13 replies to this topic

[Dreamer]

Note: click on the images to enlarge

 

I've moved my journals across to here to get more exposure and to encourage me to keep updating

 

I always liked Coldplay, hence the colony name. This queen arrived at the same time as my L.Niger, with a few small eggs. Again as a new ant keeper I was excited to have a second colony that is supposed to be easy to care for to compare with my L.Niger colony. We'll see how easy they are, it doesn't seem many people have kept bigger colonies (over 100), so I'm curious to see what happens as I've read colonies can grow to 4,000.

5th September
Here's a shot of the queen a few days after arrival:



10th September
A few small eggs, but I'm trying not to disturb her more than once a week. She's covered up in the dark and under that in red celophane. At around 25*C. Unfortunately you can't see much detail in this shot from my phone, but she has settled at the moist end of the test tube.



9th October
The eggs have grown somewhat and you can see the queen standing over them seemingly protectively in the shot below. I'm not sure how long it will take these to be come lavae and pupae, or even if some are very small lavae.



14th October
Here is a close up of the queen and her brood with my new DSLR lense, you can see there are quite a lot of brood



28th October
Yellow queen is the only one of my queens not to have any workers, L.Niger Trinity has 3 already! I'm still trying not to disturb Yellow queen, but as it has been two months now I decided to put in some honey for her.



She likes it



5th November
Still no nanitics/workers! It seems that L.Flavus brood takes quite a bit longer to develop than L.Niger and also C.Barbaricus. There do seem to be quite a few lavae now that are moving around slightly, so hopefully they will all arrive at a similar time. I'm hoping over the next 3 weeks at least one will eclose before I put her into hibernation. Here is a clearer shot of the brood.




12th November
That last photo looks darker than I'd realised, I'll try and work on that for future shots. Had another check this week, there is definitely a large-ish pupae, so we'll see what happens over the next couple of weeks before hibernation. The queen is still very active as soon as there is light, so it maybe she's not quite ready to hibernate yet. She's at around 24*C. Definitely very different to my L.Niger queen that arrived at the same time - it's interesting to see how slowly Flavus develop in comparison.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the first worker Here are a couple of shots of the queen moving around:

Edited by Dreamer, December 31 2017 - 3:31 PM.

[Dreamer]

November 18th
Little change. There are currently 2 piles of brood. You can see a particularly large pupae on the right:



It's about 2mm long and the same size as the L.Niger nanitic pupae that I have, which eclosed so far. It must be close!

Edited by Dreamer, November 19 2017 - 2:45 PM.

[Dreamer]

November 25th
Marginal change. A great shot of the queen with 1 pupae.

[Mettcollsuss]

Nice. I've always wanted Lasius sp.  I had an L. alienus queen that died right before her workers arrived. Good luck!

[Dreamer]

Nice. I've always wanted Lasius sp.  I had an L. alienus queen that died right before her workers arrived. Good luck!

Thanks, we'll see how it goes. Good news today. I'm learning a lot these first few months, made quite a few mistakes. I could definitely have used just test tubes and small outworlds, rather than these big outworlds that I have

[Dreamer]

December 3rd
The first worker has arrived! I think it's smaller even then my L.Niger. In comparison to my smallest C.Barbaricus it's just tiny. Smaller than the Prenolepis Nitens that I'm hoping can share an outworld system with them at some point. Still quite a few pupae, but I'm starting hibernation for them soon, dropped the temperature by 1 degree today and will bring them down to 12*C over the next week or so.

[Coops]

December 3rd
The first worker has arrived! I think it's smaller even then my L.Niger. In comparison to my smallest C.Barbaricus it's just tiny. Smaller than the Prenolepis Nitens that I'm hoping can share an outworld system with them at some point. Still quite a few pupae, but I'm starting hibernation for them soon, dropped the temperature by 1 degree today and will bring them down to 12*C over the next week or so.

nice, don't be worried if the workers don't go out to forage, every time I've kept them they spend most they're time in the nest and seem to be most active at night. the key I find with them is to leave food just outside the entrance to the test tube, and try not to disturb them often, as the queens are very shy! I use to have a L. Flavus colony with 8 Queens, sadly they only made it to about 300 workers before dying from unknown reasons

[Dreamer]

Thanks for the advice. I'm not expecting much exploring until there are quite a few of them, but I'll aim to check on them in the night

[Dreamer]

December 30th
The colony has been in hibernation for the last 3 weeks. They are currently at about 13*C. I had connected another test tube with lots of water in as they had run out in their tube and when I had a look this week the first worker was in the new tube as far away as he could get from the queen was still in the old tube.




After my first Niger's getting lost/dying in the outworld I decided to move the worker back manually and to dampen the cotton in the old tube before reconnecting them together. Here is them reunited a few minutes later. As you can see there are still a few larvae.




I'll probably bring them out of hibernation toward the end of February, so probably no updates until then.

[T.C.]

I was wondering on your other journal... why is it the images are so small?

[Dreamer]

Thanks, they are small for quick loading times, but you can click on them to load the full 1mb/5mb versions

[Dreamer]

January 7th

Disaster. Unfortunately something has happened to my happily reunited colony. The only worker has died in the test tube and the queen has moved into the tube between between the old and new tubes. The worker looks a bit damaged, so I'm assuming that despite a happy start the queen killed her first worker. Sad times indeed, but at least the queen seems fine.

[Dreamer]

4th March

Despite the snow this week I am starting to bring my colonies out of hibernation by slowly increasing the temperature by 0.5*C per day. It will be a couple of weeks.

[Dreamer]

14th April
Sadly on the way out of hibernation the queen has died . She must have got too hot or dehydrated on the heat mat. I think I've learnt the lesson the hard way to keep my queens and water off the heat mats as I'm not sure the thermostat is sensitive enough to get the exact temperature of 27*C.


DECEASED.


28th April
I have ordered a new Lasius Flavus queen, which has arrived with 3 tiny workers and some brood. I'll be starting a new journal for this if you want to read it.

Edited by Dreamer, April 28 2018 - 3:07 PM.