AndyJ's Buggery room

[Andyj]

Well they are still fannying about in the spare pod. They have moved more soil into it and it's really busy in there but i think they are waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Either that or they are just carrying their clip boards around pretending to be busy. Ive worked with people like that in the past. Or was that me

[Andyj]

There has been much activity in the new site this week and they have been taking leaves here to process before taking to the original fungus, but finally the ants have decided it's time to expand their garden and have began construction right on the access stick . I suppose to reduce contamination from surfaces or perhaps they just want to have it fall off eventually....

As you can see, not much room left so time to expand.



A a new beginning.



They have also opened up the other pod which has been sealed off for a long time, so perhaps something is about to happen there too.

[Andyj]

.....and it fell off

[Britishants.com]

Looking good!

[Andyj]

Cheers. This is growing at quite a rate so i think they are pinching from the first pod. Saying that though thety are cutting much more now.

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[Deansie26]

Looking great Andy, you will have no problem with Atta when you can get Acromyrmex going like that.
You will notice a really big difference with colony growth with Atta, there mental. You still going to get some?

[Andyj]

Thx Jamie. Well i keep thinking about Atta but probably not at the moment.

[Britishants.com]

Stop pussying about and get some Atta! lol

[Acromyrmexbob]

Andy, you could try an experiment for me if you want. When I was in Canada I spoke to Laurent, their Leaf Cutting Ant guru and he shared some info with me that I have been meaning to post and will get round to it, I promise.
He basically said that there is a wa to enlarge colonies very quickly. If you put some fungus into a new tub the likelyhood is that the ants will remove it back to their old tub if they are not ready. But, if you take half of the fungus from the old tub and place it in the new tub, so each tub has 50% fungus, the ants will immediately start building both gardens up. He used two hacksaw blades, bent over to 90 degrees to form two hook type implements. He first cut the garden across the middle and then used the hooks to lift half out of the old container intact and carefully put it into the second container. In this way he was able to expand colonies very quickly because the ants react to this by repairing both gardens and feeding the fungus a lot. In theory you could keep going with this method, expanding 2 to 4 etc. You seem in the perfect situation to try this. Would be experimental verification for my PhD studies.

[Andyj]

Well Bob here's the thing. I'm not really in a rush to populate these girls and they are doing pretty well on there own i think. Just after three days they have already done a great job at increasing the new fungus.