207 replies to this topic

[Ants_Dakota]

camponotus are so fun to keep.

[Kaelwizard]

I can’t keep any known for destroying houses in case my parents recognize them and my brother will tell them

[Dmaculata]

you should be able to find something like Camponotus americanus, they are a pretty big, pretty looking Camponotus species that are not known to be destructive pests.

[Kaelwizard]

you should be able to find something like Camponotus americanus, they are a pretty big, pretty looking Camponotus species that are not known to be destructive pests.

I persuaded him to let me keep C. novaeboracensis, because they apparently exclusively nest outdoors. They are the only other species I can find, though. 

[Dmaculata]

yea, americanus definitely aren´t the most common, not only do they nest exclusively outdoors, but they also nest in the ground, which is another reason why I really like them

Edited by Dmaculata, December 15 2020 - 10:52 AM.

[Kaelwizard]

yea, americanus definitely aren´t the most common, not only do they nest exclusively outdoors, but they also nest in the ground, which is another reason why I really like them

I once found a castaneus worker, but that was like 2 years ago and I haven't seen them since.

[Dmaculata]

castaneus are super pretty too, and yea also pretty uncommon. I have only encountered colonies twice I believe

[DDD101DDD]

2/13/21

 

I took this colony out today and started heating them. They've had about 5 deaths this winter, which is pretty good I'd say. There's a ton of larvae, so I'm expecting lots of growth this year from them. Already, workers are huddling around the heating cable, so now I can look at their larvae.

 

[ANTdrew]

Awesome! Good luck this season.

[DDD101DDD]

2/26/21

 

So far, everything seems to be going quite well. I've actually under fed these in the last 2 weeks, and they've been doing surprisingly well. They've had primarily mealworms, but some fruit flies too(trying D. hydei instead of D. melanogaster this time). The larvae have grown a substantial amount, about 2nd instar by now. These don't seem to have the yellow tips the first larvae generation out of last diapause had. Below, there are images of the larvae (which are separated into 3 chambers). The pictures are in no particular order, with some chambers having multiple pictures taken(not in any order).

edit: just saw some eggs and took a picture so that's going to be at the very bottom. First eggs of the year for this colony.

 

 

Edited by DDD101DDD, February 26 2021 - 8:16 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Impressive!

[Canadant]

Awesome journal! Thanks.

[DDD101DDD]

3/12/21

 

Honestly I'm a little scared at how much larvae this colony has. There's enough to cover half the nest(or more) at this point, and the ever increasing pile of eggs will soon hatch into larvae I think. On March 1st, I saw a few larvae with yellow tips again. I can't find them again though, it's possible that they were just buried somewhere. Some of the larvae are really huge, and I think I can expect a few majors in the next generation. I'll probably need to get a new formicarium soon. Also I haven't given them any fruit flies in the past week( the flies were infested with mites).

 

^here's the one with the yellow tip I saw on March first.

[ANTdrew]

Awesome!

[TennesseeAnts]

I had a really long, well thought out post written, then like an idiot I went to the home page without posting. It went something like this (shortened, cause I don't feel like re-writing all of it):

 

Wow, that's one healthy, well fed queen! Impressive!
My Camponotus chromaiodes have a similar story- their brood pile spans 3 of their 4 nests, and the queen laid something stupid like 200 eggs about a week ago. The oldest batch of the year (laid in late January) hatched a little less than a week ago, and is only comprised of about ~75 larvae, but that's enough to fill their Mini Hearth and part of their Fortress. They're already running out of room, so I'm going to shell out the ~$150 for a Nucleus here shortly. 

 

I can tell your colony is going to need an expansion here shortly as well. I personally might get a Labyrinth for a colony that productive. How many workers do they have now?  Yours might even outcompete my colony if they keep that up!

[DDD101DDD]

I had a really long, well thought out post written, then like an idiot I went to the home page without posting. It went something like this (shortened, cause I don't feel like re-writing all of it):

 

Wow, that's one healthy, well fed queen! Impressive!
My Camponotus chromaiodes have a similar story- their brood pile spans 3 of their 4 nests, and the queen laid something stupid like 200 eggs about a week ago. The oldest batch of the year (laid in late January) hatched a little less than a week ago, and is only comprised of about ~75 larvae, but that's enough to fill their Mini Hearth and part of their Fortress. They're already running out of room, so I'm going to shell out the ~$150 for a Nucleus here shortly. 

