Pogonomyrmex barbatus (Red harvester ants)

shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Advertise with us
Mantidforum

Help Support Mantidforum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
yen_saw

yen_saw

Forum Supporter
Supporting Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2004
Messages
4,696
Reaction score
196
Location
Houston
Some pics of my P. barbatus colonies in ant house.

pbnest1a.jpg


pbnest1d.jpg


pbnest1b.jpg


pbnest1c.jpg


Dump site for the ants.....makes it easy for me to clean.

pbnest1e.jpg


A smaller colony with red transparent sheet to keep them in 'dark'.

pbnest1f.jpg


 
AndrewNisip said:
Hey yen whered u get this? And I'm assuming I should put mine in something like this?

-Andrew
Click to expand...
My friend from Hong Kong, although the ant houses are made in China. The P barbatus do well even in a plastic container so as long as you have something to keep them from escaping that will do, but with water supply too.

 
Mime454 said:
I want to keep ants too! Wish there was a forum that sold queens. I've probably spent 50 hours looking for queens in the ground or in flight. Never found anything though,
Click to expand...
If I could get my hands on cages like these it would be worth it. I see queens every spring. Always come across them at some point.

 
Precarious said:
If I could get my hands on cages like these it would be worth it. I see queens every spring. Always come across them at some point.
Click to expand...
I've seen them for sale for $30-50. You can also make them yourself. I made one. You make the tunnels in play dough and then lay them out and pour cement(it's actually a crafty thing that is totally white, you mix it up and it gets really warm, but I can't think of the name of it :( ) over it. Then you wait until it dries and scoop out the play dough and you have the tunnels.

 
Mime454 said:
I've seen them for sale for $30-50. You can also make them yourself. I made one. You make the tunnels in play dough and then lay them out and pour cement(it's actually a crafty thing that is totally white, you mix it up and it gets really warm, but I can't think of the name of it :( ) over it. Then you wait until it dries and scoop out the play dough and you have the tunnels.
Click to expand...
Sounds like Plaster of Paris?

It'd be awesome to get a hold of a queen and build a colony in the ant-gel habitats that have become somewhat more common. There's a website where you can buy the powder to mix and pour your own gel habitat for the ants.

 
Montana said:
Sounds like Plaster of Paris?

It'd be awesome to get a hold of a queen and build a colony in the ant-gel habitats that have become somewhat more common. There's a website where you can buy the powder to mix and pour your own gel habitat for the ants.
Click to expand...
Yep, that's the name! :D

I hear that the ants don't actually like to live in the gel. NASA designed it as an experiment to see if they could live in zero gravity, they can, but it obviously isn't ideal.

Also, I bought some of the powder on eBay(like I said, I've kept a lot of queen less colonies), and it is about 85% opaque, you can barely see through it. Ants don't like it as much as the ant works.

 
You should feed harvester ants a mix of seeds and grains and dead or dying insects....they are predominately scavengers...

 
Those antfarms are made of hydrostone. I have a few myself. They absorb water. Very neat stuff. Yen your havester colony looks great!

 
Yen, we have big red ants like that here. Not sure what Ant species but they're big, mean and pack a bite! I'll collect some, maybe you can ID them.

 

Latest posts

Top