Making a basic 1st outworld...

After advice from Full_Frontal_Yeti on the formiculture.com Forums...

I was 1st planning on keeping the new Lasius Niger colony in a small nest until the 1st hybernation period in just a cotainer and tubes nest.
But as he advised he Ants will show much more interesting and natural behaviour when they have a outworld with plenty (not too much) space.

So I bought a small food container to make a simple 1st outworld...
Bigger and later outworlds will be 100% DIY ;)

The food storage container for the outworld:

Sand for bottom substrate thoroughly washed and cooked for 10 minutes to kill all fungii and parasites, now drying in the sun:

Gathered some rocks and dead wood for decoration of the outworld, I disinfected the wood by putting it in the microwave for a minute.

Here is the result for now, when the Ants arrive (Wednesday says the post info) I will put the Lasius Niger colony tube in here once they have settled after the mail journey (a few days after arrival.

0.3 mm holes drilled al along the outer edge of the lid.

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Lasius Niger Nuptual flight was today in Netherlands, Velsen.

Just now an hour ago many Queens landed all over the backyard... I caught 4 in Test-tube setups.

Learning more about ants: Anatomy

A pretty detailed anatomy page can be found here: Mississippi Entomological Museum Below is image with more basic schematic overview: Source: Wikipedia More will be added over time...

First picture of the Lasisus Niger colony.

I had a quick 1st look at the Lasius Niger starter colony today. They were exposed to light for only 20 seconds and did not get very aroused. Perhaps because they've filled up on sugars overnight. So here is the first picture of my Lasius Niger starter colony. This is the Gyne (Queen) with about 12 nanites (1st brood worker ants). As far as I could see there are 2 dead nanites in there and I do not see any 2nd brood. Perhaps my untrained 50 year old eyes are missing something so let me know if you see any brood or eggs. As you can see the cotton-wool in the test tube they arrived in has become a bit funky. They will need to be moved to the small nest or another basic setup test-tube soon. Before I do that I have fed them a juicy freshly swatted fly which I cut in half with a razor-blade for easy access to the juicy parts. I'll let them gorge on that for a few hours before using the light/dark method to enthuse them to move.

Lunk's Formicariums

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