23 replies to this topic

[Vendayn]

No, I got it from the river. Its finely grained, and the Pogonomyrmex love it. I recommend mixing a bit of dirt into a sandmix though, to hold it up better.

 

If you don't have any sand near you, what I find also very good is hermit crab sand. It holds up VERY well, and is really good quality. Can get it at petsmart or petco.

[Foogoo]

If you're putting it into tubes I'd recommend pushing the cotton waterplug down a bit so water can wick through the sand. The ones I didn't do this it stays loose and the queens can't dig in it so they go back to cotton tugging.

[Vendayn]

There was aggression for around 5-7 days. Which was strange, as the first three days they got on just fine.

 

Only with three of the six queens was there aggression however. The other three queens got on just fine. One of those I took out (as the workers would have nothing to do with her), but she died for other reasons. One queen I left and she got accepted by both the colony and the other three queens. The remaining fifth queen, I'm not sure if she made it or not. I think she did, but I don't know.

 

So, with the colony there is four or five queens in the end. No more aggression or anything. They've been eating, and doing a lot of digging. From what I can see, there is tons of eggs too. But, I haven't looked too much as I don't want to disturb them as that might make the queens get attacked again or something. I did pick up the container and saw around 200-300 eggs, and that was a few days ago. The entire bottom of the container was filled with eggs. That is a LOT of eggs for such a short time period, and I didn't even take a good look, so could have been more.

 

My last colony in Drew's formicarium, they had around 100 eggs or so. But, that was over a 3 week period. So, I guess having more queens leads to more eggs.

Edited by Vendayn, June 19 2015 - 12:37 PM.

[Vendayn]

I took a look, and from what I can see. Its probably 400+ eggs already. They cover the entire bottom of the container (and its a pretty big storage container) and in large piles. I definitely didn't get those when I got them, as all I got was a couple pupa and some larvae. I'd have seen that many when I dug into their nest, as I barely dug deep at all and most of them I got from lifting rocks and there wasn't much brood under them (except the queens).

 

This is going to be a big colony...

Edited by Vendayn, June 20 2015 - 7:56 PM.