Leaf Cutting Ant Forum

So after a week the water in the pod has just about gone so the removal of the dump and addition of a vent has cured the problem with no hands on intervention. In other words i didn't get bit once.

If the new configuration has removed the water then the overall balance within your setup may be a drying one. You will need to watch that this does not continue to happen and the humidity reduces. If the addition of a vent has helped dry the water then moisture must be leaving your setup fairly efficiently.

The speed the water has dried is indeed a consideration, however this excess in water has only occurred since the dump was so impacted in it's chamber and soaking wet. Being below the fungus pods and heated, the moisture was condensing on the pods above before finally passing through the top vent to escape. RH has never been below 99% but i'm keeping a close watch on it.

Acromyrmexbob wrote:If the new configuration has removed the water then the overall balance within your setup may be a drying one. You will need to watch that this does not continue to happen and the humidity reduces. If the addition of a vent has helped dry the water then moisture must be leaving your setup fairly efficiently.

Precisely as you said Andrew...

The past few weeks have been quite challenging. The humidity in the pods after drying continued to fall and at it's worst, gone down to 64 RH. The ants were taking a lot of the fungus to the dump and in two consecutive weeks i had to empty it. In an effort to raise humidity i blocked the vents at the top of each pod but this seems to have caused no air flow at all. Humidity stayed low, and although the ants continue to cut leaves the fungus in all 3 pods had declined by half. There were many ants just standing idle in the down pipe for days. I decided to open the vents by half and within a few hours the idle ants had gone back to work. The fungus in all pods has began to recover and the waste removal has slowed down.

There are also many Alates now and i think these have contributed to the slow recovery of the fungus. Also seeing a few dead workers now for the first time. I think these must be the original workers as the colony is now 10 months old. Also one or two dead Alates.

As for the winter foods, i am giving them the dried rose petals i made for them in the summer, Apple, Privet and frozen and winter bramble.

In these circumstances I sometimes offer Acromyrmex the chance to entirely move house to a new receptacle. This has the effect of a clean start, moving away from any problems instead of fixing them. In every instance where I have done this the colony has done very well. Maybe a new home would solve their probs?

Tempted to try that Andrew but recovery is happening

I'm with Andrew on this, I've transferred acro fungus to a new pod and you get an initial hit of fungus removal and a major rebuild that seems to stimulate fungal growth, good chance to clean out an old pod too! How's the pods doing overall?

Britishants.com wrote:I'm with Andrew on this, I've transferred acro fungus to a new pod and you get an initial hit of fungus removal and a major rebuild that seems to stimulate fungal growth, good chance to clean out an old pod too! How's the pods doing overall?

The "Pods" have worked well. Some bigger sizes could be useful perhaps but then an aquarium would probably suffice.

Good to hear! We did offer large pods but very little interest so we withdrew them, I use two in my current set up!

So we have been on holiday. I left the ants to care for themselves and left them a whole red cabbage, 6 sprouts 1 apple and a pile of bramble leaves to last them 10 days.

On arriving home at 4.30 am my wife, already in a bad mood from the journey home shouted " YOUR BLOODY ANTS HAVE ESCAPED !!!!!" I ran upstairs to find a neat trail going into the bedroom and another trail going into the bathroom, the ones coming back were carrying leaves. They had breached the PTFE, first time ever and did it when i was away.

They had found there way outside into the high street and were walking up the main pavement outside. I spent the next 2 hours getting as many back as i could. I have been home now for 16 days and i am still finding them. Although looking a bit lost they seem healthy enough.

So all three nests were nearly all gone and what was left were just 3 small white lumps, i think another couple of days and it would have been too late for the ants. 2 are now back to how they were but 1 is struggling and i have definitely got a short fall of the original occupants. I know my next door neighbour has been hoovering them up. His mum said they had been invaded by giant mutant red ants and i had to come clean. Fortunately they laughed. It's strange how no pedestrians have noticed leafcutters in our high street.....

I have been finding most of the escapees between 3 and 4 am and hardly any now at any other times of day. It's funny when i put them back into the tank. They get attacked straight away and then very quickly get accepted back into the community...

So why after nearly 3 weeks are these ants still alive ? All good fun but a drastic way to control population.