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Lasius, messor,tetramorium,pheidole and Camponotus journal


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#1 Offline Alexandrehb - Posted July 15 2019 - 1:25 PM

Alexandrehb

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Here i create this journal abaut all my curent ant colonys, lets start whith the smaler ones:

I caught 2 pheidole pallidula queens 2 weeks ago 1 has eggs and larvae the other nothing...

 

i have a solenopsis fugax queen in a test tube the queen has eggs but it does not seem like she will be able to found a colony because she has eaten her former batches of eggs and even larvae before...

I caught a lasius grandis queen 3 weeks ago and has a lot of larvae

 

i caught 2 tapinoma nigerium queens this year 1 2 months ago that has 20 or so workers and the second one 1 month ago...
I have a Camponotus vagus queen i caught 2 and a half weeks ago and has a lot of eggs,
I also have a Camponotus vagus colony which was caught july last year and has 15 workers- and about 30 larvae and 3-4 pupae...( actually something odd about this colony is that they had their first major pupae last week however they opened the pupae and noticed that it was a major and not a regular worker and they took it out early so it still was not developed so they just ate the major pupae, like realy savage cannibals... i guess they feed that larvae a little bit too mutch xD...)

I have a Camponotus Barbaricus colony that was caught june last year, they grew a lot in their first year reaching hibernation whith 16 or so workers however when i took them out their water suply dried and all the workers but 1 died earlier this year in april... Fortunately one more worker hatched two weeks ago and they have 2 more larvae however they don't accept protein of any kind and the queen refuses to lay... i have tried dried shrimp crickets fruit flys and even caught a spider for variety and they never touch it... i continue to offer protein every second day and they havent touched it in two weeks...

I have a lasius niger colony that was caught june two years ago they went into hybernation last year whith well over 500 workers, however the same thing happend whith them i forgot to replace their water sorce that had dried up ( totaly my fault for not realizing...) and all workers died exept 3 ( and like a 1000 eggs and larvae like crazy death ), on the week after 2 more workers died and the queen was left whith one worker only, thankfuly in the last month 5 more workers hatched with 3 more coming 20 larvae and 30 eggs...road to recovery!

I have a messor lusitanicus queen i caught last year in october and boy is she a survivor...
Let me explain, this queen was part of a realy cruel experience i did that I'm never going to do again...
October that year i caught 20 messor queens 16 messor barbarus and 4 messor lusitanicus, both species are known to be monogyne however i saw some videos on the internet where some people were able to join queens and make them cooperate, needless to say what happend i put the messor barbarus queens together in pairs folowing all vídeo instructions but none worked some seemed resly promising and queens were cooperative however they woud all eventualy start fighting...i lost 10 messor barbarus queens right of the bat... some of the surviving queens were deeply wounded so during hibernation only 4 messor barbarus queens survived and were keeped separate, 1 colony died a month ago after the queen had its first workers, the reason was probably a virus or a patogen of some sort, the other colonys i keeped one separate and placed 2 of the colonys in the same outworld, for my surprise the colonys joined forces and i got a 2 queened colony! Fast forward a week the queens started being aggressive to each other and they eventually kill themselves leaving 50 workers and a lot of brood whith no queens so what i did was offer the other colony the workers and brood, all was good and the workers were accepted however one week later i check on the colony and see that 2 workers turned on the queen and they were biting her and the other suposadly loyal workers did not give 2 [censored]... ( i was so stupid omg I'm cringing while writing this!), so all of the 16 messor barbarus queens ended up dead...
Now of the 4 messor lusitanicus queens i had, i placed them all toguether in a massive test tube the day i caught the 20 queens and this surviving queen brutally killed all of them and excaped unharmed, today she has her first nanitics 5 and a batch of 20 or so eggs...

I also have 2 messor colonys that are 1,5 years old, they are both at about 200-300 workers whith a lot of brood...

Finaly i have a tetramorium caespitum colony that is 1 year old and has about 50 workers 30 pupae and 100 eggs/larvae they are my fastest growing colony...

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This are all the colonys i own and will be uptating you on, i also want to try and catch a crematogaster scutelarys queen this year and if i do i will be sure to add her to this journal!

If you want footage of my colonys i can record them you just need to pint out wich one you want to see...

I will be real whith you i tend to forget things so this will probably only be uptated once a month!
Hopefully you will enjoy the updates to come!


Edited by Alexandrehb, July 16 2019 - 7:11 AM.

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Keeper of:
2xCamponotus vagus
Camponotus Barbaricus
2xMessor Barbarus
Messor lusitanicus
Pheidole pallidula
Lasius niger
Lasius grandis
Tetramorium caespitum

#2 Offline Alexandrehb - Posted July 17 2019 - 2:49 PM

Alexandrehb

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Hi there,

I'm just going to send some photos and update you on a change of set up i did!

 

I tried to photograph all my colonys, however some were nearly impossible to film...

 

First the lasius grandis queen (not completly sure about the id though):

 

A4EmAE2.jpg

 

 

Now the Camponotus vagus queen:

 

 

6IWzX5G.jpg

 

 

My solenopsis fugax queen:

 

Xm460gg.jpg

 

 

My tapinoma nigerium colony (Not realy sure about the id on this one too...)

