12 replies to this topic

[BrittonLS]

Caught two queens a week ago.

One appears to be burrowing into the wet cotton or something, but the other has already laid a tiny pile of eggs, you can see it carrying one too after I accidentally knocked its tube off my desk with my microscope

 

 

 

Also I feel like my microscope is actually getting worse, can't say for sure lol. It has such a tiny depth of field though, I can't even get an entire ant in focus.

[BrittonLS]

August 13, 2015

First Nanitic for this species woo! And seems to be plenty more where he came from. He's rather feisty, you should have seem him chomping away at the cotton, very determined little guy.

[Gregory2455]

Mccooki/pruinosus hold a special place in my heart...

 

Nice colony by the way!

[BrittonLS]

Yeah, reading the care sheet on them has made me really look forward to this one.

[BrittonLS]

Now with more workers! And fed for the first time.

 

Up to 6 workers.

 

[William. T]

Now with more workers! And fed for the first time.

 

Up to 6 workers.

 

Nice colony! Forelius are hard to keep. Pop the champagne!

[BrittonLS]

Are they? Everyone told me so far they were easy! D:

[William. T]

Are they? Everyone told me so far they were easy! D:

Apologies. I read that they had a high "queen death" thing somewhere but after reading Crystal's guide, guess I'm wrong. Well, getting workers is still good.

[BrittonLS]

Jeez man, stop freaking me out, I was like, finally, I think I can raise a colony of this. Lol. To be fair, I caught 2 and the other died within the week.

[William. T]

Jeez man, stop freaking me out, I was like, finally, I think I can raise a colony of this. Lol. To be fair, I caught 2 and the other died within the week.

 

Again, sorry about that. I like to to see this journal thrive. 

[BrittonLS]

Sept 5, 2015

 

Bad news! Somehow the test tube went dry, I never changed it, but it seems weird to have gone dry so fast. It doesn't look like they dug threw it or anything I guess they were really really thirsty? The workers have all died and the queen seems very skinny, her gaster is barely bigger than her mesonoma. She has some brood left it looks like so hopefully she'll recover. She has maybe 6 larvae and two pupae left? It's hard to tell with them being so small, hopefully they haven't died as well so she'll be back on her feet faster. Though they're so small it's hard to tell if they're larva or torn up pupae that were eaten or something. She still seems pretty lively though? Good news is she gets upgraded to a glass test tube at least. >.>

 

[BrittonLS]

Second queen now has workers and the thirsty queen is now back to her plump self and back into the egg laying business. 

[BrittonLS]

After fighting hard it appears my last Forelius queen has passed away.

She was doing so well too, I was sure she was set to succeed. Perhaps her test tube collected too much moisture and she drowned or some fungus in the tube from food left in too long. I can't be sure. How ironic after her few nanitics died to running out of water. Not sure how that happened, I may have pressed the cotton of the second tube too much and it over saturated. I recently got some tubing that I'm using to connect new test tubes, it probably needs more ventilation. It's so tragic since she has a beautiful pile of brood left behind, probably 20 larvae alone, not to mention eggs and 5 workers walking around. I'll probably try to see if I can't dig up another queen since Vendayn says they are highly polygynous and I can share her legacy. Not sure how they'll be with all the rain we've been having recently and it getting colder.  I'll continue here if I manage to grab one. 

Edited by BrittonLS, November 1 2015 - 10:24 AM.