54 replies to this topic

[AntsDakota]

fyi there's a few alates in te brood pile

Do these breed in the nest?

[Skwiggledork]

Oh god yours are growing fast. More than the ones I have haha. Might be the quantity of queens you have since I have a small amount with me at the moment. Anyway fyi there's a few alates in te brood pile

Yeah, I see a few large larvae. I'm giving them basically unlimited protein, so full steam ahead. lol.

 

fyi there's a few alates in te brood pile

Do these breed in the nest?

 

From what I've read, they will mate in the nest, so I should have some more queens in a little while.

[Skwiggledork]

 

Lots more workers and a ton of pupa/larva.

[Skwiggledork]

[Mdrogun]

Wow, impressive growth.

 

I've seen people mentioning it here but they will with absolutely certainty mate in the nest. The queens themselves don't live long lives, and can't lay many eggs, so without this ability to produce more queens on a whim for the colony, the colonies would stay relatively tiny and only last a few years at most. 

Edited by Mdrogun, June 4 2020 - 2:45 PM.

[Canadant]

Lots more workers and a ton of pupa/larva.

just wondering what and why have you chosen to smear on the glass guard? I like the hybrid 2.0. A sturdy formicarium. Love Tetras too. Looking good!

[Skwiggledork]

 

Lots more workers and a ton of pupa/larva.

just wondering what and why have you chosen to smear on the glass guard? I like the hybrid 2.0. A sturdy formicarium. Love Tetras too. Looking good!

 

I use a bit too much Elmers glue and they stuffed some dirt from the outworld in it.

[Skwiggledork]

 

And I gave them a bigger outworld.

[Skwiggledork]

 

[Skwiggledork]

I need to get a new nest to move them out of this one so I can clean it. They've split into two groups. One stays in half of the nest that they have kepts clean and the other half has moved into their water test tubes. I'm struggling to take decent pictures for some reason, but this is what I got.

 

 

 

[TechAnt]

Are you going to attach or move them completely into a new formicarium? Also what kind of formicarium are you moving them into if I may ask.

[Skwiggledork]

I am probably going to attach a new one to the second port on the outworld and let them move out when they want and I am waiting on an Ant-Shack medium hydro nest.

https://www.ant-shac...-hydro-ant-nest

It's a little smaller than the AC mini hybrid nest and I don't need to worry about hydration often. We'll see if they like it.

[TechAnt]

I am probably going to attach a new one to the second port on the outworld and let them move out when they want and I am waiting on an Ant-Shack medium hydro nest.
https://www.ant-shac...-hydro-ant-nest
It's a little smaller than the AC mini hybrid nest and I don't need to worry about hydration often. We'll see if they like it.

Cool!

[Skwiggledork]

I haven't updated my journals in awhile. My bad.

 

This colony has steadily grown. They stayed in half the nest and two test tubes. I am still waiting on the new nest from Ant shack. It's been shipped, just hasn't gotten here.

I started running into a problem with my barrier/outworld. The rim on the AC outworld isn't attached, so once in awhile I will pop it off by mistake and I think the fluon I have has settled or got shaken, because they can walk over it upside down. So I am currently freezing this colony. If it was a native species of even a single queen species I would keep trying to fix the barrier, but with a non-native species and one that breeds in the nest, I have queens walking around the outworld and every time I open it to feed them or clean workers try to escape. Although they look really nice and I like how fast they are growing it's not worth the risk of a queen escaping and the problem will only get harder as they get bigger, so they have to go.

I will be cleaning everything, siliconing the rim down and reuse everything.

[AntsDakota]

Ah, too bad. But good to know that there still quite a few responsible ant keepers out there.