Can we like... not? I really don't want to have to watch another Formiculture war, especially on my friend and I's thread.

Can we like... not? I really don't want to have to watch another Formiculture war, especially on my friend and I's thread.

I'll back off. Don't want the thread to be ruined. I'm interested seeing how well these do.

You honestly shouldn't disrespect snelling. He knows more about ants than any of us do from years of experience.

He's at least 30x better than me. I mean, at least his dad has a whole bunch of species named after him.

I don't respect people that kill native wildlife, I find they are frauds. Because native wildlife can be killed by any manner of things and the vast majority of animals do have parasites of various kinds (many have worms).. Doesn't mean people stop trying to help the environment and protect animals (and plants/insects). He loves to kill native stuff, he probably got so triggered when thousands of koala's got saved in australia by volunteers and random people instead of killing them because they might get infected by some weird unknown pathogen. To him, he hates native life and rather see people kill them and make them extinct and let invasives have an easier time taking over. He is a fraud. 

And I find it funny he trolls my thread with nearly the same comment and then insults me for the same type of comment he made. What a hypocrite rofl. 

anyway I don't care if someone loves killing things. But he has the audacity to rant in my thread about my estimates that didn't even actually really matter, but insults for the same thing lol.

Edited by Vendayn, April 23 2020 - 7:06 PM.

Update: 5/11/20

The colony has been doing very well, especially since they're at room temp (75 F). They migrated to a new lab nest last week, as all of their 1000+ eggs had hatched. All of the larvae now range from small medium, with a couple exceptionally large ones. I suspect those were among the first laid. They will most likely develop into majors. I have been giving them about 4 grams of food brood every other day, and I have a bunch of footage from their last raid that I will make into another video. 

Update: 5/11/20

 

The colony has been doing very well, especially since they're at room temp (75 F). They migrated to a new lab nest last week, as all of their 1000+ eggs had hatched. All of the larvae now range from small medium, with a couple exceptionally large ones. I suspect those were among the first laid. They will most likely develop into majors. I have been giving them about 4 grams of food brood every other day, and I have a bunch of footage from their last raid that I will make into another video. 

Looking forward to your videos and am curious about the ambient temperature at 75F.  I have been keeping my colony at an average soil temperature of 81F.

 

Update: 5/11/20

 

The colony has been doing very well, especially since they're at room temp (75 F). They migrated to a new lab nest last week, as all of their 1000+ eggs had hatched. All of the larvae now range from small medium, with a couple exceptionally large ones. I suspect those were among the first laid. They will most likely develop into majors. I have been giving them about 4 grams of food brood every other day, and I have a bunch of footage from their last raid that I will make into another video. 

Looking forward to your videos and am curious about the ambient temperature at 75F.  I have been keeping my colony at an average soil temperature of 81F.

 

Thanks! I am planning on getting the videos up later this week. And I am setting up a place to set their entire setup for heating. My goal is to get the temp up to 84-86 F.

Update: 5/29/20

The larvae all pupated last week, so now their nest chamber is 1/3rd full of pupae. The queen has become physogastric again, and has begun laying the next batch of eggs already. I did not expect for her to lay again, especially since they have not emigrated since the last time, when they had small larvae. The colony has been very easy to care for so far, being fed small Camponotus spp. workers, Reticulitermes flavipes workers, and lots of Tapinoma brood. I think by the time these pupae eclose, they should have anywhere from 2.4k to 2.9k workers. I still don't know why the colony was so small upon collection. It is possible I lost some after lifting the log, but it couldn't have been more than 1k lost. 

The next update will be when they have their first workers of the year, in a week or two.

Update: 6/9/20

The pupae are darkening, and the first workers of the season should arrive later this week. Late last week the queen laid another batch of 900-1k eggs, and those have been developing nicely as well. Their foraging has decreased by about half, definitely due to no larvae being present any more. This has been a very easy colony to keep so far, and I will try to keep them going as long as possible. The hardest part has been the emigrations.

 

Interested, PM sent. You mentioned 5 queens per test tube so that means they can have multiple queens per colony? 

A couple months after the first worker ecloses, they start killing off queens until one is left. You can seperate the queens once you get them if you want.

I'm going to sell P. californicus queens for 80 cents each now. PM me if you're interested

 

Interested, PM sent. You mentioned 5 queens per test tube so that means they can have multiple queens per colony?

A couple months after the first worker ecloses, they start killing off queens until one is left. You can seperate the queens once you get them if you want.
I'm going to sell P. californicus queens for 80 cents each now. PM me if you're interested

Interested, PM sent. You mentioned 5 queens per test tube so that means they can have multiple queens per colony?

A couple months after the first worker ecloses, they start killing off queens until one is left. You can seperate the queens once you get them if you want.
I'm going to sell P. californicus queens for 80 cents each now. PM me if you're interested

Interested, PM sent. You mentioned 5 queens per test tube so that means they can have multiple queens per colony?

A couple months after the first worker ecloses, they start killing off queens until one is left. You can seperate the queens once you get them if you want.
I'm going to sell P. californicus queens for 80 cents each now. PM me if you're interested

Wrong thread?

Antdude update?

Antdude update?

Sure thing!

Update: 6/18/20

After the queen laid the last batch of eggs, the pupae started darkening. On 6/13/20 the first captive workers eclosed in great numbers. The colony has nearly doubled in size now, taking lots of roaches, termites, ant brood and crickets all the time. They are definitely doing well so far. I will need to increase their food intake within the next couple weeks, though, as the new eggs will be hatching soon. This batch seems to be a tad smaller than the last, but its still pretty huge. Will update with pics later today.

 

Antdude update?

Sure thing!

 

Update: 6/18/20

 

After the queen laid the last batch of eggs, the pupae started darkening. On 6/13/20 the first captive workers eclosed in great numbers. The colony has nearly doubled in size now, taking lots of roaches, termites, ant brood and crickets all the time. They are definitely doing well so far. I will need to increase their food intake within the next couple weeks, though, as the new eggs will be hatching soon. This batch seems to be a tad smaller than the last, but its still pretty huge. Will update with pics later today.

 

So once the colony gets larger, do you still have to feed them large batches of ant brood or do they take other insects more?