207 replies to this topic

[DDD101DDD]

6/14/20

 

It's certainly been a while... nearly a month since the last update, mainly because I've been getting lazy and most of my teachers decided to post their final assignment for the year last week. So anyway, I took this colony off of the heat, because I feel like I've been heating them too much, they would move all their brood to the outworld. By now they have around 40-50 workers maybe? It's really hard to count them all because they decided to hold all their brood against the side of the glass they're on, so I have to go at a really odd angle to see them, but even still I don't see the entire amount of workers. I sort of stole Ant_Drew's idea from his journal and added a new outworld to my setup. It's been about 2 weeks since they've had the outworld, and now I barely see any of them in their original outworld. At least one worker is usually in the new outworld though. Almost all of the visible workers are very fat. There's also a ton of eggs.

 

^ this is their new outworld

 

 

^ a lot of eggs

 

^most of the workers look somewhat like this

 

^I think this is my fattest worker

 

Also here's a picture of the queen with an egg on her back. No idea how it got there.

 

[ANTdrew]

Bro! One of these queens literally just sauntered by me this afternoon when I least expected it. Nice outworld.

[DDD101DDD]

6/27/20

 

I have my first real majors now! There's some huge size variation in the workers now, but none of the majors I have are as big as the ones seen in the wild. Currently there are about 60 workers, and they move most of the brood to the connecting tube during the day and move it back to the nest at night. This colony is doing pretty well so far, but they've been slowing their protein intake for about two days. Maybe this is because they don't have too many large larvae left(they all pupated). Also, I see more workers trying to cut the queen's wings off. They've actually managed to cut a little bit more off.

 

^this picture is about a week old, a third of these eggs have turned into small larvae.

 

^this is just the size variation between worker cocoons, the big one isn't even a major.

 

^here's one of the smaller majors, there are 2 of these.

 

^The biggest major. For comparison, there are 2 minor workers in the picture.

 

 

Edited by DDD101DDD, June 27 2020 - 8:14 AM.

[ANTdrew]

You're doing a good job with your colony. CampoMaster!

[DDD101DDD]

7/7/20

 

Not much has changed with this colony, more workers eclose and more eggs keep coming. The eggs from the last update are all larvae now.

 

^one pile of larvae

 

^bigger pile of larvae

 

^picture of the entire formacarium

 

 

Edited by DDD101DDD, July 7 2020 - 3:21 PM.

[Antkid12]

Nice!

[DDD101DDD]

7/17/20

 

Worker count has stayed mostly the same, mainly because most of the pupae have eclosed. Everything else is just small larvae and eggs. I've changed the outworld a little too. I saw some interesting behavior, one worker was trying to dig below the honey dish. I have no idea why. The water tube seems to have become a satellite nest of sorts, or at least an outpost. The workers will carry insects to the water tube most of the time, but sometimes directly to the nest. Once one worker wanted to carry the mealworm to the nest, and the other wanted to bring it to the water tube. Just shows how smart they are(sarcasm). Also I took some videos.

 

^changes to the outworld

^water tube. It normally has at least one worker.

^ant digging.

 

 

[DDD101DDD]

Nvm, decided it would be better as a separate topic. (https://www.formicul...g-in-captivity/)

Edited by DDD101DDD, July 19 2020 - 2:36 PM.

[DDD101DDD]

8/1/20

 

There's not much to say, I had my first deaths, now the number of workers is 72. I moved them in to a new formcarium. Their ability to not get stressed makes them not very easy to move. I ended up having to use a heating cable to make their old nest too warm. There hasn't actually been much growth with the small larvae, just a few of them pupate every week or so, despite me feeding them every other day. A worker that eclosed was dead, maybe from the lack of humidity during their move(took about 4 days).

 

[ANTdrew]

Have you tried the bird poop thing with these?

[DDD101DDD]

Have you tried the bird poop thing with these?

No not yet.

[DDD101DDD]

8/15/20

 

Oddly enough, despite the copious amount of protein I give them, the majority of small larvae don't seem to grow. I see a few here and there get bigger and turn into pupae, but overall there isn't much growth. They mainly occupy 2 chambers, with one having some larvae, and the other 2 usually have about 3 workers in them at all times. Also they're keeping a weird little pile of trash in the nest. They have mealworm shells there, and they covered it with cotton they took the big outworld. I actually disconnected the big outworld yesterday, because they were finding a way to escape, and there's no point in having it anymore, because the outworld that came with the nest is big enough for my needs.

 

^these are the chambers mainly occupied

^whole nest

^weird trash pile

^found out that they have red legs

[DDD101DDD]

Ok it looks like their little trash pile has molded. Any ideas on getting the moldy insects out?

 

[ANTdrew]

That kind of mold won’t harm anything. All my set ups are full of worse looking things than that. I wouldn’t even worry about it, honestly. Diapause could be a good time to get crap like that out.

[DDD101DDD]

9/5/20

 

So basically nothing significant has happened. The larvae are not growing. The queen is not laying more eggs. I feel that they may be preparing for diapause. They forage every few hours so I think that they're not really ready for diapause yet. I can hardly tell if they're alive or died standing. The only way I know they're still alive is because they move their antennae a few times every minute. I've been feeding them lots of fruit flies, and they take all the fruit flies in, but then a few weeks later take the flies out.

 

^this is them last week.

 

This is them tonight.

 

 

Anyway, because of how little this colony has been doing I've decided to show my other colonies. This isn't turning into a general journal by the way.

 

Here's my Lasius neoniger. I highly doubt anyone that actually looks at this journal remembers the time a few months ago when I showed a picture of my Lasius neoniger, so here it is again.

 

3/27/20

 

 

Here's them today, with over 100 workers.

 

 

Here's my Lasius Aphidicola. I forgot when I caught her, but she should have pupae soon.

 

 

And here's my Pogonomyrmex occidentalis. I actually got them in spring, but they've been doing really poorly(because until a month ago they were in a place with vibrations and I was overwatering them. They also had some mold appear). They have 4 workers.

 

 

 

 

 

[ANTdrew]

Awesome neonigers. I keep going out every single afternoon, but they elude me. Agh!

[DDD101DDD]

9/20/20

 

It's getting pretty cold outside where I live, so I've been keeping these next to my window to prepare them for hibernation. They've clumped up into a ball, with 28 workers kind of scattered around the nest, but the majority of the scattered workers are in the area with the water tower. Most of the larvae are either inside the ball of ants or with the group near the water tower. There's also been lots of condensation. A week ago, I tried giving them some human urine... Surprisingly, they seemed to be really enthusiastic about it. It was the most I've ever seen in the outworld at one time.

 

^here's them in their cluster

 

^here's the ones on the water tower

 

^here's them drinking the urine.

[ANTdrew]

That’s gangsta! But whatever it takes. I have high hopes for this colony.

[DDD101DDD]

10/10/20

 

Put this colony in my garage last week for diapause. I'll try to wake them up in late Feburary or early March. This is it for now I guess, I'll update on the spring. The garage gets around 60 degrees so I hope it's not too warm.

[DDD101DDD]

12/14/20

 

The colony is doing fairly well. There's still a ton of larvae and only about 3-4 workers died so far. They've almost completely stopped foraging, although every few weeks I'll see a worker that fell into their honey. For the most part, they're still clustered in one chamber. I think I'll take them out in February or late January. Also they're a lot skinnier. Not sure if that's ok.

 

Edited by DDD101DDD, December 14 2020 - 4:57 PM.