 

I can tell your colony is going to need an expansion here shortly as well. I personally might get a Labyrinth for a colony that productive. How many workers do they have now?  Yours might even outcompete my colony if they keep that up!

Thanks, I don't know how many workers are in my colony but there are more than 55 but less then 90. I'm planning on getting a AC Hybrid nest (the Labyrinth is kind of expensive) for this colony in the future.

[TennesseeAnts]

 

I had a really long, well thought out post written, then like an idiot I went to the home page without posting. It went something like this (shortened, cause I don't feel like re-writing all of it):

 

Wow, that's one healthy, well fed queen! Impressive!
My Camponotus chromaiodes have a similar story- their brood pile spans 3 of their 4 nests, and the queen laid something stupid like 200 eggs about a week ago. The oldest batch of the year (laid in late January) hatched a little less than a week ago, and is only comprised of about ~75 larvae, but that's enough to fill their Mini Hearth and part of their Fortress. They're already running out of room, so I'm going to shell out the ~$150 for a Nucleus here shortly. 

 

I can tell your colony is going to need an expansion here shortly as well. I personally might get a Labyrinth for a colony that productive. How many workers do they have now?  Yours might even outcompete my colony if they keep that up!

Thanks, I don't know how many workers are in my colony but there are more than 55 but less then 90. I'm planning on getting a AC Hybrid nest (the Labyrinth is kind of expensive) for this colony in the future.

 

If you're going the AC direction, I encourage you to put a layer of sand down on the nesting surface, as C. pennsylvanicus really don't do too well in plastic nests.

[DDD101DDD]

 

 

I had a really long, well thought out post written, then like an idiot I went to the home page without posting. It went something like this (shortened, cause I don't feel like re-writing all of it):

 

Wow, that's one healthy, well fed queen! Impressive!
My Camponotus chromaiodes have a similar story- their brood pile spans 3 of their 4 nests, and the queen laid something stupid like 200 eggs about a week ago. The oldest batch of the year (laid in late January) hatched a little less than a week ago, and is only comprised of about ~75 larvae, but that's enough to fill their Mini Hearth and part of their Fortress. They're already running out of room, so I'm going to shell out the ~$150 for a Nucleus here shortly. 

 

I can tell your colony is going to need an expansion here shortly as well. I personally might get a Labyrinth for a colony that productive. How many workers do they have now?  Yours might even outcompete my colony if they keep that up!

Thanks, I don't know how many workers are in my colony but there are more than 55 but less then 90. I'm planning on getting a AC Hybrid nest (the Labyrinth is kind of expensive) for this colony in the future.

 

If you're going the AC direction, I encourage you to put a layer of sand down on the nesting surface, as C. pennsylvanicus really don't do too well in plastic nests.

 

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

[DDD101DDD]

3/26/21

 

           On March 15th, I tried giving this colony some vacuumed sealed dubia roaches I got at Petco. Surprisingly they liked it a lot, and for a day they were occupied with trying to finish it. Due to the roach's relatively large size, they couldn't drag it to the nest and instead had to sort of dig in to it. A week later, I tried a small piece of shrimp on them, and they really liked it too, at least 10 workers were sent out for it.

          Most of the larvae are now pupae, and I think some already eclosed, judging by the empty pupae cases in part of the nest, although I haven't seen any new workers.

A few days ago there was an abnormally large larva, it was also different in body proportions, as it was fatter and less long. Some people on discord have said it may have been a male larva. I saw the workers seemingly try to bite the fat larva but failed, it seemed that their jaws kept slipping off. At night some workers took the larva out while continuing to try and bite it. When I woke up the next day it had disappeared.

          In the last day or so they've been playing Jenga or something with their pupae, judging from the way they're stacking them. I honestly have no idea why they're doing it. They've actually trapped themselves inside a chamber because they made a wall of pupae before. Later they broke it down and formed a new wall between the first chamber from the outworld and the rest of the nest. It is currently still there. The new eggs have also hatched into first instar larvae.

 

 

Edited by DDD101DDD, March 26 2021 - 3:18 PM.

[TennesseeAnts]

Yeah, it looks like they're trying to kill it, so it might be a trophic egg that somehow escaped being eaten.