Long-Term Efficacy of Two Cricket and Two Liver Diets for Rearing Laboratory Fire Ant Colonies (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Solenopsis invicta)

Abstract

Fire ant colonies thrived on diets of sugar water and either raw beef liver or raw chicken liver for almost 8 mo, after which brood production ceased in half of these colonies. As expected, colonies did well on a diet of sugar water and domestic crickets. Unexpectedly, however, banded crickets were much less suitable than either liver or domestic crickets.