Long-Term Efficacy of Two Cricket and Two Liver Diets for Rearing Laboratory Fire Ant Colonies (Hymenoptera: Formicidae:Solenopsis invicta)

The Effects of Laboratory Rearing Diet on Recruitment Behavior of Wasmannia Auropunctata (Hymenoptera: Formicidaea)

“…Brood production and colony growth of ants is known to cease without insect supplementation (Vogt 2003;Kay et al 2010;Gavilanez-Slone & Porter 2014;Porter et al 2015), whereas low carbohydrate diets are known to cause high worker mortality and reduced colony activity (Kay et al 2006;Cook et al 2010;Gavilanez-Slone & Porter 2014). Therefore, all colonies received whole dead crickets and 25% sugar water ad libitum in addition to their experimental dietary treatment.…”

“…The advantages of artificial laboratory diets are numerous and include yr-round availability, and the ability for researchers to manipulate and control nutrient content (Ennis et al 2015). Laboratory diets for W. auropunctata, as with many ant species, requires a mixture of carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids, along with some insect matter as a source of chitin to ensure prolonged colony health and survival (Williams et al 1987;Porter et al 2015). Several laboratory diets have been developed and reported as effective for rearing S. invicta, a species often used in laboratory studies.…”

“…Several laboratory diets have been developed and reported as effective for rearing S. invicta, a species often used in laboratory studies. All such diets require nutrient supplementation with insect matter such as mealworms, or whole crickets, for continued brood production and colony growth (Bhatkar & Whitcomb 1970;Williams et al 1987;Keller 1989;Porter et al 2015). The disadvantage of nutritionally defined laboratory diets is that they are consistent and homogenous, which does not reflect the constantly changing nutritional needs of the colony or the temporal and spatial variability of the supply of these nu-trients.…”

Solenopsis Invicta Virus 3: Infection Tests with Adult Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

“…Our fire ant stock colonies remained consistently free of the virus because of careful rearing hygiene . Ant colonies were held in small black boxes with 2 nest tubes (Porter et al 2015a) at the same temperature as the honey bees, but with a 12:12 h L:D photoperiod. Fire ants were starved for 31 h before treatment.…”

“…The bees were not starved as long as the ants because they have a much higher metabolic rate and would not have tolerated the 1 to 3 d starvation period we normally use when dosing ants. After treatment, ant colonies received domestic crickets (Acheta domesticus [L.]; Orthoptera: Gryllidae) 3 times per week and continuous access to small tubes of 1.5 M sugar water (Porter et al 2015a).…”