 

GSlOVkc.jpg

 

 

here is my pheidole pallidula queen, this queen is actually not doing so well...)

 

MtFRyAs.jpg

 

 

Here is one of my messor colonys, this one is housed in an acrilic formicarium

 

 

vFun2vb.jpg

 

 

Here is my Camponotus vagus colony (half is not in the picture sry...):

 

 

Du91Thk.jpg

 

 

 

here is my Camponotus barbaricus which is not doing well at all...

 

 

iSk2DOd.jpg

 

 

Here is my second messor colony which i am  moving to a homemade nest of Ytong and they also have in the back a sand-loam sandwich they can nest in...

ps:sory for the messy heat mat xD

 

 

 

3p89mRQ.jpg

 

 

the ytong nest is very humid so they do not put their brood in there,however they realy like the heat so they are nesting in the tubing at this point...

 

 

9vKoJlN.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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And that is about it i coud not take photos of my other colonys cause their setups are very dificult to film with my potato camera...

 

I could probably show my set up as a whole, with the heat mat and my homemade nests... I guess i will be doing that some time in the future!

 

i hope you all enjoyed!

 

See ya in the future...

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Keeper of:
2xCamponotus vagus
Camponotus Barbaricus
2xMessor Barbarus
Messor lusitanicus
Pheidole pallidula
Lasius niger
Lasius grandis
Tetramorium caespitum

#3 Offline Alexandrehb - Posted July 21 2019 - 12:39 PM

Alexandrehb

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hi there,

 

Just a couple quick updates...

 

The messor colony i was moving has finally moved out of the tubes, but the colony grew larger than what i expected so they are already in need of a new formicarium, unless they start nesting in the sand-loam sandwich wich they have been digging a lot in...

I never thought this colony would grow so quickly they went from 200 to 400 or so workers now in 2 months...

 

vTKP9T7.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Apart from that my pheidole pallidula queen seems to be doing better and has now eggs (she ate her own brood a week ago...), the other queen from the same species seems to be infertile, wich is odd because when i caught her she only had 1 wing, maybe she was born like that...

 

My lasius grandis queen has pupa so I'm expecting workers soon...

 

My tetramorium caespitum colony has more and more pupa but i do not see a lot of workers hatching... its weird because they have probably way more than 100 pupa in their brood pile but i can only see a couple of recently hatched yellow workers... Time will tell if there is indeed something wrong...

 

VezQd3o.jpg

 

 

 

what you see in the picture is probably 3/4 of their pupa the rest is in a pile in the end of the tube,

they have a lot of eggs and larvae so hopefully i am just being paranoid...

 

 

My Camponotus barbaricus colony has a pupae now and one larvae, no eggs though sadly...

 

My campantus vagus has been refusing proteins for a week and a half now, they have  like 20 workers 5 pupae and like 30 small larvae...

 

The other colonys are all doing well and they keep on growing...

 

 

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And that is all,

i will update you if something happens again in the future...

 

I am also planing on doing a set up tour so stay tuned for that xD!

 

I hope you are finding this interesting!


Edited by Alexandrehb, July 21 2019 - 12:40 PM.

Keeper of:
2xCamponotus vagus
Camponotus Barbaricus
2xMessor Barbarus
Messor lusitanicus
Pheidole pallidula
Lasius niger
Lasius grandis
Tetramorium caespitum

#4 Offline Alexandrehb - Posted August 13 2019 - 9:51 AM

Alexandrehb

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I just came back from a 2 weeks long vacation (my ants were not feed during this period), update time!

 

1- Bad news-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The water fountain on the messor barbarus colony witch lived in the homemade nest dried up causing more than 100 deaths... 

Although, It was pretty cool to watch the ants get the water i recently gave them in impressive numbers, i should have placed an extra water source so that was my bad...=(

 

My solenopsis fugax queen did not make it...

 

Neither did my pheidole pallidula queen witch is quite surprising...

 

 One of my tapinoma colonys lost 10 workers, because i did not close the tube properly and they escaped but has 10 more coming and some eggs so its ok

 

 

2-Good news-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

In general all the ant colony's grew...

 

 -My Camponotus barbaricus  witch was not doing well have now 3 workers and 10 or so eggs!

 

 -My Camponotus vagus has 2 more workers and they still have a fair amount of brood...

 

 -My Lasius [censored] has 2 more workers and 6 more arriving

 

 -My tetramorium caespitum are now well over 300 workers

 

 -my 2 messor barbarus has 50 more workers

 

 -My lasius grandis finally got their first nanitics they are 13

 

 -My 2 tapinoma niggerium colony has finaly gotten their first workers(4 in total) and they still have more coming

 

-My Camponotus vagus queen has now 8 cacons waiting to be opened so I'm expecting nanitics any time now

 

 

 

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And that is it,

I will now feed my ants a lot of protein and see if i can get them to grow even more!

 

i will post soon


Keeper of:
2xCamponotus vagus
Camponotus Barbaricus
2xMessor Barbarus
Messor lusitanicus
Pheidole pallidula
Lasius niger
Lasius grandis
Tetramorium caespitum




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