3 replies to this topic

[AntJohnny]

I caught a formica queen a few weeks ago. She layed 11 eggs within a few days.

I checked on them about once a week, to see the changes they made. 9 eggs went to larva stage pretty fast, and then the pupa stage in a cacoon. I'm not sure how many days excatly.

2 of the eggs seemed to mature allot slower. They were barely through there larval stage by the time all the others were already wrapped. The other night I checked on them expecting to see cacoons. Instead they seemed like they bypassed the cacoon spining stage. They went from looking like a maggot to a worker shape nearly over night it seemed.

I know some species don't spin cacoons. I always thought it was one or the other. Does anyone know if this is common.

She had no eggs when I caught her. I can only think that maybe the queen didn't have enough fat reserves to give the larve enough nutrients. She doesn't seemed malnoutished. And I gave her a drop of honey that she did eat the day I caught her.

[123LordOfAnts123]

Formica larvae form cocoons a lot better - and perhaps at times even require - a suitable substrate to spin silk upon.

In preferred and natural conditions, members of the genus have varying pupal preferences according to species, with some producing mostly cocooned pupae with the occasional naked, to almost always naked pupae. Immature sexuals generally always occur in cocoons. Sometimes larvae are cocooned at first only to have their covering removed at a later stage in development.

Whatever the case, naked pupae in Formica is hardly a rare occurrence. The queens or workers don’t tend to notice a difference.

[Will230145]

Formica does both, if they're in a test tube set up you would want them to be naked, as they are safe. But you don't want them to make a cocoon because the cotton can strangle them if they're not careful. It is also very normal to have both in a Formica colony, mine are about half naked and half wrapped.

[AntJohnny]

Thank you so much for the replies. I feel allot better now lol. I hate feeling like I'm doing something wrong. I have so many colonies now it's hard keeping up with them. I bought 500 dubia roaches and 500 mealworms. Once I started feeding them to my colonies they all started exploding.