If you taking care of Camponotus ants aka Carpenter ants, you may consider what do Camponotus ants eat. Knowing exactly what and when to feed them will give you the best chance of expanding a healthy colony of Camponotus ants.
What do Camponotus ants eat?
Camponotus ants eat high protein sources like mealworms, super worms, crickets, and bugs, and honey, fruits, and sugary water as sources for their sugar requirements. Camponotus ants do not eat wood even though they prefer making nests on them.
Camponotus ants are naturally aware of the nutritions they intake, such as protein and carbohydrates because they are sort of species that work really hard. Therefore I want you to stick with me here and take all of the tips I share in this article about feeding Camponotus ants.
What do you feed Camponotus ants?
According to research done in the late 90s, Camponotus ants are traveling longer distances searching for foods that benefit the nutrition requirement of their colony.
Among the nutritions that Camponotus ants prefer, they give major priority to sources that can provide high protein, followed by sources that can provide sugar.
Scientists have found that Camponotus ants frequently feed on specific sources of high protein, even though they do not have a particular preference for sugar. They will rely on any basis that provides sugar.
Now let’s dive into finding out what do Campontus ants eat and how you can feed them.
You can also give live worms, but I don’t recommend that because it might be a risk of digestion issues.
High Protein sources
- Mealworms
Mealworm is the best source of natural protein we can provide when we feed ants. A mealworm is made with a Cartilage exoskeleton and a fleshy body which is a high source of protein. Therefore, Camponotus ants would love to eat mealworms.
Here’s how you should feed mealworms to carpenter ants.
- If you catch the live mealworms put them in the freezer so they will die without pain.
- Crush their head and boil in water.
- Now let your Carpenter ants eat.
- Superworms
This is also a fabulous source of high protein that Componotus ants eat. Superworms are pretty similar to mealworms with the nutrition they contain.
But there is a little thing you have to consider when feeding super worms or mealworms to your carpenter ants.
Worms consist of a sticky intestine inside their body. Rarely some ants stick the particles of the intestine in their jaw. In some cases that can turn out to be fatal by starving ants to death.
The solution would be removing the intestine of the worm, or feeding your ants with tiny particles of the worm.
Here’s a thing to remember.
If you are serving Superworms to your Campnontus ants you have to make sure you crush their heads up front.
Here’s why. This is an experience of an ant keeper I found on the AntsCanada forum.
If you feed superworms remember to crush them, young colonies don’t really have the strength to tier them apart on their own.
Ants Canada
Also read: Do ants eat mealworms?
- Crickets
Crickets are known to be the most popular ant-feeding insects among ant enthusiasts.
There are a few benefits that ant keepers discuss of using crickets over worms to feed Campnontus ants.
Crickets are very easy to find and cheap and can be stored for longer. Moreover, worms have a higher fat percentage compared to crickets. So cricket is enriched with pure protein.
Crickets can be fed to Camponotus ants either live or killed.
If you are feeding live crickets to your Camponotus ant colony, first, you have to crush the head of them. Therefore ants can easily tear the prey into biteable particles.
But I recommend this method if your colony is large enough.
Camponotus ants eat dried crickets with no hesitation. Just pour the insects into the water before presenting them. It will make the process easier for ants.
- Fruit flies & Drosophila flies
This is known to be one of the cheapest and easiest ways to feed enough protein for ants.
Because fruit flies and Drosophila flies can be easily found in the garden.
Young colonies of Camponotus ants would love these flies and bugs. Here’s what one of the ant enthusiasts stated about these flies.
“I always recommend Drosophila flies as a protein source for young colonies because it is easy for the ants to clean up whatever they don’t eat and harder to over-feed them. I have never seen a colony that will turn down vinegar flies. ”
Ants Canada
- Cockroaches
I have personally experienced that Cockroach is one of the favorite meals of Camponotus ants. But don’t give the live Cockrache to a smaller colony. It can make the vice versa happen.
Sugar sources
Sugary sources are compiled with enough carbohydrates to provide energy for ants. It will allow the worker ants to work more productively for the expansion of the colony.
- Sugar water
As much as every other ant species prefers, Camponotus ants feed on sugar water.
It provides them with a quick boost of energy with pure carbohydrates. All you have to do is to mix water and sugar by the 3:1 water and sugar.
- Honey
You can’t neglect honey when you talk about what Camponotus ants eat. Honey does the same as sugar water in the perspective of nutrients.
However, many ant keepers advised me that sugar water is a better option than honey.
- Maple syrup
Even though this is a bit expensive, maple syrup looks to be one of the best sources of concentrated sugar for ants to feed on.
Maple syrup is made from the sugar maple tree.
- Fruits
Camponotus ants would love to eat fruits to intake more sugar into their body. Apples are widely used as a fruit for Camponotus ants to eat.
Please remember not to use any Oranges, Citrus, Lemon, or Grapes as food for any kind of ants. They can be too sensitive for ants.
Sugar water or honey for Camponotus ants?
I have seen some people often conflict about why you can’t give pure honey to your Camponotus ants.
