They're huge! They're found everywhere. They come in different shapes and sizes
The workers are polymorphic [they vary in size] with huge super majors down to small miners.
Most people in the world are seeking ways to eradicate them because they're notorious for the structural damage they caused in homes and buildings
But for us ant lover's these tough and well-built ants are a dream come true to keep as pets
Presenting the infamous carpenter ants belonging to the highly complex genus known as Camponotus.
Now I've waited for this day to release this video because I know so many of you in North America, Europe, and Asia
Managed to catch Camponotus queens during their nuptial flights this year and many of you guys are starting to welcome your very first
nanitics, your first round of workers in your founding test tubes
Congratulations by the way
So I wanted to create a video on how to care for Camponotus ants and give you a background on them
So you know what to expect and be pro Camponotus ant keepers?
Today's episode is about how to keep carpenter ants as pets
Let's start by taking a look at carpenter
Ant biology for ant taxonomists ie those guys whose job it is to name and classify ant species
Camponotus is an extremely large and complex genus. At the present there are more than
1,000 species and nearly 500 subspecies belonging to 45 sub Genera of Carpenter ants
According to Wikipedia it could well be the largest ant genus of all.
Take a look at this list. Look at how many species belong to the genus Camponotus?
Amazing right? Now it should be noted that only a small handful of these ants are the ones you find in your homes as pests
The rest are found in various other habitats in Forests deserts
Mountainous regions tropical rainforests
In fact take a look at this map which shows all the areas where Camponotus ants can be found. They're globally distributed
And are found in almost all areas of the world. Where I live in Toronto Canada the most common carpenter ants are
black carpenter ants also known as Camponotus Pennsylvanicus and my favorite the red and black carpenter ants
Camponotus Novaeboracensis. There are so many kinds of carpenter ant species and it can be tricky to
identify them with accuracy if you're not privy to ant classification
But lucky for us ant keepers the care of most commonly kept carpenter ants is very similar if not the same
Let's start with housing. What you house your carpenter ants in depends on what stage of colony development they're at.
So let's start with when you first catch your carpenter ant queen. If you've been a subscriber to this channel for quite some time,
you already know the first step when you catch your queen ant is to place her into a test tube set up
The test Tube setup is the best and surefire way to get your carpenter
ant colony started and not a formicarium right off the bat for a tutorial on how to create a test Tube setup click the icon appearing here now
Carpenter ant Queens are fully-claustral
so they don't need any food you don't need to feed them during this stage when they are raising their first set of workers
All she needs is peace and quiet
Now I know most of you currently have your camponotus queens that you caught earlier this year in your test Tube setups and are 100%
eager to grow your big carpenter ant colonies and move them into a formicarium
But I do have some potentially sad news
you shouldn't move your colony into a formicarium until they reach 20 to 50 workers and
This may take up to a year. A year you ask? Why so long?
Ok. There are two reasons. One: because Camponotus are such large ants
they take longer to develop than most ants. It takes two months for a carpenter ant to go from egg to worker
and reason two: Camponotus Queens tend to lay eggs in batches taking periodic breaks of a few weeks, or months between egg-laying batches
Carpenter ant Queens do not lay eggs around the clock like some ants so for these two reasons
Owners of Camponotus ants usually won't get to move their colony into a formicarium until year two
It's a pretty long process, so let me go over the typical Camponotus timeline. You catch a queen around June
She lays around ten or so eggs over the next few weeks
Which she cares for and raises into workers for two months. By the time winter comes around and all colony growth stops for hibernation
you may only have anywhere between 5 to 20 workers you may even possibly have zero workers and just developing Brood and
No, you can't trick your ants into thinking
It's still summer by keeping them warm in the winter because they run on a biological
clock which tells them when to shut down for the winter
For more on hibernating your ants guys, click on this icon for a tutorial on hibernation and how to hibernate your ants properly
Now if your colony is lucky enough to have 20 or more workers before winter comes
You can move them into a formicarium at this point
but it
Suggested you hibernate them in a test tube set up for their first winter because conditions are better and more stable for the new colony
in a test tube setup then in a formicarium over the winter throughout winter they will be hibernating in your test tube not eating
Or moving or developing the queen not egg-laying and then when spring rolls around
The Queen will start to slowly egg lay again in batches. When the colony reaches 20 to 50 workers
For most of you this will be around May or June. Only then should you move them into a formicarium
But by then this is around their one-year anniversary of you catching them now by the time winter of year two comes around
Your colony should have anywhere between 30 to 200 workers
Again hibernation of non-activity and growth passes and then by year 3 that is when you start to see the population explosion
Into the thousands. It's in this third year that the majors also appear and possibly alates
Two years... Now I know that might seem like quite a long wait for a colony to grow to an impressive size
but believe me
it's definitely worth it and
time passes by so quickly as you enjoy the little joys along the way like when your first worker arrives when your small colony has
its first meal a cricket leg or a tiny drop of honey watching your workers help unwrap a cocoon casing often eclosing ant
catching your queen laying an egg as seen here and just generally watching your colony go from just the queen to a colony of
Thousands this truly is what the ant keeping
Experience is all about and you'll appreciate and love your colony much more by the way just a note guys this wait time is less
for those living in tropical areas where camponotus are.
