48 replies to this topic

[LC3]

[cpman]

Looking good!

What happened to that Pheidole queen?

Both of mine this year have died...

[BrittonLS]

My first worker ever has eclosed!

[BrittonLS]

I've got a microscope watching them, but it's hart to get it focused enough for good pictures with them all running around. But I now have five workers in the two queen test tube. 

 

Saw something need too. The queen fed one of the workers until it's gaster was visibly bloated and then I watched as it went around and appeared to be feeding a bunch of the larva as if it'd been designated nurse made

Then! She went back to the queen and seemed to feed her back the extra food until her gaster was back down to size. 

 

[BrittonLS]

Well, moving day went terrible. I've probably stressed them both out beyond consolation. For now I put them in the dark hoping it'll keep them calm and back to business.

[LC3]

Oi. Good luck.

[BrittonLS]

They seem to be doing alright. I think I've been keeping my ants way too hot. I've got it so the top just presses against the side of the 15 W heating cable now and they seem to have stopped holding onto the wet cotton like their lives depended on it. Which it may have up to this point. Which was weird, cause I've seen people rest the ends of their tubes on heating cable before, but maybe they had glass tubes and mine are plastic. 

 

The winged queen I separated died. But maybe it was from the heat, a few workers from both and the other queen have died as well, hopefully food and a little less heat will be good for them.

 

I fed some little bits of cricket around which they seemed to take some interest in, but I am totally clueless about feeding them at this point. I'll just make sure nothing is rotting in their nests for the most part I guess. I got a good amount of small crickets from the pet store I'm just keeping in the freezer. 

 

Should probably think about what I'm going to do with them when they need to be let out of the tube lol

 

Also no update on that Pheidole really. I gave her a new clean tube to move into and she's set and has a couple eggs. Not sure if she brought them or layed them, no larva still either way.

Edited by BrittonLS, July 13 2015 - 7:59 PM.

[Crystals]

I would try a small plate made from tin foil with a drop of sugar water and small pieces of insects.

 

I tend to just put my test tubes in a container and let them forage once they top 15 workers or when it gets too hard to feed them in the tube.

 

Here is someone else's picture of their Solenopsis colony setup.

[HolycowIappeared]

Hope this colony is more successful than mines. 

[BrittonLS]

Update

 

Starchild, (aka, the queen who was doing really well) doesn't seem to have any brood or workers anymore. I wonder if I waited too late to feed them, I don't think it was more than three workers, but it was probably more likely too much heat if that's what killed my other ants. The survivor of the double tube seems to be doing well. Two others have a good amount of eggs, but I've never seen one mature to larva.

 

[LC3]

People are naming queens now haha. cx

[Trailandstreet]

People are naming queens now haha. cx

only ALF names ants too.

[BrittonLS]

So put my good queen in a container for an out world with another test tube set up and a tube of water. I put them out in our shed thing because it's hot and dark and probably good that I did because next time I went to check on them I saw one crawling around along the sides of the lid. So I guess my boundary layer didn't quite work. I already forked over some money for some byFormica fluon, so that should be here soon. Darn Terry. XP 

 

Though there's only maybe... 10 of them, so it really wouldn't be a big deal if they started wandering around my house at this point really lol

 

They've been moving their nest around a lot, at one point they actually put everything on the cotton sticking out of the water tube. Maybe I'm putting too much cotton in the tubes and they're not saturating enough. 

 

Was experimenting a little with making an actual nest, which was only partially a fiasco. Which is why it's good to experiment I guess!

[PogoQueen]

When I first started raising queens I named mine as well! Which made it a little harder on me when they died. I think I will again name my queens once they have proven to be successful, it is just too much fun! 

[BrittonLS]

Well my successful one escaped outside so I'm left with two queens who are 'probably' duds. 

 

I tried to boost both of them, of course one of them already ate the boosted brood, so I think that may be it for her. Unless she was just hungry and now will lay all her eggs?

[BrittonLS]

So the boosted fail-queens did not improve, but the last rain provided a ton of ants. Among the other species I nabbed, I got about three dozen S. Invicta queens. I ran out of test tubes, so they're all huddled in a jar while I'm on vacation, hopefully at least half of them will still be there when I get back. I put 4 in one tube and will probably do that with the others as well once I clean out my old test tubes.

[BrittonLS]

Put all my new queens into test tubes now that I'm back from vacation. I put five in each except for one with four, totaling 44 queens. They had probably hundreds of eggs in the jar I had them all piled in, I tried to distribute them around as much as I could so they wouldn't have to start completely over. I'm sure I'll get at least one very successful colony out of these! Unless they just wind up murdering each other and leaving no survivors like the test tube I put four Pheidole sp. in...

[BrittonLS]

Caught August 21^st, 2015

 

In case you wanted to see 45 S. invicta queens:

 

 

Already some rejects it seems, but I'm obviously hedging my bets. Let's hope it doesn't turn around on me. Bad pictures I know, I didn't want to take them out of their shoe box. 

Edited by BrittonLS, September 5 2015 - 7:14 AM.

[LC3]

Imagine if ALL of the queens manage to raise a successful colony... 45 colonies of stinging red ants

[BrittonLS]

Yeah, I would much rather have 9 colonies that manage to just start very quickly lol.