Orange Honeypot Ants (Myrmecocystus wheeleri)

General: Myrmecocystus wheeleri are large, orange, and have repletes (honeypots). They are truly one of the most interesting species of honeypots you can get! These ants are diurnal meaning they are most active in the light.

Diet: These ants need lots of sugars and protein. They love and do best with protein in very small pieces at a young colony stage, such as fruit flies or tiny pieces of mealworms/roaches. However, as the colony gets larger, you can feed them more and more food items. For sugars, sugarwater or honeywater works. Make sure that when the colony is young, they’re fed sugars consistently, and that once they get repletes, those repletes always stay full (and that you continue to feed them sugars, even when there are lots of repletes!)

Temperature: These colonies benefit from a heating gradient, and at the hottest point it should be around 82-86. Ensure there is an area that is cooler.

Diapause: If your ants seem to slow down during the fall or winter, simply take them off of the heat and let them be at room temperature or slightly below for about 4 weeks. If they do not show signs of faltering, just keep them growing! They might not need any diapause at all.

Growth: Brood development takes around 6-8 weeks. Usually it will take about 7 weeks, if heated and fed properly. Colonies can likely hit 1000 within a year, but most will only be in the hundreds.

Queen size: 12-14mm

Worker size: 3.5-5.5mm

Replete size: very large orbs

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