Lasius niger caresheet
Introduction
Ah yes. Good old Lasius niger. The golden standard for every beginner ant keeper. These ants are fun, good sized and very easy to keep as pets.
Food
Lasius Niger's are not picky eaters. They love sugars that come from fruit, sugarwater or ant jellys. For protein the best food for them is fruitflies, mealworms, crickets and other smaller insects.
If you feed insects from the wild freeze or boil these insects to sterilize them. Skipping this step can introduce mites to your colony.
Nest
Lasius Niger does not hibernate but has a diapause. Keeping these ants around 10-15 degrees during November until March greatly befinits these ants and will stimulate brood production after hibernation.
Hibernation
Lasius Niger will do well in almost any formicarium or ant farm. The Esthetic Ants nests are all perfect for this species and your ants will trive in them.
Species information
Lasius Niger is the most common ant species in Europe. They are everywhere and like to nest in urban places and cities. Nests may occur in walls, pavements, tree stumps in open woodland, pasture and open heath.
Lasius Niger is monogyne meaning their can only be one egg laying queen in the colony. Colonies can grow up to 10,000 workers!
These ants have nuptial flights from July until September. A nuptial flight is a fenonamon where new ant queens (alates) fly out of the nest to meet and breed with ants from other colonies.
Workers get around 3 to 6 mm long and the queen is around 8 to 9 mm long. This species is medium size for an European species.
Temperature
Lasius Niger does not need to be heated. Keeping them at room temperature is more then fine. Heating these ants will speed up the brood progress but is not needed.
Sting/bite
These ants don't sting or bite. They are not agressive and will only become more active when disturbed.