Abstract
Nurturing, especially feeding ant colonies is a vital topic among ant researchers and ant keepers. Numerous factors contribute to growing healthy ant colonies rapidly, including, for instance, humidity levels and appropriate farming methods. Proper diet is also an essential consideration. Many articles contemplate the potential of artificial diets. Variable carbohydrate-based diets have been tested but the role of protein has largely been overlooked. We aimed to analyse the effects of these diets to be able to standardize and compare results of different laboratories. We assessed the most readily available, natural, inexpensive, known, and efficient diets to ensure optimal nutrition for ant colonies by analysing the development of 100 Lasius niger colonies. They were given four different carbohydrate-based diets in the first year and four different protein-based diets in the second year. Based on our findings, honey water was the best carbohydrate source. The best protein diet, however, consisted of crickets, which positively influenced not only the development but also the survival success of the colonies during the wintering period. Thus, we suggest rearing laboratory colonies of L. niger on honey water and crickets. It would be worth repeating this study with different ant species and doing biochemical analysis on the diets.