20 replies to this topic

[PacificNorthWestern]

I'm back!! What is your New Years resolution for anting this year?  Mines is to successfully find and found a formica queen past 10 workers.

[TheMicroPlanet]

Mine is to start antkeeping 

[ANTdrew]

Mine is to start blacklighting in the spring to hopefully find Pheidole queens. Finding and selling lots of Camponotus queens wouldn’t be bad either.

[Ferox_Formicae]

I hope to get my business (and website) off the ground and hopefully get another colony of Trachymyrmex septentrionalis and try to keep them alive for more than a few months, along with getting a PPQ 526 permit to get some larger Attines, specifically Atta laevigata or mexicana. Keeping Cyphomyrmex rimosus alive for a while would be nice too. They're just so finicky and I can never quite get their humidity right. They just die so quickly without sufficient hydration. Seriously, I put a few individual into a petri dish and they were already dying after 15 minutes.

[TennesseeAnts]

Mine is to get ALL THE ANTS.

[ponerinecat]

To ABSORB ALL NATIVE ARTHROPOD LIFE and start blacklighting FOR ALL NATIVE INSECT LIFE

[ANTdrew]

Oh, and I intend to try raising a bumblebee colony from new queens this spring to free range in my yard.

[FeedTheAnts]

To keep more of the queens I find. Also to buckle down and finally BUY SOME DANG TEST TUBES! Seriously, I have in the past thrown out many interesting queens simply because I didn't have enough test tubes. As far a species I want to collect... Prenolepis imparis is still #1, but I also want some Myrmentoma Camponotus because my C. discolor colony didn't make it through hibernation.

[Somethinghmm]

Mine is to catch a queen of that small yellow Crematogaster(?) species that I found but decided to release. I'm so disappointed with 6 month younger me.

[Manitobant]

Mine is to sucessfully raise a polyergus colony as well as some dolichovespula maculata and vespula queens.

[ponerinecat]

Mine is to catch a queen of that small yellow Crematogaster(?) species that I found but decided to release. I'm so disappointed with 6 month younger me.

Yellow Crematogaster in Cali? That's probably C. depilis.

[ANTdrew]

Mine is to catch a queen of that small yellow Crematogaster(?) species that I found but decided to release. I'm so disappointed with 6 month younger me.

Yellow Crematogaster in Cali? That's probably C. depilis.

Blonde heart-gasters from Cali - what could be better??

[Unfrozen]

your guys are so cool i live in canada but mine is to try to raise my prenolepis past second year

[TheMicroPlanet]

your guys are so cool i live in canada but mine is to try to raise my prenolepis past second year

That's something i'd really like to do someday. There's not a lot of info about estivating them for the summer, but I have done some research. First, they don't build chambers above 60 cm in the soil, preferring to dwell in regions of the soil where the temperature is more consistent and cooler. Secondly, nests have been known to reach 3.6 meters deep (these nests are vertically oriented and don't project outward much). Thirdly, during the summer, the colony will reside in the deepest chambers of their nest and just loaf around with their repletes. I have at least 2 colonies near my house, and I also know that there's a water table a few feet down. I don't know a lot about soil, but I guess the temperature combined with the moisture (and maybe something else?) gets them through the years.

 

Here are some helpful links:

https://antwiki.org/...nolepis_imparis

http://entnemdept.uf...pis_imparis.htm

https://bugguide.net/node/view/27323

http://www.schoolofants.org/species/96

And of course there's the care sheet here.

 

I know this was kind of excessive    but I hope it helps!

Edited by TheMicroPlanet, December 29 2019 - 4:26 PM.

[ponerinecat]

 

your guys are so cool i live in canada but mine is to try to raise my prenolepis past second year

That's something i'd really like to do someday. There's not a lot of info about estivating them for the summer, but I have done some research. First, they don't build chambers above 60 cm in the soil, preferring to dwell in regions of the soil where the temperature is more consistent and cooler. Secondly, nests have been known to reach 3.6 meters deep (these nests are vertically oriented and don't project outward much). Thirdly, during the summer, the colony will reside in the deepest chambers of their nest and just loaf around with their repletes. I have at least 2 colonies near my house, and I also know that there's a water table a few feet down. I don't know a lot about soil, but I guess the temperature combined with the moisture (and maybe something else?) gets them through the years.

 

Here are some helpful links:

https://antwiki.org/...nolepis_imparis

http://entnemdept.uf...pis_imparis.htm

https://bugguide.net/node/view/27323

http://www.schoolofants.org/species/96

And of course there's the care sheet here.

 

I know this was kind of excessive    but I hope it helps!

 

Prenolepis have really deep nests in the wild, in captivity its hard to replicate that.

[ANTdrew]

Someone should try a big dirt vase set up like Dspdrew has used.

[TheMicroPlanet]

Someone should try a big dirt vase set up like Dspdrew has used.

Or maybe a bunch of formicaria stacked on top of eachother with the lowest part next to a cooler or something. There'd have to be a long tube going from the top of the tower up to the outworld to simulate their position in the soil.

[B_rad0806]

Mine is to get as many colonies as possible. I would also want to found most desert species (Myrmecocystus, Pogonomyrmex, Novos, and Veromessor). I would also want to start selling more colonies.

[ANTdrew]

Mine is to get as many colonies as possible. I would also want to found most desert species (Myrmecocystus, Pogonomyrmex, Novos, and Veromessor). I would also want to start selling more colonies.

Don’t over do it. Just one large colony is a huge responsibility. Don’t burn yourself out like so many others before you.

[AntsDakota]

I wish to by Pogonomyrmex occidentalis from Tar Heel Ants.