47 replies to this topic

[Amazant]

I am combining all of my ant colonies into one journal

My favorite colony of what I believe to be Formica pallidefulva has been doing well since hibernation has ended. For about 3 weeks they didn’t lay eggs when they were first out of hibernation and then they laid a nice batch and have now gained around 12-15 workers after 3 workers died after hibernation which has increased the colony size to 20+ workers.


The next queen was caught 1.5 months ago and has been doing very well with lots of brood. This colony has 6 workers now and when they are hungry they always send 2 workers out to forage until food is found and then they send 5 workers up and leave 1 to tend to the queen and brood.
I believe these are camponotus decipiens


This pheidole sp was found in my front yard under a rock with 4 queens and I took 2 along with around 20-30 workers, for some reason they seem to kill some of their own workers but it has only happened around 3 times.


I caught this camponotus queen around the same time as the other one, she is a few mm larger than the other queen, and if anyone could ID her that would be nice.


This next colony might not have a queen but while I was walking I saw a nice piece of wood that would have been nice for one of my geckos and before I put it in the freezer to kill anything on it I saw some crematogaster workers which have been eating lots of food and have some brood in the Wood, they haven’t moved into the test tube yet but always have 20 in the tube.


The next colony is a small neoniger colony from a queen I caught last year who didn’t seem to be doing to well, but since hibernation has ended she has managed to get 12+ workers and an okay amount of brood.


The next colony is my oldest colony which is a tetramorium sp which has not grown well at all for tetramorium, they are only at 100-200 workers and it’s their third year.


My myrmica queens aren’t doing great and 2 of the have laid eggs yet I have had them for 3 weeks and they are just now getting eggs which isn’t great.


My final group of queens is prenelopis impariswho have been developing quite slowly but have some nice batches of eggs along with a few small larvae. No pictures for these.

Sorry about the camera quality in most of these pictures.

Edited by Amazant, May 14 2020 - 5:46 AM.

[Antkid12]

Nice journal, I'm gonna follow this!

[ANTdrew]

What are neoliberals?

[Amazant]

What are neoliberals?

Auto correct changed it to that, I have no idea what a neoliberal is.

[ANTdrew]

Lasius neoliberals - parasitic species that lives primarily in liberal arts college campuses.

[NickAnter]

That queen looks like Camponotus sansabeanus, but they supposedly aren't in the state. If it isn't a new record, I would go for Camponotus chromaoides.

[AntsDakota]

 

What are neoliberals?

Auto correct changed it to that, I have no idea what a neoliberal is.

 

It did that to me once on Imgur. So I had a post titled "Lasius neoliberal". One of the comments said, "The opposite of Neo-Nazi?" 

[AntsDakota]

Here's a link: Ladies neoliberal queen with huge egg pile

 

Never mind, though, as the comment was on this post: Lasius neoniger physogastric queen

[Amazant]

Camponotus sp (Possibly camponotus chromaoides)
This queen got her first nanitic yesterday on May 27th and I missed it by around 1 hour. Today on May 28th she got her second nanitic and should be getting some more quite soon.



I finally got some pictures of the 6 queen prenelopis imparis colony and they have a few nice batches of eggs and larvae. Their cotton is also quite moldy but it has been like that for about a month and I don’t know if it would be a good idea to move them out due to stress.


The tetramorium colony hasn’t really grown but they have a lot of brood and I would like to know if it’s better to keep them in a test tube or put them into an old formicarium I got for them 3 years ago that was a lot bigger than what they would like it to be.

Here is the formicarium.
There are two sides of nesting space that are about the same size.


The Pheidole sp are doing well they have workers eclosing every other week now yet the population never seems to increase.
They eat about 1 mealworm every week along with a very small amount of honey water.



The Formica Pallidefulva colony (May be incerta since most of the workers have cocoons however I am not sure yet because 25% of all workers do not eclose with a cocoon.) is quite good and have almost finished this batch of cocoons and the larvae a starting to grow, eggs are hatching, and being laid. The workers are varying in color now with some being dark brown and almost black to light brown with mostly orangish brown workers. Today it rained and all entrances of the nests were blocked up this morning before the rain. This is the only colony that has done this so far.


My lasius neoniger colony is doing well and has laid some more eggs this week, I’m not able to count a full number of brood and workers since they have made a small chamber big enough for workers to stay inside however I estimate 14-18+ workers.