And as I said, I have been advised to use more sugar water than honey. Do you know what is the reason?
Here is the explanation.
Pure honey won’t matter for ants and it’s feedable. But the thing is, the aggressive eaters will trap the honey and die because of its higher viscosity. So the sugar water looks safer to feed your ants.
But if you really want to feed Camponotus ants with honey, you can just dilute honey with some water until it loses.
Caring facts to know when feeding Camponotus ants?
I would like to share some facts regarding to feeding your Camponotus ant colony. Some of these facts came up with my own experience, and the experiences of others involved in keeping carpenter ants.
- Each Colony has its own personality for food preference
When talking about what Camponotus ants eat, one source of food that is preferred by a colony may be utterly rejected by another colony.
For example, if one colony is rejecting mealworms, another colony can eat mealworms as their primary dish.
- Do testing food on each colony
You can test what kind of food is preferred by which Camonotus colony. And also don’t forget to measure how much they are going to eat. Note them down and stick to those levels. Don’t go over or under.
You should provide food to Camponotus ants in tiny biteable pieces. Researchers found that the hair in their mouths restricts them from eating large particles of food.
Also, their mouth has kind of a pouch that indicates if the food is too large to bite. Then they will spit out the food.
Moreover, large food particles can not go through the Proventriculus and the small body area between the fore and mid stomach.
Can Camponotus ants eat solid food?
Although it is not their utmost favor, Camponotus ants eat solid food occasionally. Camponotus ants can be fed by such solid foods like cooked meat or scrambled eggs for a higher protein supply.
If you want to test out solid food for your Camponotus ants, my recommendation is to try cooked meat or boiled eggs.
When should I feed Camponotus ants with protein?
Protein is essential in the diet of Camponotus ants as they are adapted to travel longer distances to search for protein.
It really affected the expansion of the colony, because the queen mainly considered the protein and whole food portions they left with.
Protein should be fed to Camponotus ants either when the queen does not have a move on laying eggs or once the queen starts to lay a new batch of eggs.
Queen won’t lay any more eggs or feed the broods if she feels they don’t have enough protein.
After the queen lays enough eggs, she preserves protein for her colony by not consuming protein. Instead, she nourishes herself by shredding her leaves and flight muscles.
So how often you should feed Camponotus ants?
Feed Camponotus ants every 2-3 days with sugar, and feed with protein every 12-14 days.
Camponotus ants can survive maximally for 5-6 days without sugar. In contrast, they can survive up to one month to one and a half months.
But there’s a little problem.
Queen will stop laying eggs from 2 weeks if you cut off protein from ants. Indeed, they do not feed the brood.
Therefore here’s what I recommend.
Always keep food on the colony. Sugary food like honey can even be kept for months without any issues. Protein sources such as bugs and flies can be kept up to a week.
Then you may think that this may overfeed the Camponotus ant colony.
Absolutely not!
We do not force them to eat. They always have the freedom. Nevertheless, ants are genetically adapted not to overfeed. In fact, they are adapted to save food for the future.
So you do not have to think about how not to overfeed ants when you considering what Camponotus ants eat 🙂
Do Camponotus ants eat seeds?
Camponotus ants eat seeds since they are attracted to the limited Fructose sugar content on the seeds.
The Fructose sugar content of a seed is called the food part. They collect seed and rely on the food part, and even on the whole seed in some cases.
When they only eat the food part of the seed, they store the seed somewhere in their nest. Biologists say that those seeds have more chances to germinate quickly.
Here’s a statement I found from an ank keeper in a community. According to him, Camponotus ants probably eat the seeds because ants take the seeds back to their nests when he keep the seeds somewhere in the tube.
“ I have a small colony of Camponotus novaeboracensis. Last year when I got them I gave them assorted seeds as I do with all my new colonies to see if they will take them. Well they did take them, a lot of them and filled their test tube with seeds plus the tube connected to their outworld. The people who I’ve spoken with say camponotus don’t eat seeds. I’ve never seen them actually chewing on the seeds so if their not eating them why would they take so many and fill their tubes with them? “
Formiculture
Do Carpenter ants eat termites?
Camponotus ants are the same species that is known as the carpenter ants.
Both the Carpenter ants and termites usually live inside the wood. Termites are soft-bodied insects that are not naturally adapted to self-defense. Therefore, carpenter ants will kill and eat termites when termites try to enter the empire of ants.
Here’s something interesting.
Naturally, ants are enemies of termites. Carpenter ants build their nests closer to termite mounds because it is always an alternative source of food.
Moreover, fire ants build little nests inside termite mounds to supply food for their main colony.
Here’s a complete article I wrote for you to know about do ants eat termites. Read it. It’s FREE!
Do Camponotus ants eat wood?
It is widely argued that do Camponotus ants eat wood or not.
Camponotus ants do not eat wood. Instead they chew wood and spit them out when they dig into the wood to build their nest.
So don’t put some wood into the tube and wait by expecting Camponotus ants to eat all the wood. Nothing is going to happen 🙁