471 replies to this topic

[Gregory2455]

12 colonies?

[dspdrew]

I have 12 setups that include a queen and a fungus garden. Nine of them have developing brood, and four of those have workers as well.

[Gregory2455]

What is with those other three? Infertile?

[Tpro4]

If u ever need help with a colony, call me. ) good job and good luck

[dspdrew]

What is with those other three? Infertile?

I don't know. I just know they don't have any brood yet that I can see. I can't see everything very well in these colonies because they hide stuff in the fungus.

[Gregory2455]

I don't know. I just know they don't have any brood yet that I can see. I can't see everything very well in these colonies because they hide stuff in the fungus.

You have mentioned that before.

[dspdrew]

Update 11-4-2014
 
A week ago I traded the colony that had one worker with Chromerust for a Myrmecocystus cf. mimicus colony with a few workers.

 

One of the last few queens I got setup died yesterday. I put the reject queen this queen's setup, and gave her half of the dead queen's fungus. I gave the other half to the very last queen I got setup whose fungus hadn't been doing very well.

 

At this point, even after trading one, I have six colonies with workers. The two largest so far are my main one with probably over four 10 workers, and another with nine.

 

Last night I added some light pink, and red rose petal pieces to their substrate.

Edited by dspdrew, December 12 2014 - 7:55 AM.
Updated some numbers

[dspdrew]

After looking closer, I found two more colonies actually both had a worker. I also found a 5th worker on the second largest colony.

[Erik Kegge]

This is a very interesting topic to read. I am amazed how much care you put into these obviously very difficult species to raise. Having a successful colony makes it all worth surely.

[dspdrew]

I have to say, these are very difficult to get started, but once started, seem to be very easy to raise, mainly because they feed themselves.

[Gregory2455]

I wish mine would have fed themselves...

[dspdrew]

So far the queen that let her fungus die like four times I think might actually be taking care of the new much larger chunk she recently inherited from the queen that died.

[dspdrew]

Um wow, I sure counted wrong on my second largest colony. It appears they have nine workers now.

[dspdrew]

Update 11-25-2014
 
I sold one of the smaller colonies to Gregory2455, leaving me with 10 colonies total. Seven of these colonies have workers, and all but one (the reject queen) have at least some brood. The largest two colonies now have around 15 workers each, one with a small pile of brood, and the other with probably around 25 pupae/larvae. The third largest colony is up to about 10 workers now and also has a good number of brood--probably around 20 or so. All the rest have around five workers, and just a small amount of brood.

 

The reject queen that got a fairly large piece of fungus donated to her has slowly let this fungus whither away. It still looks healthy, but has gotten a lot smaller since I gave it to her. Since this queen clearly does not know how to properly take care of and grow her fungus, I decided to boost her with a couple workers since I have access to quite a few of them now. I took two pupae from one of the largest colonies and put it in her test tube. Hopefully the workers will take over the fungus gardening job, and maybe the queen will start laying some eggs.

 

I was thinking maybe these test tubes are just too small for these colonies to build a large enough fungus garden in, so I gave the two largest a new larger test tube in hopes that they will move in. So far one of them hasn't done anything with theirs, while the other just piled tons of substrate against the wet cotton, causing it to start molding. I swapped that test tube out with a new one, and actually planted some of their fungus in there myself. Hopefully this will cause them to start gardening it, and maybe produce the results I was hoping for.

[Gregory2455]

Have you considered connecting the two test tubes with a tube?

[dspdrew]

So they cant go in the out world?

[Gregory2455]

Well, you can cut a hole it the tubing... I forget the name of the type of tubing... Vinyl?

Edited by Gregory2455, November 26 2014 - 1:54 PM.

[dspdrew]

I think you're talking about vinyl PVC. I'm not sure what that is supposed to accomplish though.

[Mathiacus]

So much work! I doubt I would have the patience for this. But good job mate!

[dspdrew]

It's funny though, in total these are less work than any other species I've kept.