Red-barbed ant
Formica rufibarbis
Temperature
22–26 °C
Humidity
50–70 %
Hibernation
October – March
Where it comes from
- Range
- Europe from Portugal to western Siberia, on sandy grassland and heath
- Size
- Workers 4–7 mm, queen 8–10 mm
- Queens
- One to three queens
Keeping them
- Diet
- Sugar water and insects
- Founding
- Fully claustral — the queen needs no food until her first workers
- Brood development
- Egg to worker in roughly 5–7 weeks at 25 °C
- Nest
- A dry sandy nest with a big, sunlit outworld
- Wintering
- 5–10 °C
Sharp-eyed and very fast, and it sprays formic acid when annoyed. Common on the continent but critically endangered in Britain, so buy captive stock rather than digging a nest up.
Check it yourself
General guidance from the usual beginner references — treat it as a starting point, not as a rule your colony has agreed to.