This forum is great, I am shocked with how many people from California are on here.
I havent had much success in the past with starting queens but hopefully that changes. Right now I have a few Camponotus just starting out, one colony that I managed to collect two queens/workers/brood from, and I picked up a D. insanus (afaik) queen off my floor this morning.
Here is the small colony I have, the rest have a few eggs but no brood so far. Obviously I need to move them into more appropriate housing!