80 replies to this topic

[Jadeninja9]

What ever happened?

[Joehostile85]

I thought Lasius claviger workers were orange? I had one born in captivity and it was orange. Or have I had all my claviger queens misidentified?

I have 6/8 Lasius claviger setups with eggs right now.

[Canadian anter]

Mine were more yellow, it's probably just the colour variation. Nice to see you're finally here.

 

I had a smaller colony with eggs but they died along with a lot of other colonies this year in hibernation

[Joehostile85]

Ok cool, I couldn’t really tell from your video. Ya I got locked out of the AntsCanada forum and can not for the life of me get another account approved. Not sure why that is...

[Canadian anter]

Ah. I believe you aren't allowed to ship ants (I think you have, I'm not sure and I'm surprised I haven't been banned). Or maybe you were inactive for too long and were banned during the April cleanup.

[Joehostile85]

Nope I haven’t shipped ants. Only traded claviger queens for host workers. Plus I purchased a colony through the GAN project. But ya I was inactive for quite a while. Doesn’t really explain why I can’t get another account approved though.

[Canadian anter]

UPDATE 10/3/2018

 

 Awhile back I received 12 colonies of Lasius americanus from a friend, and one of the queens died, leaving me with a queenless colony. I ended up removing the queen and putting her with a Lasius claviger queen for a few hours before introducing both back to the colony. Success!

 

I also want to add how much the claviger queen has been fed. Look at the comparison of how fat the 2018 queen is compared to a 2017 queen

 

Edit: the last video is the one from last year

 

 

 

Edited by Canadian anter, October 2 2018 - 8:18 PM.

[Canadian anter]

UPDATE 1/29/2019

 

 Ehhhh Let's get this journal going again!

 

These ants were taken out of hibernation around 2 weeks ago. I have no colonies right now, both of which have been accepted. One of them had eggs for at least a day. I'm putting these in complete darkness for a week, to see if it coaxes them to lay more. Will update then.

[Manitobant]

UPDATE 1/29/2019
 
 Ehhhh Let's get this journal going again!
 
These ants were taken out of hibernation around 2 weeks ago. I have no colonies right now, both of which have been accepted. One of them had eggs for at least a day. I'm putting these in complete darkness for a week, to see if it coaxes them to lay more. Will update then.

wait, does that mean I should take mine out soon?

[Canadian anter]

I hibernate them for 3 months. I'd imagine you'd need 4 months for more Northern areas.

[Canadian anter]

UPDATE 1/29/2019

 

Back on track! For reference, I have two colonies, A and B. A is the one in the introduction video I posted. I took B a week or so before I took A out from hibernation, as I thought it it most likely had a lower chance of survival, but they now have a small stack of 20 eggs! I will add a few alienus larvae to the mix to "hide" them, as from reading other people's journals and from past experience it seems the claviger brood fares better when mixed with host brood. Photos later today.

[Canadian anter]

 

updated with images

[Canadian anter]

Egg pile doubled in size today

[Canadian anter]

UPDATE 2/16/2019

This queen, despite having just laid another batch off eggs and already having larvae, decided to die on me. I'm getting a few more queens from a friend to reintroduce, but will use a plaster nest like I did before this time.

[Joehostile85]

Awe what a shame. I just checked on my claviger set ups, all are doing fine in hibernation. Will take them out April 01, after 5 months of hibernation.

Did you lose both queen A and B?

[Canadian anter]

Queen A is just lying around doing nothing.

[Canadian anter]

Uh ok guys. Haven't done this in awhile. In Early July I obtained a dealate Lasius interjectus in a trade with MaxGen and an alate Lasius interjectus in a trade with UnFrozen.

Unfortunately, we happened to have been having a dry spell so all the Lasius in my yard decided to dig deep into the ground.

I put the queens into a test tube setup, feeding them frequently. I then had to leave for vacation but was able to ship these, along with the rest of my colonies to a friend in Winnipeg (also acting distributor for Canada Colony)

After a week of unsuccessful introductions, with the queens killing off any and all host workers, we were able to get them to accept a few callows, and a large amount of Lasius pallitarsis pupae. The queens had survived 3 and 2 weeks w/o hosts respectively, which is fairly impressive on it's own. Just a few days later though the alate queen passed. Luckily, the remaining queen has been doing great and I'm told she has become somewhat physogastric. Pictures will come soon

[Canadian anter]

I have also purchased some of the sand antfarms, and am going to attempt making a setup with root aphids this year

[ponerinecat]

I have also purchased some of the sand antfarms, and am going to attempt making a setup with root aphids this year

Could be used to keep acropyga.

Edited by ponerinecat, August 13 2019 - 9:01 PM.

[NickAnter]

I have an idea for a substrate free root aphid setup. I just would need the root aphids. I have had the idea for about 6 months. I have only seen root aphids once, and they are in a plant pot. Problem is i would probably end up killing the aphids if I cut open the pot.

Edited by NickAnter, August 14 2019 - 1:08 PM.