So finally I have something to show after like over two months. So about a week before my trip out, Drew went out and caught some queens south of Joshua Tree National Park after some rain passed through days earlier. I went the next weekend hoping to still find some queens wandering around. On my way there I took a long detour to meet Drew, who gave me some fungus for the queens and some other goodies. Extra fungus was needed for whatever I would catch, as I would be catching them wandering around. I got to the spot about an hour before the sun went down so I got some cool footage of workers foraging.

As it got darker I got some more footage.

By the time it was totally dark out I started finding some queens. I also took a little more video of some colonies foraging.

By about 11 PM I found about 13 queens wandering around when I came across a strange column of foraging workers. In this long column (it stretched about 30 feet in length kind of curving around an ironwood tree) there were a few "workers" that were not workers. These were wingless queens often carrying leaves or trying to steal leaves from workers in the column. I collected about 13 of these queens not really thinking of the obvious, which they later turned out to be. Once home, it was pointed out these must have been at one point alates of the colony, which got too tired of waiting for rain so their wings were torn off and they acted as workers. This is often seen in many species in captivity when alates are not allowed to fly away.

So, I went home with about 13 good queens and 13 bad queens totaling in 26 queens. As of today, I now have 20 queens, and only two with fungus. All queens received fungus about a week after capture, but only two tended to it. Out of the two with fungus, one is doing specifically good. Two weeks ago, I noticed she had some larvae in her not so little fungus garden.

As of yesterday, I have noticed larvae in the smaller-fungus-garden queen's fungus garden as well, so I guess I will have two colonies for sure.

The larger-fungus-garden queen's brood has also developed and she now has a pupa!

I think eventually, once these two queen's fungus gardens will be larger I will move some fungus into the other queen's test tubes and give them another shot at success too, but I do not know when yet.

Edited by Gregory2455, February 20 2019 - 10:01 PM.

Very nice. I'm sure you will eventually be able to get the other queens going. After all, look at all that came from the one tiny fungus pellet I got last year.

In an unrelated question, what are you using to video those with, I notice it's focusing while taking video?

Very nice. I'm sure you will eventually be able to get the other queens going. After all, look at all that came from the one tiny fungus pellet I got last year.

In an unrelated question, what are you using to video those with, I notice it's focusing while taking video?

Edited by Gregory2455, January 8 2016 - 2:59 PM.

I didn't know there was any cell phone that could focus while recording video.

I didn't know there was any cell phone that could focus while recording video.

I know most of the top selling smart phones have been for a while ie. Iphone, Nexus, Note and many more.

Samsung Galaxy S3 will focus during video recording. Back to the topic, fascinating colony you have here! 

Update: 4/10/2016

Both of these colonies are doing good. The smaller one is not growing very fast, but it is growing. The larger one is about to take off and probably start doubling in size every few weeks now.

Wow I didn't realize you still had those in test tubes. After about 50 colonies of Acromyrmex, I can say with confidence, they do not continue growing much in test tubes. While all my colonies had been growing bigger and bigger, the colonies I still had in test tubes remained about as big as yours, fungus included. Once I moved them into a formicarium, they started growing as fast as all the rest. I no longer have any in test tubes at this point. I think test tubes are fine to start them out in, but once the fungus is large enough to cover the cotton, I think they need to be moved into something larger to continue growing.

Don't you have one of my older model formicariums?

Wow I didn't realize you still had those in test tubes. After about 50 colonies of Acromyrmex, I can say with confidence, they do not continue growing much in test tubes. While all my colonies had been growing bigger and bigger, the colonies I still had in test tubes remained about as big as yours, fungus included. Once I moved them into a formicarium, they started growing as fast as all the rest. I no longer have any in test tubes at this point. I think test tubes are fine to start them out in, but once the fungus is large enough to cover the cotton, I think they need to be moved into something larger to continue growing.

 

Don't you have one of my older model formicariums?

They are still growing so I am not in much of a hurry, but yeah. The larger colony will be going into that old formicarium from you.

Update: 6/29/2016

Well the larger colony's queen died around a month ago, then most of the workers and the fungus within about 2 days. The smaller colony has grown and has gotten quite large now, around 50 workers, but their fungus turned brown and shriveled up yesterday seemingly for no reason, so I just do not know what to do with them now. 

Too much, or too little love?

All you need is love. Love is all you need.

It was the heat. That's all it could have been.

Well that sucks. As you read on my journal, anything over 90F is too hot for the fungus. I'm sure you can get some replacement fungus from someone.

Yeah... I don't know at the moment.