Leaf Cutting Ant Forum

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.

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

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

Andyj wrote: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!

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

Jackie62 wrote: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!!