Carpenter Ants

[Talkenlate04]

It's that time of the season where they mate in the mid morning or late evening and I am grabbing queens up like crazy. The cool part is after just one night in a vial with some moist substrate they are dropping eggs. I have about 30 so far. All of them have eggs.

 

[Spiderface]

Are you going to try to put any queens into an ant farm? Carpenters would be pretty neat to observe. With A queen to keep the colony going you should be able to keep them for a long while.

 

[Talkenlate04]

I am devising a plan to do just that. I think I am going to take some rotting pressboard thats on the side of my house, its just scrap that was put there when we added to the house. Ill take some of that and incase it in plexi glass seal the bottem and sides. Come up with some sort of top for it and see how it goes from there.
I know they have different eating habits based on the time of the year. What are those habits exactly?

Has anyone used that space ant farm with the blue gel in it? If so think it would work with a Queen and her eggs?

 

[nepenthes]

YEA!

I suggest Test tubes, OR Cd cases for better viewing. Looks like a C. pennslyvanicus a very common north eastern carpenter ant. Camponotus colony's can be a bit, frustrating, sometimes after the first batch of workers the queen just wont raise any more! But They can take a bit to develop, it will be at least 2 years before you get up to 100 workers, even then it might take 3. Dont feed them until they have their first workers. They wont get majors until they are older. Feed protein (roaches or crickets cover this) but mostly sugar water in the begging.

sandwich ant farms are great for viewing , but can cause problems later on as Feeding and things of the sort, I suggest making a tube leading to a foraging area after the colony gets bigger. I suggest cutting out a Chamber first for the queen the workers will do the rest.
Space ant farms suck! don't use them. If you want the long version just ask.

check out an ant forum if you have any questions! But it seems you have the basic idea!
http://p211.ezboard.com/bantfarm

cheers! Good luck with your queen! shipping the reproductive ants IS illegal just a side note.

 

[Snake_Eyes]

I hate those things!! I killed(by hand) a couple dozen of those in my bedroom about a month ago, thankfully I haven't seen any since.