The Trinidad Ant Room

[Acromyrmexbob]

So in Trinidad I use a room in the house I have over there to store the ants. I built an 8ftx4ft table and took a pond liner over to create a table with around 5cm deep of water on it.
Next I took over a couple of hundred plant pots to act as islands.



After the first day of serious collecting the table looked like this...







and after the first 3 days the first table was pretty much full.





For the other colonies that I got i had to build a second table for the first time. This saved a great deal of hassle and made the whole job much easier.

[Deansie26]

I bet everyone on this forum just loves these pictures lol. Fantastic sight.

[Andyj]

My worries are for your health Andrew. Just how many take aways do you get through to have this many tubs ?

[Acromyrmexbob]

My worries are for your health Andrew. Just how many take aways do you get through to have this many tubs ?

Asha can put away a few curries every night, you dont get a figure like that without feeding it!

[Jackie62]

Do you find them raiding each other at all? I can see opportunity in the water from debris that they could raft on.

[Acromyrmexbob]

Do you find them raiding each other at all? I can see opportunity in the water from debris that they could raft on.

Hi Jackie, no, no raiding. I put a tiny drop of detergent into the water. Every particle that doesn't sink does sink when an ant climbs onto it. Also raiding generally happens among established colonies. I find that they are not generally interested in neighbouring colonies until after I get them home and they are set up. However I do run my hand through any stuff that starts to build up in the water every day. I think the secret is spending time with them every day. I was around 3 hours per day by the end of the trip. I love it!!