relatively slim and svelte, and are half that length or smaller.

...Q#2 ???if a ant has wings is it a qween???? ...

No. Both of the adult "reproductives," males (drones) and females (queens), have wings.

...Q#3 ???is there any legal issues with capturing/breeding/selling of ants??? ...

I'm not sure about Canadian law, but I wouldn't be surprised. In the USA it's illegal to transport the queens across state lines without a permit, but right off the top of my head I can't remember if the permit had to come from their Department of Agriculture or their US Fish & Wildlife Service.

If you really have to know what Canadian law is, contact your local offices of Agriculture Canada and Environment Canada. See the blue pages in your Yellow Pages.

They can't throw you in jail for asking questions. They might be able to if you don't!

...sounds dumb ...

Not in the least! The only truly dumb questions are the ones you don't ask. And, dumb questions are a lot easier to deal with than dumb mistakes!

...Q#4 have any of you ever had a ant farm/colony???? any advice? ...

Yup! I was never very successful at them. They require daily attention, and if you miss one day, they start to die like flies. I didn't have the patience, and I was too young for my "responsibility gene" to have kicked in. Today, I know better and wouldn't even try.

... Q#5 if it worked out is there anyone with a bearded dragon or other bug eater that would want a ant colony for feederz? ...

Not many things will eat ants unless they're starving. While I find the taste of formic acid rather pleasant in small concentrations, rather like vinegar, most animals do not. And, some percentage of the formic acid is metabolized in our systems to produce traces of formaldehyde. This is a BIG no-no! Forget this one.

And that's a really cool idea with the glass door!

I may have misread the original post, but I believe they were going to use the glass from such a door, not the door itself. They were talking about hanging it on a wall.

... The problem queens don't travel alone in all the books I have coming from a pest point of view they normally have a set of breeding stock traveling with them. ...

This may vary with the species, but normally, immediately after her nuptial flight, the young queen lands someplace and finds a place to hide (often digging a hole for herself), and seals herself in with nobody else. She then begins to produce eggs. After the first few eggs hatch into little grubs, she begins to sacrifice the next eggs to feed the developing ant grubs. After they complete their growth, pupate, and finally emerge as adult workers, the queen relinquishes all care to the workers and becomes little more than a huge egg factory. And, the workers then build tunnels, forage for food, care for all the developing grubs, etc. That's the stage where you find them in your home and call the exterminator: Only after the queen establishes a colony.

What the OP found was almost surely a new queen immediately (like within minutes!) after her nuptial flight, before she had a chance to hide someplace and start a new colony (which only takes 2 or 3 weeks).

And, the workers will defend their nest to their dying breath. They will NEVER abandon a nest. Even after she dies of old age, the surviving workers will cast out the queen's corpse and continue working in the nest until they all die.

Some species of ant will allow more than one queen in a nest, and others may "shanghai" a young queen and drag her kicking and screaming to an un-queened nest. Other species of ants maintain slaves from other ant colonies to tend to them and their developing grubs. And, I think I heard of another species wherein the new queen will seduce or enslave other workers of her own species (maybe her own original colony) in her chamber to help care for the new eggs and grubs. There are over 12,000 species. There's lots of room for variation!

The winged ants are males right? ...

No. The winged ones are EITHER the reproductive females (queens) OR the reproductive males (drones). The workers (many species have several different castes of workers) are all unwinged, sterile females.

I do not understand the genetics of ants, and especially their method for sex determination, but you can read all about it here.

... What species would you suggest as safe for an antfarm project?

Any large terrestrial, burrowing ant. But, only use the workers, never the queen. The queen lives many years, and you're going to get really bored of them fairly quickly, I'd guess. I know I sure did.

And, never try to mix different species, or even ants of the same species from different anthills. Unless you want a replay of World War III in miniature. These things never "play nice" with each other!

Enjoy your little 6-legged armies!

[steelrain420]

wow thanx for that great reply stan :-)
vary indepth anser and really good info matching the reserch I've been doing myself scince asking about this project

thanx.

[kripp_keeper]

Stan gave good info.

Typically you would start you ant hive with a queen in a vial that has water in the end/cotton/ant/cotton. I have found with wasp and ants, the people who keep them really really really like wasp/ants. Ants can are similar to having obligated burrowers. You end up with a pet hole.

Now if you have found yourself often watching ants outside, and they fascinate you the same way spiders fascinate me. Then I would definitely say you should look into starting a colony. Set one up in a closet or dark room, and get some red lights to watch them with. As Stan said you can not keep them in a brightly lit room. they will either block out the light or die of stress if you keep clearing it.

[steelrain420]

do you see what I see?????

pic #1 entrance hole in log on left top center with eggs cooling just outside on the rubble pile to the top left
pic #2-3 qween ant going back into her new nest

exciting stuff!

32 days since captured...