My Camponotus Nearcticus Queen, I have been having problems with for a long time.
I have had her for a year or two, and there has been no success.
I caught her when my mom had seen her on kitchen spice cabinets, after that, I left her alone for 3 months in a test tube setup (this 3 months was the wait for the laying of eggs through the hatching of nanitics) during that 3 months I only had about 2 minutes total of uncovering the test tube.
After the first three months, she had up to 6 workers. Only 2 made it to hibernation later in the year alive, with by then having had another worker hatched but she didn't make it to hibernation either. 5 died 2 survived that year. Since then, she has on and off had generations of 2-3 workers and they die everytime, as of the last 7 months she has only had 1-2 workers at a time, none ever making it to see the next generation. I have tried everything, researched as much as I could about their species, gave the large variety of food but they rejected most of everything only accepting grass hoppers, beetle legs, fruit flies and honey. I tried habitat changing, test tube changing, hell I even tried to give them a natural dirt setup which she did not want. Tried giving her months at a time alone, didn't work. As of the last 30 days, I had decided to move her back into a test tube after she didn't have success in a different founding formicaria, as I was trying to put her in the test tube, the capsule she was in, it's lid slipped, I panicked and it flung her behind my desk.
I looked everywhere, couldn't find her, there was a bunch of electronics and my wifi tower that all had ventilation holes she could of gone in, there was cracks I couldn't reach and mouse holes behind the desk from mouses that used to live in the walls. I then saw a smashed body at the door and I thought it was her, I was sad for about 30 minutes until I realized it was a wild Camponotus Pennsylvanicus workers body. And so she was gone.. Until a week later, my brother was playing on the ps4 on my desk and he saw an ant which he said looked like a queen so he called me, and to my surprise it was her, she crawled back up after being lost in my house for a week. Her gaster massively shrunk, she was starving based on how small it was. She survived without food and didn't get stepped on a whole week in a house of 4 people. Placed her in a fresh new test tube setup.
For the last week she has avoided eating anything, only taking a sip at a blop of honey at a time to keep herself alive, but not filling up on it. As I write this, I now see she is biting at a piece of beetle I placed in there, good sign.
So as you can see, very difficult situation. She clearly is a fighter, and doesn't want to give up, so I guess I won't give up either, but I need help, I don't know what to do? Is she infertile maybe? aaagh.
And freezing her to death is not an option I am looking for. Thank you.
Edited by CamponotusLover, September 1 2018 - 3:07 PM.
