3 replies to this topic

[kellakk]

6-10-15

 

On May 29 I met Foogoo to return his bucket trap that I had been borrowing.  We went into Chino Hills State Park because I had seen P. californicus staging for a flight the previous evening.  The first P. californicus colony we hit, the workers were swarming all around the entrance to their nest.  We saw the leks form and only took alates that we had seen mating or dealates wandering around. I came back home with 15 queens.  I came back the next day and found what might have been hundreds more all along the trails, but only kept 4.

 

I put 6 of these queens into test tubes, 2 more into grout nests connected to foraging containers, and the rest into dirt formicaria.  I combined some of the queens both to conserve space and because they seemed to get along.  The queens in test tubes and the queens in the grout nests have all laid upwards of 5 eggs each by now.

[Mdrogun]

Update?

[Foogoo]

Update?

Ditto, would love to know how yours are doing.

 

Of the ones I have remaining, one has a good colony going. Another has a small colony but they seem to be doing a little weird. Another one is still a dud. Not counting a few I gave away, the rest are long gone.

[kellakk]

I forgot I even made this journal.  I ended up with 3 good colonies, one of which I sold and another I gave away.  The colony I have left is doing fantastic, with probably 20-30 pupae waiting to eclose.  They have around 30 workers or more right now. They would have had more, but they had a civil war a while back that may have had something to do with the fact that I started the colony with two queens.