8 replies to this topic

[jjjakes]

For my first foray into ant keeping, I collected 6 queens that I believe are Camponotus sansabeanus on April 8th, 2015. All of them were found under rocks ranging from 3-6 inches and all had started digging nests. I put them into their test tube setups on April 9th along with a few cocoons I found in wild C. sansabeanus I uncovered while looking for the queens. So far, only one of the queens has laid any eggs, and she is the one I took pictures of.  This queen and a couple of the others appear to have accepted some of the cocoons I gave them.
 
Included in each test tube is a drop of honey. 
 

Edited by jjjakes, April 14 2015 - 10:28 AM.

[Gregory2455]

The images do not show up.

[dspdrew]

It looks like he tried to get a URL from a Gmail account or something.

[AntLover101]

Ya, I guess

[jjjakes]

Argh I don't want to go back to Photobucket... >.> Hopefully it works now. 

[Jonathan21700]

Beautiful queens! Good luck!

[dspdrew]

Those look identical to the ones we find around here that I'm starting to suspect are C. sansabeanus. Where did you find these?

[jjjakes]

I found these across the road from Seaworld here in San Antonio. All of the queens where under rocks, and they were everywhere. I've decided they are C. sansabeanus because of all the nests I've found in the area with all the queens. All of the workers look exactly like this: 

 

 

Oh and I went and found a few more, so now I have a total of 10 queens, and I also harvested a ton of eggs and small larva. Thankfully all of the queens accepted them and I've witnessed most of them lay their own eggs too. 

[jjjakes]

UPDATE: 5/5/15

I have exciting news and disappointing news. The disappointing part is, of the 10 Queens that I had, 2 have died. The exciting part is that I massively boosted all the rest with probably 10 cocoons and 10 larva each, and one queen now has 3 workers, and 2 other queens have 2. I expect 10 or so workers to hatch between the three of them in the next few days or so. 

 

And the icing on the cake is the C. sayi queen I caught about a month ago started laying eggs finally and she now has about 5.

 

Pictures to come tomorrow, when there is better light. 

Edited by jjjakes, May 5 2015 - 7:11 PM.