I ran an experiment over the weekend and the results (which I will post later in the week) from the Tweedlies were very disappointing to say the least. The orphans did very well though.

The Tweedlies (and the orphans) are in standard ant world ant farms like the one here-


The Tweedlie ant farm only had one magnifying box connected via one of the portals (see diagram) which made the other portal a dead end. I decided they might have performed so badly in the experiment because of this.

I decided to attach one end of a tube to the capped off portal of the Tweedlie colony and attach the other to the magnifying creating a loop.

I slowly removed the cap and saw a wee black leg and head poke out. So I put my thumb over the portal cap and quickly jammed the tube onto the portal. Immediately three ants shot out into the tube like retarded bullets, falling over each other and it looked like two were having go at the 3rd.

So I peeked into the cap that I had covered with my thumb. It contained two ants and about 40 eggs, looks like they had been using it as their nursery which make sense because it’s the darkest part of the ant farm.

I dropped the cap into magnifying box and by the morning the eggs and the two ands had disappeared, ants are cool :)

Food
I managed to kill a jumping spider that was preventing me from brushing my teeth and a fly. The tweedlies ignored the fly and dragged the dead spider about for a bit then left it. I gave the spider to the orphans who quickly attacked the already dead spider for several minutes then ate it. So the Tweedlies win the gay ant award this week. Both colonies have been eating the honey well.