8 replies to this topic

[CozmoDog]

Hey guys I watched most of the journals you all made and I wanted to start my own. It's not gonna be the best, also since I'm starting quite late being new on this forum and all there may be some timeskips in the pictures(if I find a way to post any using my mobile phone)well here I go. During late winter of 2015 just before spring as I was walking my dog I Found a bunch of queens since it rained heavily the day before but only captured one my first ever ant queen(didn't even know species)when I put her in a test tube I assumed it would take her a while to settle in and lay eggs but to my surprise she had already laid 4 eggs by the next morning. I left her be for a couple of months and after a while I checked on her and she had a bunch of pupae and larvae. Excited as I was I couldn't hold back and so I checked the next day as well and there they were my first ever nanitics I decided to give them some honey and I also caught the worker feeding the queen her first meal (it's abit blurry sorry about that) after a couple of weeks alot of the worker pupae eclosed bringing the worker count to 7 the queen immediately started laying more eggs and 2-3 turned into larvae reall fast after that it became very hard for me to feed them because of the test tube small size I decided to move them to a bigger one where I also gave them their first cockroach which they loved. (Sorry about that lense flare after that I decided to try and build my first formicarium let's just say it came out mediocre at most after the nest cured for a while I decided to place their test tube inside the foraging area and open it up see if they would like to move well let's just say that they liked their home and they immediately blocked the opening. they stayed in there for about 2 weeks but since I was inexperienced I had a fear that since they blocked the entrance with a dead cockroach in there bacteria may develop or mites and I had that fear so I went ahead and prob did the biggest mistake and tipped the colony from the test tube onto the foraging area I felt really bad but thankfully by morning they had already moved in the lowest part of the nest and even begun renovating the whole thing. after maybe 2-3 maybe 4 months in there they peeked at 11 workers and alot of eggs by end of summer and early winter they were down to 7 workers and a lot of eggs they went into hibernation this here picture is from early winter and I just found it very pretty so I had to post it It's a long post hopefully you won't get bored to death I will check on them tomorrow and I will update since this first post was a more of a bring you up to date kind of.

[Ants4fun]

Nice! To have full sized pics, I suggest using an image hosting site like Dropbox or tinypic

[Mdrogun]

I love the color of the workers.

[CozmoDog]

Thank you yeah I was still trying to figure it out, hopefully next update will be better.

Edited by CozmoDog, March 16 2016 - 8:38 PM.

[CozmoDog]

Update for 30th of April 2016:

The colony came out of hibernation early this month and I didn't know at the time but they were in need of protein in which I provided them with the use of boiled eggs because my ordered mealworms/roaches did not arrive yet. The larvae have already started growing and one of the larva seems to be the size of a worker but has still not pupated, I'm hopeful that if the larva keeps growing it might come to be the first major of the colony even tho I doubt it since the colony is only 7 workers big, I will try to get some pictures of the larvae soon.

Edited by CozmoDog, April 29 2016 - 2:05 PM.

[CozmoDog]

Update for 10th of May 2016:

So my new Mealworms and dubia cockroaches arrived yesterday I gave them 2 mealworms yesterday and 2 small dubia cockroaches today the response was immediate first a worker found the cockroaches then a second followed. The queen finally layed about 4-5 new eggs and some of the larvae grew larger, here are a couple of photos of their "new" food dish and the workers eating the cockroach. I will also try to get some pictures of the brood.

Edited by CozmoDog, May 10 2016 - 5:43 AM.

[CozmoDog]

Update for 10th of june:

Everything is going well they have eaten quite well and now they have 5 pupae and one larvae spinning a cocoon so that's 6 pupae which is nice they have a lot more larvae that need to grow more before they pupate but here is a small picture .

[CozmoDog]

2 more pictures showing some of their brood.

[CozmoDog]

So good news from when the colony was down to 3 workers now 4 pupae hatched and we are back up to 7 workers they also have 8 more pupae ready to hatch and a ton more larvae still hoping for their first Major before summer ends fingers crossed