Dealing with Parasitic mites

Ideas, techniques, problems and issues associated with keeping Leaf Cutting Ants in Captivity
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Occultus
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Dealing with Parasitic mites

Post by Occultus » Sat Apr 28, 2018 1:13 am

Seeing mites clinging to your ants' bodies is every Antkeepers worst nightmare. If Left unchecked, they will drain the ants' hemolymph (blood) and eventually kill the host and potentially cause the collapse of the entire colony.
The most effective solution to deal with these parasites would be to add Predatory mites to your enclosure. Neoseiulus (Amblyseius) californicus are the ideal candidate. They are a specialised spider mite hunter but also a generalised mite hunter. Regularly sold in the agricultural industry for eradicating infestations of spider mites - Tetranychidae (they reproduce twice as fast as the spider mites).

Neoseiulus californicus require high humidity and a temperature of around 25°c for optimal results( 10-33°C ). This is why they are an ideal candidate for our Leaf-cutter colonies who require near the same housing conditions.
They will hunt the parasitic mites in all of their life stages from egg to adult. Noticeable results will occur within days to a couple of months depending on the amount of californicus that was added. Certainly a long-term strategy in combatting mite infestations. Once they run out of food, they perish quickly.

Available relatively cheaply online, even on sites like eBay. Often sold in sachets or plastic bottles.

attagirl
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Re: Dealing with Parasitic mites

Post by attagirl » Sat Jun 16, 2018 11:25 pm

Hello Occultus,

I am new to this forum, and I joined because I was looking for a solution to my mite problem. I have two colonies of Atta cephalotes, about 3 years old each I believe, and both became heavily infested with mites last week (probably earlier, but I only just noticed). The mites are small enough to fit 50-70 on a foragers head, they are white/opaque, and they are usually on the ants head/mouth but also on the thorax and abdomen sometimes. Do these sound similar to what you have seen?

Following your advice, I bought a couple bottles of Neoseiulus californicus and peppered it onto sub-colonies to see the effects. It does seem like there are slightly less parasitic mites after two days, but still plenty. Have you ever been able to fully eradicate these parasitic mites? If so, about how long did it take? Did you have to keep applying the predatory mites, or just once?

Any additional info or elaboration on your methods would be greatly appreciated!

attaching a picture, sorry the quality is aweful.
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Acromyrmexbob
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Re: Dealing with Parasitic mites

Post by Acromyrmexbob » Sun Jun 17, 2018 8:46 am

Hi Wilow. Nice to see your post!!
I can help you with a possible timeline. The effect of these mites is all about population dynamics. You first of all put the predatory mites in to your ants. They will attack some of the parasitic mites and then they will start to increase in numbers and the young will develop until they too can attack the parasitic mites. You need two or three generations of mites to have a major effect. This will take a week or two. But the problem will gradually become controlled over this time. I would encourage you to post updates regularly and pics if you can because this is a heavy infestation and pics over time will be a fantastic record of how effective these mites are.

attagirl
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Re: Dealing with Parasitic mites

Post by attagirl » Mon Jun 18, 2018 7:45 pm

Thanks Andrew,

I will keep watching and update as I see changes.

If anyone else has any advice for mite eradication or biocontrol species that they recommend, please let me know!

antsscotland
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Re: Dealing with Parasitic mites

Post by antsscotland » Sat Nov 02, 2019 10:40 pm

Im also dealing with this problem i bought hypoaspis miles off ebay and has seem to be a decrease in mites! :mrgreen:

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Acromyrmexbob
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Re: Dealing with Parasitic mites

Post by Acromyrmexbob » Sun Nov 03, 2019 2:30 pm

Jack are you still seeing them on your workers. The thing about biological control is that you can never eradicate the problem, only reduce it to where there is no problem that you would notice. This is because of population dynamics!
So basically you have a huge population of problem mites. You introduce a relatively small population of predators. They are now in a bonanza where there is food everywhere!. So the pradators start their own population explosion which means there are more and more predators eating fewer and fewer mites. Then what happens is there are not enough problem mites to keep the predators alive so the predators crash almost to none left. Once the predators crash the problem mites can recover a little and so do the predators. At this stage you have a balance, a few problem mites and enough predators to keep them low in numbers. The problem mites will stay at this low level unless the predatory mites decline at which time the problem mites explode again. In general, once the predatory mites have done their work, you shouldn't see any problem mites at all, or maybe the odd one.

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