Manica rubida

jonthefish · Jul 14th 2016

I received this Queen about a month ago from a friend. She has been fed every couple of days with a baby Cockroach, plus now and again a Fly, Brown Cricket and a Mealworm. With a constant supply of sugar-water. Today the first 2 workers have appeared, so felt it was time to do a journal.

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Empty at the moment.

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Alexander · Jul 16th 2016

Hello Jon.
Your pictures looks marvelous and your nesting arrengement is lovely. I wonder if this acrylic antkit nest is able to pass on enough water and keep it inside moisturized. Elsewise you will have some trouble with keeping, because this species tends to be dependent on this factor. Lets say it's some sort of absolute condition. Anyway it's just some feeling but I'd not put much trust in this kind of plastic material. In addition I have to point out that eventual softener chemicals in the plastic plants can be harmful to ants. Having said that i truly hope your Manica rubida colony will grow and 'flourish'.

I will enjoy further entries on your journal and will await any developments. There is also a collective journal on Manica rubida and you are invited to post there (even migrate there). After manicaluca posted an entry i started to add english transcriptions too.
starting here: http://eusozial.de/viewtopic.p…36&t=2315&start=60#p32640 (I'm not sure what happened with Lukes colony though )
So you are welcomed to handle this anyway you like.

yours sincerely
~alexander

jonthefish · Jul 16th 2016

Hello Alexander,

Thank you for the positive feed back. We are thinking the same here at AntKit if the nest will provide enough moisture for this particular species. They certainly do well for me in the open test tube setups. I have about 100 M. rubida Queens in my possession at the moment. The plants I am using are from my aquatic shop where they are fine with both coldwater and tropicalfish. I am both curious and concerned if they will do harm to my ants. Could you point to me peoples journals or evidence to this please, I would really like to learn more about this.

Many thanks Jon.

jonthefish · Aug 2nd 2016

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They are now sharing two test tubes.

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There is around 15-18 workers.

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The disturbance of taking the photos, has encouraged them to move into the acrylic nest.

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Manica rubida

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