5 replies to this topic

[Ferox_Formicae]

I collected this colony quite a while ago, back in mid April. It's still a rather small colony with around 30 or so workers. The colony is currently housed in a plaster nest, but they have sealed off many of the chambers with soil as the nest seems pretty large for them at the moment, but that will change soon as they have many, many pupa, and two of them hatched yesterday. This colony is definitely my fastest growing, and the queen just laid around 35 eggs. Besides my Camponotus chromaiodes colony, these ants are the most voracious eaters, and they love their mealworms. They only have a few majors at the moment, but there are more on the way.

Edited by CloudtheDinosaurKing, May 22 2019 - 7:32 PM.

[Ferox_Formicae]

The colony has been growing at an unbelievable rate, with new workers eclosing daily at this point! The batch of eggs the queen laid last week has already progressed to about halfway grown. The colony doesn't have too many majors however. I think it may only have one, but the ants have brought a bunch of soil into the nest to block off some of the chambers, so my view of the nest is somewhat obstructed. I do expect some majors to be hatching soon though, and maybe even alales if I'm lucky. 

[Ferox_Formicae]

The colony has an very large amount of brood, way more than when I first collected them. They are starting to hang larva from the ceiling at this point. Every time I check on them, they seem to have several newly eclosed workers. At the moment, they don't have any eggs, they have all hatched, and the larva should be pupating soon. The pupa pile is very large, and several of them should be eclosing soon. Still no major pupa however. I have been feeding them more protein though, so there should be more majors soon. I have actually only seen a single major in this colony, but hopefully that changes soon.

[Ferox_Formicae]

I think the queen is dying. She is on her back and she can't seem to get up, no matter how hard she tries.

[Ferox_Formicae]

The queen has died. I'm not entirely sure why, but it may be because the colony was old.

[TennesseeAnts]

R.I.P.