Food is one of the pillars of successful keeping. Good news: ants are not demanding, and their menu comes down to three simple things: water, sugars, proteins.
1. Water, the absolute basis
Before food, it’s water you must guarantee. A dehydrated ant dies within a few days. Ways to provide water:
- Wet cotton in the test tube (founding)
- Humidity reservoir built into the nest (moistened Ytong, plaster)
- Water dish in the outworld (a small pot with wet cotton)
Prefer filtered or still mineral water over tap water (which sometimes contains too much chlorine). Distilled water isn’t ideal as it’s too low in minerals.
2. Sugars (carbohydrates)
Sugars provide the workers’ daily energy. Main sources:
- Honeydew: the most natural food, rich and balanced
- Homemade sugar water: 1 spoon of honey in 10 spoons of water
- Fresh fruit: pieces of banana, apple, pear, grape
- Diluted sugar: 5-10% in water (an alternative to honey)
Offer a drop of sugar water every 2-3 days in a small dish or directly on a flat surface in the outworld.
3. Proteins
Proteins are needed for larval growth and the queen’s egg-laying. Sources:
- Fruit flies (live or frozen): the perfect food for small colonies
- Mealworms (Tenebrio molitor): for large colonies, cut into pieces
- Crickets (small): very nutritious, offer in pieces
- Dead insects you find (flies, butterflies, grasshoppers): free and natural
Overloading on proteins causes mould and stresses the colony. One fruit fly per week for 50 workers, one mealworm per month for 500 workers: that’s plenty.
Frequencies by colony size
| Colony size | Sugar | Proteins |
|---|---|---|
| 10-30 workers | 1 drop / 3 days | 1 fruit fly / week |
| 50-200 | 1 spoonful / 3 days | 2-3 fruit flies / week |
| 500-1000 | Small dish / 3 days | 1 cricket or mealworm / 10 days |
| 2000+ | Dish / 2 days | Several mealworms / week |
Special cases
Messor barbarus: feed with a mix of small seeds (poppy, chia, flax, fonio). Proteins are a supplement, not the staple.
Atta sexdens: feed exclusively with fresh leaves (rose, raspberry, mulberry). They use them to cultivate their symbiotic fungus.
Fruit fly (drosophila) breeding kit
Breeding tube + nutritive medium to produce fruit flies at will for your ants.
Pure natural honeydew
The natural sugary food ants love most. A single small bottle lasts for years.
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