Harvester ant
Messor barbarus
Temperature
24–28 °C
Humidity
40–60 %
Hibernation
December – January
Where it comes from
- Range
- The Iberian Peninsula, southern France and North Africa
- Size
- Workers 3–14 mm, queen 14–18 mm
- Queens
- One queen
Keeping them
- Diet
- Seeds, with insects for the brood
- Founding
- Fully claustral — the queen needs no food until her first workers
- Brood development
- Egg to worker in roughly 5–7 weeks at 26 °C
- Nest
- Dry nest, dry outworld, and a separate dry chamber for the seed store
- Wintering
- 10–15 °C, a short and mild rest
Seed eaters that mill grain into bread in a dedicated chamber. Keep the seed store dry — damp seed moulds fast and takes the colony with it.
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.