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rebeccmeisterThe series of interconnected boxes on the right side of this photo are a large colony of the Red Seed-Harvester Ant, Pogonomyrmex barbatus. That includes the big rectangular foraging arena with 2 pieces of gray acrylic on it.
I'm not sure if this colony was ever used for research or not, but I can tell you that this nest was partly designed to more closely mimic the actual nest architecture of this species. [Although when it gets down to it, it's still only a crude imitation - watch my friend A's video featuring WT and his research to learn more about the study of ant nest architecture. WT has just published a book on the topic!]
Over time, however, this colony has outgrown its nest and started figuring out how to chew through things and escape. So it was time for an upgrade.
The most amusing part of the upgrade process, to me, was seeing a whole line of different people come into the lab to prod the existing nest and try, unsuccessfully, to patch things up. Eventually I talked with two of the main stakeholders to work out a plan for who would do what to rebuild the nest. I procured some containers for it, and then K set about preparing them by drilling holes and pouring dental plaster.
The new design looks much more clean than the old design. I'm fond of pointing out that a person can spend a lifetime just building a better ant nest, but I'll also note that there are often very good reasons to improve upon previous designs.
This design has a central "elevator" tube connecting down to the ground floor, as you can see here:
K also put in some vent holes covered with mesh to make it possible to water the plaster chambers as needed.
By yesterday, he finally had enough free time to start the nest transfer process.
He's wearing nitrile gloves because these ladies are pretty good at stinging, especially when their home is threatened. I don't think he wound up using his aspirator much.
What you see up above is right after plugging the main entrance tube connecting the nest to the foraging arena, and putting the existing nest chambers out into the foraging arena. The white tray in the background was supposed to be for secondary containment, but as you can see, it has gotten rather full of escaped ants by now. This species isn't great at climbing, so it's possible to knock the ants into a corner and pour them into the foraging arena.
The foraging arena with the old nest pieces in it:
Here, the panicked ants have found the tube connecting to the new nest.
Except they may have released enough alarm pheromone to cause a traffic jam:
Early stages of exploration:
Eventually, to help expedite the migration, K lifted the lids off of the old nest chambers. Here's the main brood chamber, stuffed chock full of larvae and pupae. If you look closely you can also spot the queen:
More ants have moved in:
Panicked ants quickly started ferrying the brood into another container that still had a lid:
So K helped them find the correct route to take by dumping brood in front of the nest entrance:
Workers continued to run back and forth through the tube:
Here's one hauling a larva:
The queen is out of the old brood chamber but not yet into the new nest:
K gradually continued to remove the old nest containers from the foraging arena. Here you can see the old granary (seed-storage chamber) with the lid off. Plus, the brood piles, of course.
The brood-ferrying efforts continue. Sometimes they get ferried into the new nest, other times they got ferried back out:
Eventually the brood started to make it to some of the plaster chambers. The workers who made it into the new plaster chambers also all started grooming themselves and each other. That's what's causing the clustering you see here.
I went home at around 5, but K stayed to watch and facilitate the transition until around 7:30 or 8 pm. He was worried about whether the queen would make it into the new nest. By this morning, I spotted her down in the central chamber, indicating that the transfer process was successful.
Younger workers hanging out in the new containers:
Day 2, the granary was reestablished and brood all transported into the new nest:
Although a pile of seeds still remains in the foraging arena:
So that was fun.
I'm not sure if this colony was ever used for research or not, but I can tell you that this nest was partly designed to more closely mimic the actual nest architecture of this species. [Although when it gets down to it, it's still only a crude imitation - watch my friend A's video featuring WT and his research to learn more about the study of ant nest architecture. WT has just published a book on the topic!]
Over time, however, this colony has outgrown its nest and started figuring out how to chew through things and escape. So it was time for an upgrade.
The most amusing part of the upgrade process, to me, was seeing a whole line of different people come into the lab to prod the existing nest and try, unsuccessfully, to patch things up. Eventually I talked with two of the main stakeholders to work out a plan for who would do what to rebuild the nest. I procured some containers for it, and then K set about preparing them by drilling holes and pouring dental plaster.
The new design looks much more clean than the old design. I'm fond of pointing out that a person can spend a lifetime just building a better ant nest, but I'll also note that there are often very good reasons to improve upon previous designs.
This design has a central "elevator" tube connecting down to the ground floor, as you can see here:
K also put in some vent holes covered with mesh to make it possible to water the plaster chambers as needed.
By yesterday, he finally had enough free time to start the nest transfer process.
He's wearing nitrile gloves because these ladies are pretty good at stinging, especially when their home is threatened. I don't think he wound up using his aspirator much.
What you see up above is right after plugging the main entrance tube connecting the nest to the foraging arena, and putting the existing nest chambers out into the foraging arena. The white tray in the background was supposed to be for secondary containment, but as you can see, it has gotten rather full of escaped ants by now. This species isn't great at climbing, so it's possible to knock the ants into a corner and pour them into the foraging arena.
The foraging arena with the old nest pieces in it:
Here, the panicked ants have found the tube connecting to the new nest.
Except they may have released enough alarm pheromone to cause a traffic jam:
Early stages of exploration:
Eventually, to help expedite the migration, K lifted the lids off of the old nest chambers. Here's the main brood chamber, stuffed chock full of larvae and pupae. If you look closely you can also spot the queen:
More ants have moved in:
Panicked ants quickly started ferrying the brood into another container that still had a lid:
So K helped them find the correct route to take by dumping brood in front of the nest entrance:
Workers continued to run back and forth through the tube:
Here's one hauling a larva:
The queen is out of the old brood chamber but not yet into the new nest:
K gradually continued to remove the old nest containers from the foraging arena. Here you can see the old granary (seed-storage chamber) with the lid off. Plus, the brood piles, of course.
The brood-ferrying efforts continue. Sometimes they get ferried into the new nest, other times they got ferried back out:
Eventually the brood started to make it to some of the plaster chambers. The workers who made it into the new plaster chambers also all started grooming themselves and each other. That's what's causing the clustering you see here.
I went home at around 5, but K stayed to watch and facilitate the transition until around 7:30 or 8 pm. He was worried about whether the queen would make it into the new nest. By this morning, I spotted her down in the central chamber, indicating that the transfer process was successful.
Younger workers hanging out in the new containers:
Day 2, the granary was reestablished and brood all transported into the new nest:
Although a pile of seeds still remains in the foraging arena:
So that was fun.