Shortly after my journal from 2 weeks ago I caught two more camponotus sp queens which are a few mm larger and wider than the other camponotus sp queen. They both now have small larvae.


Lastly my camponotus deceipens colony has almost doubled in size from 6 workers to 13 workers now. They should have another wave of workers coming very soon.



Edit: Myrmica queens aren’t doing great one queen is still with no eggs while another one has eaten all of her eggs except for 2-3 and my 3rd one has a laid a few more eggs but there are no larvae.

Edited by Amazant, May 28 2020 - 8:53 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Definitely keep your Tetramorium in a tubs and tubes set up. The only thing better would be a naturalistic set up they can dig in. They’ll grow if you give them protein everyday.

[Antkid12]

Strangely, I haven't found any Tetramorium queens yet, hope they fly soon.

[ANTdrew]

Too early for us. They’ll come second week of June. Most colonies still have queen larvae.

[Antkid12]

Yeah, I have seen one colony who had alates tho, they tried to fly but many had deformed wings and even if they flew they would the only ones. 

[ANTdrew]

Yeah, I have seen one colony who had alates tho, they tried to fly but many had deformed wings and even if they flew they would the only ones.

That’s an outlier then.

[Amazant]

I’ll be feeding my tetramorium colony a lot more protein then. Is it possible to make a naturalistic setup in a plastic tub that is about 5 inches tall, 6 inches wide, and 12 inches long with glass on top?

Edit: What substrate would you recommend.

Edited by Amazant, May 29 2020 - 8:20 AM.

[Amazant]

Yeah, I have seen one colony who had alates tho, they tried to fly but many had deformed wings and even if they flew they would the only ones. 

I’m hoping I to catch more tetramorium queens as well.

[Canadant]

Camponotus sp (Possibly camponotus chromaoides)
This queen got her first nanitic yesterday on May 27th and I missed it by around 1 hour. Today on May 28th she got her second nanitic and should be getting some more quite soon.



I finally got some pictures of the 6 queen prenelopis imparis colony and they have a few nice batches of eggs and larvae. Their cotton is also quite moldy but it has been like that for about a month and I don’t know if it would be a good idea to move them out due to stress.


The tetramorium colony hasn’t really grown but they have a lot of brood and I would like to know if it’s better to keep them in a test tube or put them into an old formicarium I got for them 3 years ago that was a lot bigger than what they would like it to be.

Here is the formicarium.
There are two sides of nesting space that are about the same size.


The Pheidole sp are doing well they have workers eclosing every other week now yet the population never seems to increase.
They eat about 1 mealworm every week along with a very small amount of honey water.



The Formica Pallidefulva colony (May be incerta since most of the workers have cocoons however I am not sure yet because 25% of all workers do not eclose with a cocoon.) is quite good and have almost finished this batch of cocoons and the larvae a starting to grow, eggs are hatching, and being laid. The workers are varying in color now with some being dark brown and almost black to light brown with mostly orangish brown workers. Today it rained and all entrances of the nests were blocked up this morning before the rain. This is the only colony that has done this so far.


My lasius neoniger colony is doing well and has laid some more eggs this week, I’m not able to count a full number of brood and workers since they have made a small chamber big enough for workers to stay inside however I estimate 14-18+ workers.


Shortly after my journal from 2 weeks ago I caught two more camponotus sp queens which are a few mm larger and wider than the other camponotus sp queen. They both now have small larvae.


Lastly my camponotus deceipens colony has almost doubled in size from 6 workers to 13 workers now. They should have another wave of workers coming very soon.



Edit: Myrmica queens aren’t doing great one queen is still with no eggs while another one has eaten all of her eggs except for 2-3 and my 3rd one has a laid a few more eggs but there are no larvae.

Man, that is an AWESOME formicarium!

[AntsDakota]

Your Lasius are americanus. Way too dark to be neoniger.

[Amazant]

Your Lasius are americanus. Way too dark to be neoniger.

Thanks for the proper ID. I hope they don’t grow as slowly as I’ve seen in other journals.

[Amazant]

Man, that is an AWESOME formicarium!

If you are talking about the one I was thinking about moving the tetramorium colony into, it’s really nice however it’s size limits it to ants around the same size as tetramorium and the queen really has to squeeze through some of the chambers.

Edited by Amazant, May 29 2020 - 4:50 PM.