AntForum

Hello,

I´ve made this topic just for share a bit of my knowledge with this community, so not a blog or somethink else.

You probably read a name of this ant species first time. Well , it is one of the rarest European species aswell.
There is not much documentation about them... , but I think it is good to know , that some of this kind lives here.
It lives more into East , for you as Benelux is nearest location south Austria or Slovakia where these ants lives.

Why I am so interested in study of these ants? It is only one specie in Europe , who make honey pot , like Myrmecocystus species in USA. In closely look , it is very similar to Prenolepis imparis in USA.
It is underground ant , what keep some species of root aphids , especially on roots of oak trees.

Worker: 3-3,8mm
Queen: 9mm + -
Color is about dark brown into red , queen brown into yellow.

At friday 25. March I was watching swarm of these ants all day in location where they live. I´ve made many HD videos of these ants , here is some sample , where you can see queen and males trying to copulate:



I´ve cought 17 queens what I now keep in laboratory nest for study. It is very difficult to keep , however I´ve tried it for several years with no success (queens always died in some days after cought...)...
Wish me a luck!

Here are some photos of the ants , if you have any question , you can ask me in this topic too...

I'd like to hear as soon as you have a successful colony.
I hope some queens survive this time.

It would be very interesting if a colony would survive and if they actually would make honeypot ants in captivity. If you succeed, please make some pictures.

By the way, some of those species are edibe, right? Is Prenolepis nitens also edible? You could have a delightful snack once in a time.

My queens has larvae at the moment and they are doing very well! I´ve discovered that they prefer to estamblish colony on its own - workers do not do anything bad , but I think that in some samples eggs has been eaten (probably by these workers..) , so in the future , if I would make an colony , probably the best choice from single queen only.
I will make photos soon.. (it is quite difficult to capture them)

Are they edible? - I´ve tested it with myrmecologists when we were in forest and damn , they are not so good snack ... it is not like sugar ... just ant , little bit acid

Good news!
I hope this is your first succesfull colony of this species.