Anyone breeding termits?

Xenoblatta

Xenoblatta

Third Instar
Hello there guys,

I was just wondering, ¿Is there anyone here breeding any from the infraorder Isoptera?

Related pic: Some individuals that I've just found in my house :-) 

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No, but I have been tempted to keep some of the dampwood termites (Zootermopsis sp.) in the past, my mom does not want me keeping any though. 

Nice pictures, are you culturing those? 

 
Well, I'll try to make a culture from these... There was a nuptial flight on these days and hopefully I'll get a royal couple. I found also some workers and maybe secondary breeders (perhaps...?) eating old clothes, so I guess this is not a picky species :-)

I suppose that could be a very good food for tiny insectivores!! 

 
When you find the winged reproductives, the others you see are the soldiers kicking them out and the few workers are there to patch up any damage to the swarm tube. If you watch the alates(swarmers)after they drop their wings, there will be a female with a male in hot pursuit behind her. Or at least this is info for the eastern subterranean termite Reticulitermes flavipens. They will not survive long outside of a moist substrate.

 
I have a colony of eastern subterranean termites in a glass container covered with dark paper. They don't do much and avoid the sides of the glass, unfortunately- usually I only see them when they come above ground when there's a heavy rain outside.

There's lots of secondary reproductives but they don't seem to have produced any nymphs so far.

 
I had to leave for 2 weeks a while back and the substrate dried out and all the termites died... it was doing quite well up until that point though. Eating lots of cardboard, saw a lot of new nymphs etc. 

if you want a colony vigorous enough to feed off you should start with as many termites as you can capture. I recommend setting a bunch of termite traps to collect termites for the colony and to feed your frogs for as long as possible before it gets too cold to collect them outside. Like, I'm talking a giant bin filled with a ton of substrate and cardboard and thousands of termites. Otherwise you might not have enough to last through the winter.

 
I used to keep a colony of subterranean termites, they didn't really do much to be honest. They eventually died off after me forgetting about them in the garage. I kept them could I could never keep any ants lol.

 
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