Queens 3 and 4 both have eggs now. In fact, they're the only ones that have eggs. All the other hosts keep eating their queens eggs (7 & 2). Queen 3 has had eggs for a while now, whereas 4 has just laid hers. The L. Neoniger are doing a much better job with the eggs than the L. Interjectus workers. I've also made an important observation: Both of these queens waited until all of the host larvae pupated before they laid their own eggs, about a week after actually. I thought this was really interesting because my other unidentified parasitic lasius queen did the exact same thing. I really believe that there's something to this that should be investigated. I'll catch more next year and see what happens.

Anyways, here's some pics. I'm going to move them into clean tubes soon. I'll be able to get better pics after that.


Queen 3:





Queen 4:

Edited by Jamiesname, October 31 2018 - 5:23 PM.

I got my endoscope app to work again, and just in time too! #4's eggs have turned into larva! I'm very excited because the other host workers have been eating all of the eggs, except for the Neoniger hosts. I fed them and got them to move into a clean test tube. Now I plan on leaving them alone for a couple weeks. I'll update #3 if/when her eggs progress.

Here's pics of #4. . .

Edited by Jamiesname, November 5 2018 - 6:30 PM.

I'm a little behind on this post, but I waited until the eggs in colony 3 and 4 turned into larva before putting them into hibernation on December 1st. I'm going to pull them out early on Feburary 1st since they're at such a critical point in their founding process.

Edited by Jamiesname, April 15 2019 - 4:43 PM.

Double post.

Edited by Jamiesname, December 25 2018 - 12:50 PM.

Late Entry:

I pulled these girls out of hibernation early, on Feb. 10th. Colony #3 must have eaten the majority of their larvae while in diapause because there's only 3 left. I'll update as soon as they either eat the rest, or lay more eggs.

Colony #4 seemed to do slightly better. They ate some of their larvae as well, but only about half. There's too many left to make counting them easy, so that's good news. Again, I'll post when something substantial occurs.

Do you know the temperature that you hibernated them at? Perhaps it was a little warm and they were still somewhat active and needed food during the hibernation so they ate the larvae?

Do you know the temperature that you hibernated them at? Perhaps it was a little warm and they were still somewhat active and needed food during the hibernation so they ate the larvae?

I think that's exactly what happened. I hibernate my ants in an old refrigerator that goes as low as 33 degrees and as high as 40 degrees, depending on the cycle it's on. I'm sure they must have gotten hungry during one of the defrost cycles. This same thing happened to my Lasius Latipes during hibernation last year. I'm not too worried about it, other than these ants seem to be more challenging in general compared to my L. Latpies.

Both 3 and 4 have laid a new batch of eggs. I'll take a picture in a few days when I feed them. They're very finicky ants so I don't want to bother them more than necessary.

Here's a pic of queen 3's new batch of eggs; it's quite a pile.





And here's queen 4's batch. She's also off to a good start. You can see some larvae in there too, along with a blurry pic of this queen's first pupa. It's a fresh cocoon so it's still slightly translucent. I can't wait for it to eclose.

Edited by Jamiesname, March 10 2019 - 6:04 PM.

And here's queen 4's batch. She's also off to a good start. You can see some larvae in there too, along with a blurry pic of this queen's first pupa. It's a fresh cocoon so it's still slightly translucent. I can't wait for it to eclose.

The first pupa is going to enclose any day now. I can see the yellowish tinge under the (silk?) cocoon. I'm too excited to wait until then to post, plus it's been a while since I gave an update. There's also about a half dozen more cocoons, and a large pile of new eggs/larvae. I'll post pics as soon as things progress.

Great journal. I just tried to introduce a Lasius claviger queen to some host workers yesterday. It went horribly wrong, and the queen was too damaged to live. Congrats on having so much success with founding these.

Queen 2 has laid a fresh batch of eggs now. I've really had a lot of trouble with this colony and colony #1. The L. Interjectus workers tend to eat the eggs frequently, but colony 2 has had theirs without incident for going on a week now. I'll keep you posted on what happens with them.

Queens 3 and 4 are doing great. I'm very happy with how they're developing. I can't help but worry though, will the young L. Interjectus workers that emerge begin eating their queen's eggs like the workers in colonies 1 and 2? We'll see. Anyways, here's a couple pics of 3 and 4.


Colony 3

There's a good sized batch of larvae around the piece of mealworms, a couple eggs to the side and a good clump of eggs in the second picture that's under a fold of cotton near the small pile







Colony 4

There's 8 pupae, but I could only get a pic of the 5 shown. The rest are tucked up near the cotton. She also has a huge pile of eggs as you can see.





Still waiting on that first pupa to enclose. I guess I jumped the gun; it wasn't as far along as I thought. I will update as soon as it ecloses.

Edited by Jamiesname, April 15 2019 - 5:07 PM.

Today was the big day! Here we are almost 10 months later and the first two workers finally eclosed in colony 4. They're still pretty pale, but they'll darken up over the next couple days. It's hard to tell in the pics, but they're almost double the size of the L. Neoniger hosts. I'm feeling really optimistic about them. I think they're going to do very well this year.

Edited by Jamiesname, April 22 2019 - 5:24 PM.

Where are you at to have caught all of these?! You must really like parasitic ants. You seem to be very successful with them too.

Where are you at to have caught all of these?! You must really like parasitic ants. You seem to be very successful with them too.

I live in a small town just south of Alpena, MI. I don't know why, but parasitic ants are my favorite ants to keep. I think part of the reason is that they keep you more engaged. There's more that has to be done with them and more to monitor. Other species are more of a 'set it and forget it' type thing. At least to a certain degree starting out anyways. As far as success goes, we'll see by the end of the summer.

I just caught my first parasitic Formica queens a few weeks ago, so I've got that to keep me busy for a while also. I cheated though, I dug up 9 queens and a bunch of workers from a large mound. I left a few queens behind though, so that they weren't queenless. As of now the handful of queens I did keep already have a huge pile of eggs that several of the workers seem to enjoy carrying around inside the nest.

Here's some updated pics. There's 5 workers now with a lot more on the way!

Edited by Jamiesname, April 30 2019 - 1:59 PM.

Great job! Got a journal on your parasitic Formica?

Great job! Got a journal on your parasitic Formica?

Thanks. I don't have one yet, but I've been thinking about it. They've got small batches of larvae now too that I'm really excited about. Maybe I'll start one in a few more days when I get time to get some more pics.

Edited by Jamiesname, April 30 2019 - 3:26 PM.

WOW! what a journey I'll be sure to stay tuned. I'm so new to this hobby that I really don't know where to find any other Lasius. My only hint is that they are called Citronella ants and that's the ant type I used to try to keep as a kid. I found two colonies that looked like them (didn't smell anything) so I'm gonna try to collect some workers and brood from both and see if I can get them ID'd.

 

Neither of the two Queens I caught have dropped their wings as of yet. I guess it's been 3-4 days. 

 

Thanks for linking me to your journal!!  

Ok so I found some Lasius workers. they may be the same. I put 5 in with each queen and 24 hours later there are no fatalities. I'm gonna start a journal I'll place the link here if that's ok and maybe you could check it out from time to time and offer advice?  Thanks!!