471 replies to this topic

[charliebynar]

Not worth the risk.

[dspdrew]

Just buy your rose petals from Amazon. It's simple.

 

As for moving to a new setup, I manually move my colonies and fungus, I don't let them do it unless it's a really large colony.

[charliebynar]

I got the rose petals and she immediately took them. I also connected the chamber that had 90% humidity and approx 78-80 degrees and she went in parked herself and started cleaning her antennas. She seemed like she liked it there but then went back to test tube with her little fungus ball .... very small fungus. I wonder if I should let her grow it for a bit so it will be more likely to survive the move? It's smaller than her head so rather fragile at this point. So I think I will give her a couple weeks to see if she is able to grow the fungus and then go from there. On another note found a Myrmecocystus mimicus queen 50 days ago during her nuptial flight and yesterday her first nanitic eclosed. She is so cute! 

 

Just buy your rose petals from Amazon. It's simple.

 

As for moving to a new setup, I manually move my colonies and fungus, I don't let them do it unless it's a really large colony.

Edited by charliebynar, November 21 2018 - 3:19 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Random memory from my childhood 20 years ago: My parents were foreign aid workers posted in Central America when I was coming of age. Every May was the start of rainy season there, which would bring out TEEMING multitudes of Atta queens, which were locally called “zonpopos de Mayo.” As ignorant youngsters, we would catch them, paint one with white-out and stage death match fights between them. There were so many, locals would roast them in oil and sell them as a snack! Once, we bought a big bag and munched on them. They tasted like meaty peanuts. Of course I now cringe at these memories, but such was my childhood.

[Kaelwizard]

Random memory from my childhood 20 years ago: My parents were foreign aid workers posted in Central America when I was coming of age. Every May was the start of rainy season there, which would bring out TEEMING multitudes of Atta queens, which were locally called “zonpopos de Mayo.” As ignorant youngsters, we would catch them, paint one with white-out and stage death match fights between them. There were so many, locals would roast them in oil and sell them as a snack! Once, we bought a big bag and munched on them. They tasted like meaty peanuts. Of course I now cringe at these memories, but such was my childhood.

That must be absolutely horrifying to think about now! 

[ANTdrew]

Indeed! Youth is wasted on the young.

[ANTdrew]

Those were crazy years in a crazy country (Honduras) that is now the most violent place on the planet. I can only ask forgiveness for my stupidity and hope that leaf-cutters still thrive like they used to.

[charliebynar]

Ok sad news, my one atta died. 

[FSTP]

Random memory from my childhood 20 years ago: My parents were foreign aid workers posted in Central America when I was coming of age. Every May was the start of rainy season there, which would bring out TEEMING multitudes of Atta queens, which were locally called “zonpopos de Mayo.” As ignorant youngsters, we would catch them, paint one with white-out and stage death match fights between them. There were so many, locals would roast them in oil and sell them as a snack! Once, we bought a big bag and munched on them. They tasted like meaty peanuts. Of course I now cringe at these memories, but such was my childhood.

 

 

 

Wow! I can't even belive this Imagine all the cool ant colonies you could have had, but no you just had to eat them!

 

https://translate.go...t-text=&act=url

[dspdrew]

Update 11-30-2018

I'm now completely out of reserve queens. They seemed to die pretty quickly this year. I still have seven or so rejects that I will cycle back through or swap out with dead queens if I catch them before the fungus goes bad.

 

I built tons more formicariums, so I have almost all of the colonies in them now. At this point there are only seven queens/colonies still in test tubes with foraging containers. I have 51 queens/colonies in formicariums now.

 

Six of the colonies are doing really well. The three largest have fungus the size of about three jumbo-sized cotton balls and have around 60 workers. Two of those have fungus all hanging from the ceiling now. The other three are smaller with fungus the size of one large to jumbo-sized cotton ball, and about fifteen workers. One of the smaller ones has a TON of brood, so it will soon have a LOT more workers.

[Rstheant]

Fixing up some new substrate.
 

 

 
 
Roses: Their favorite.

Rose casserole! Yum!

[YsTheAnt]

How exactly do you prepare rose petals for them? I am getting some for mine soon.

[Zeiss]

How exactly do you prepare rose petals for them? I am getting some for mine soon.

I've gotten food-grade dried rose petals and just given them that, but a bit crunched up into smaller pieces.  I believe drew bakes his until they're a bit brown and that's good.  Other than that, make sure you give them a wide variety of food so they can choose exactly what they like.  You can find a list of things they like to use in the foods liked by species post.

[dspdrew]

Update 6-16-2019

I'm down to seven remaining colonies. None of them seem to be growing much, but they all have at least some really healthy looking fungus. The four largest each have about 30 to 100 workers and fungus that totals up to about 1/4 of the chamber. Of the three smallest, one has fungus that totals up to about the size of a medium-sized cotton ball, and has about 30 workers. Another has only seven or so workers, with about a small cotton ball-sized fungus garden. The last one has only one worker, and just a small amount of fungus I just gave them from one of the other colonies after they went without any for probably over a month.

 

I'm really just hoping these last for another three months so I have fungus for when this year's Acromyrmex mating flights happen again.

[Zeiss]

This past season's A. versicolor colonies did much better than previously.  I guess in the past we might have just gotten bad fungus and stupid queens.  Even my colony is doing well without proper heating.

[dspdrew]

This past season's A. versicolor colonies did much better than previously.  I guess in the past we might have just gotten bad fungus and stupid queens.  Even my colony is doing well without proper heating.

 

Oh nice. Still going huh?

[Zeiss]

 

This past season's A. versicolor colonies did much better than previously.  I guess in the past we might have just gotten bad fungus and stupid queens.  Even my colony is doing well without proper heating.

Oh nice. Still going huh?

Maybe I should update journals for once, haha.

[Martialis]

Zeiss has a journal?!

[Zeiss]

Zeiss has a journal?!

Shh, it's a secret.

[dspdrew]

Update 10-9-2019

I only have 4 colonies left from last year, and none of them are doing all that well. At least they made it to October this year, so I have fungus to start a bunch of new colonies.
 
Acromyrmex flew over a pretty large area South of Joshua Tree National Park Sept. 27th this year. I collected a bunch and had enough fungus to start about 33 of them. I set up 33 since that was how many of the fungus-grower starter formicariums I had.
 
I'm still hoping to finally get a large colony again like I had when I first got these.