Obviously because these ant keepers don't have to deal with hibernation period. The colonies just grow year round
Either way Camponotus ants due to their slow development compared to other types of ants require a lot of patience. If you're the impatient type
Perhaps Camponotus ants aren't for you, or
Perhaps you can manage to chop up some logs and find colonies in their first or second year of development
This can be challenging however and chances of injuring the queen is super high in my opinion
Raising your colony from the start from just a single queen is the best and most fulfilling way
Versus collecting a wild colony at the risk of killing that colony in the process
So if you're looking to purchase a professional formicarium at our shop when your colony reaches 20 to 40 workers
I
highly recommend, the OmnI Nest or an all unique
Camponotus hybrid gear pack the links to those items are in the video description Box below in terms of nest hydration
Carpenter Ants are Generally moderately dry loving ants
I say moderately because they do need moisture in their nest, but they don't do well in wet nests
I recommend giving them a sort of hydration gradient where only a small part of the nest is moist
While the majority of the nest is dry. Keep in mind that although an area of a formicarium may look dry to us it
Usually still holds a certain degree of humidity and moisture
So don't get too water happy with these ants if you're keeping your ant in one of our camponotus, hybrid nests
Then you don't have to worry too much about getting their hydration right as the humidified areas are already laid out perfectly
To fit their preferences. Just water once every five days to a week
These ants do well in formicarium with pre-made tunnels and don't necessarily need to burrow in wood
Speaking of which contrary to what most people think these ants don't actually eat wood
They actually lack the digestive Microflora in their gut to digest cellulose like termites can instead
carpenter ants Burrow and break off wood fibres piece by piece until they create
extensive galleries and Tunnels
Another thing to note
is that your colony will grow and develop much faster when heated, so if you can place your colony in a warm room in your
Home that isn't air-conditioned or if you can heat your colony with a reptile heating cable this will speed up their growth
Only heat up one side of the nest not the whole nest so your ants can
thermoregulate and choose where they prefer to stay
Based on their needs and those of the young. For those of you with hybrid nests, you place the heating cable here
and you don't have to worry in terms of their out world these ants will benefit from a large out world or
Multiple out worlds connected together they love to travel far distances to forage for food
Place all their food directly in their out world
And they'll leave their garbage and dead in a pile somewhere in there a world for you to clean be sure to clean up after
Them regularly as a barrier to put along the top of the out world I use vaseline without problems
But you can also use baby powder mixed with rubbing alcohol and paint this mixture along the top of your outworld
Now let's go over diet
What do carpenter ants eat? The carpenter ants diet consists of both a protein food source in the form of freshly killed insects like mealworms
super worms, crickets, and feeder cockroaches
and they also need carbohydrates in the form of sugars like honey, sugar water, or
hummingbird nectar and Fresh fruits in the Wild
Carpenter Ants will eat dead or living insects, honeydew from aphids, sweet plant exudates, and other foods
It's best to offer a wide variety of foods to your ants and not just one food source
So your ants get all the nutrients
They need don't forget your ants also need a fresh supply of water offer via a test tube at all times
another thing I really love about
Carpenter Ants besides the fact that they are so big and I don't need a magnifying glass to really see what's going on is
The fact that carpenter ants are polymorphic. This means that the workers come in all shapes and sizes
Carpenter ant workers can be really small also known as miners which are often associated with taking care of Brood and nest duties
But carpenter ants can also have huge majors and super majors with huge heads
Specializing in cutting things up. You can expect majors in your colony
After they've reached over a hundred workers or so which means usually by year two or three. The super majors the really big workers
arrive a bit later if fed an ample amount of food and protein
Your carpenter ant colony will start to produce alates by the second or third year
Don't worry though these alates fail to fly in captivity because they lack the environmental cues needed for nuptial flights to happen
But if you like, assuming you caught your camponotus ants in your area, you can leave your ant set up somewhere outside
Perhaps in a shaded area to protect it from the elements and leave your out world top
Open for your alates to fly out and mate during nuptial flight season
The Carpenter ant species that most ant keepers catch are also native species
So doing so would be great for the propagation of the species and good for the environment
Thanks so much for watching this video on how to care for Camponotus ants
I wish you much luck on these amazing pet ants
And I know you've become as much of a fan as I am of carpenter ants
What other types of ants would you like me to create care videos on like this one? Let me know in the comments section
also, don't forget to subscribe to this video. Like, share, and leave me a comment
Because I love reading your comments
And I respond to as many of them as I can and stay tuned for our next video next Monday because we release a video
Every single week now. Thanks so much guys. Bye. Bye
Thanks so much for watching our video
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