Sweetwater

Thecoolant

Queen
Ecosystem Beta Tester
Sweetwater is also known as honey dew it is secreted by aphids and when the ants tuch the aphids they secrete this.Wood ants in particular find this irisistible and love to harvest aphids they even treat them like cows and bring them inside the nest to protect them and in the morning they take them out and feed them plant sap.This is called a symbiotic relationship.This is so cool isn’t it.
 

Rensy

Colony
Sweetwater is also known as honey dew it is secreted by aphids and when the ants tuch the aphids they secrete this.Wood ants in particular find this irisistible and love to harvest aphids they even treat them like cows and bring them inside the nest to protect them and in the morning they take them out and feed them plant sap.This is called a symbiotic relationship.This is so cool isn’t it.
Sweetwater is also known as honey dew it is secreted by aphids and when the ants tuch the aphids they secrete this.Wood ants in particular find this irisistible and love to harvest aphids they even treat them like cows and bring them inside the nest to protect them and in the morning they take them out and feed them plant sap.This is called a symbiotic relationship.This is so cool isn’t it.
yes, pretty much. But its not only wood ants that love the honeydew, hundreds or thousands of other species find the honeydew nutritious and tasty to eat.
 

Scyobi_Empire

Colony
Extremely Helpful Person
Ecosystem Beta Tester
All ants and many non ants do, but not all farm it. Look at Eciton Burchellii. They don't farm Aphids but will drink any honeydew they find.
 

Durburz

Worker
The species Lasius Flavus who live primarily underground actually build seperate chambers for their root aphids they keep underground. They have access to root aphids that create honeydew from grass roots, but of course also many other plants, how efficient is that? It's even suggested through research that Lasius Flavus maintains the same principle as humans when it comes to keeping cattle; the young and most efficient aphids work for honeydew and those that are too old or not working hard enough are butchered for food. There is a world or miracles beneath our feet and most people will never become aware of it.

I currently have 2 colonies of L. Flavus that I will be creating setups for that is going to recreate the underground environment so I can see what they do and how they do it. Still haven't figured out an easy way to obtain root aphids other than stealing plants + roots from the lasius flavus colonies in the wild and hope there is some of these aphids on the roots.
 
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