36 replies to this topic

[ConcordAntman]

[cocdeshijie]

Camponotus ocreatus

Queen from 2019 now 200+ workers

 

 

[cocdeshijie]

Novomessor cockerelli

Queen from August 2020, got 500+ workers in 6 months before I sold it to SleepyAsianAnter.

 

[DDD101DDD]

 

Honestly though, it's a little weird in my opinion how few large colonies there are with alates. Off the top of my head, I can think of maybe 3-5 people on this forum with large mature colonies. A lot of people seem to leave after about a year or 2 too, judging from all the journals that were started and never updated past a few months or years. In discord too, many people are active for about a year and then disappear randomly.

I hear ya! It takes a fair chunk of time to care for our colonies. Some may think, ants, how hard can it be, only to get discouraged when tending issues arise and casualties occur. 
As for alates, my smallest colony had one alate probably from an unfertilized egg but isn’t it unlikely for any of our colonies to replicate the conditions necessary to foster alates?

 

 

I mean, several people have gotten alates from captive colonies. Serafine has with his Camponotus barbaricus, ANTdrew has with like, 3 of his captive colonies. From what I can tell, it seems to be a matter of colony age and size, although not enough people have old, large ant colonies we can observe to see if it is just a matter of size and age in my opinion.

[SYUTEO]

My Camponotus parius colony is my only colony to survive from 2019.

[ANTS_KL]

The largest colony I got was a Pheidole parva colony at almost 100 workers with around 5 majors. Died from mould. Then we have my tetramorium which were caught from the wild and are still growing so I count that as a success.

Sent from my CPH2201 using Tapatalk

[KadinB]

The best colony i got would probably be either my Camponotus hyatti or my formica francoeuri. Both at around 40 workers and same age colonys and some of my first colonys ever. My Camponotus hyatti were bought from vern when he was moving out of state and are doing good now and are my 3rd colony I have ever kept. My formica francoeuri was caught here in nor cal and is y second colony I have ever kept. They aren't doing to well now. The queen won't lay any eggs and all they have is 8 pupae that are almost all workers. I think it's because they may have gotten sick of meal worms but they hollow out all of the meal worms. I don't know why the queen won't lay.

[TestSubjectOne]

Honestly though, it's a little weird in my opinion how few large colonies there are with alates. Off the top of my head, I can think of maybe 3-5 people on this forum with large mature colonies. A lot of people seem to leave after about a year or 2 too, judging from all the journals that were started and never updated past a few months or years. In discord too, many people are active for about a year and then disappear randomly.

I can't speak for others, but after a few months of writing journals for several of my colonies, while not giving up on antkeeping, I stopped updating them and took a break from the forum. This was because the process of writing a journal entry with quality pictures took a long time for what began to feel like I was just reaffirming that my colony was alive and had grown. After some time feeling guilty that I wasn't writing enough, I chose to stop updating them altogether. Now that my Myrmecocystus mexicanus have begun to eclose full sized workers, I'm considering restarting their journal, but if I do I'm going to write in it less than before and focus on behavior and care rather than details, which I find more interesting. There are definitely plenty of people who give up on the hobby after a bit, but others just get tired of the process of journalling and/or leave the forum once they have an idea of how to care for their ants. As for my own colonies, I have one year old polygynous Brachymyrmex patagonicus colony that currently has male alates. They reside in a bifurcated Mini Hearth, with glass dirtied to the point that I can't get a remotely accurate estimate of their numbers, though I imagine it's somewhere between 500 and 1,000. Then again, they are an invasive species, small and very fast growing, so I wouldn't count that as much of an achievement. For my other colonies, all about the same age, my largest is certainly the Veromessor pergandei I bought at 15 workers from TheAntGuy nearly a year ago, now around 600 workers strong. They started out in a test tube, feeding entirely on a medium bag of Drew's seed mix (still 1/3 full), and eventually got large enough to move into a fallen fortress which they quickly grew into. They refused insect protein during founding, but recently I have found that they will consume it readily. Despite their limited diet, after a mediocre start, they exploded in population, though that seems to have slowed or stopped now that they fill their fortress. Here are some pictures of their nest and outworld. Notice their polymorphism - the larger workers are needed to open seeds, which they feed to their larvae in visible chunks. When I first got them, the queen was the only member of the colony large enough to do the job.

This colony of Crematogaster sp. I raised from a single queen, purchased without brood, to about 200 workers. Because I have recently kept them at room temperature, their colony has grown slower than my Veromessor, though when I get around to creating a larger hotbox I'm confident that their numbers will skyrocket similarly. They nevertheless inhabit a Labyrinth, my largest formicarium, and have two large brood piles consisting entirely of small-medium larvae. As they grew they moved from their test tube to a mini hearth, and then filled that up as well. At this point, I dropped their mini-hearth on the ground, the glass falling off and ants pouring across my floor. I seized the opportunity to move them into the Labyrinth as I had been planning, and after a painstaking night of using a paper to collect ants from my floor - I now have a mini-vac for that purpose - they were in their new nest. In the couple months since then, being unable to fit into my heated box, they have seen a slowing of movement and brood growth - a mini hibernation, though they still move and eat. Once I get them back on heating, they will fill up their nest, but for now they are still impressive. The first picture is their queen holding court. Like queen bee, she is constantly followed by an escort of workers to protect and tend. She will move around her nest daily, and is unfailingly followed by these attendants. During the chaos of the move to the Labyrinth, workers covered her completely as she walked, making her appear almost as a moving ball of ants. The second is a picture of one of the colony's brood piles - note the completely uniform size.

Edited by TestSubjectOne, July 7 2021 - 12:00 AM.

[DDD101DDD]

 

Honestly though, it's a little weird in my opinion how few large colonies there are with alates. Off the top of my head, I can think of maybe 3-5 people on this forum with large mature colonies. A lot of people seem to leave after about a year or 2 too, judging from all the journals that were started and never updated past a few months or years. In discord too, many people are active for about a year and then disappear randomly.

I can't speak for others, but after a few months of writing journals for several of my colonies, while not giving up on antkeeping, I stopped updating them and took a break from the forum. This was because the process of writing a journal entry with quality pictures took a long time for what began to feel like I was just reaffirming that my colony was alive and had grown. After some time feeling guilty that I wasn't writing enough, I chose to stop updating them altogether. Now that my Myrmecocystus mexicanus have begun to eclose full sized workers, I'm considering restarting their journal, but if I do I'm going to write in it less than before and focus on behavior and care rather than details, which I find more interesting. There are definitely plenty of people who give up on the hobby after a bit, but others just get tired of the process of journalling and/or leave the forum once they have an idea of how to care for their ants. 

Who knows, maybe there are actually a ton of people with big, old colonies just off the internet. I kind of doubt it honestly, and think people might've just lost interest before their colonies got big.

Edited by DDD101DDD, July 7 2021 - 7:43 AM.

[ConcordAntman]

Not to highjack the thread but, TestSubjectOne, you make a great point! Good documentation in itself can be a demanding task. Perhaps worthy of its own thread. I’ve not gone the blog or journal route but I both enjoy and appreciate the Massachusetts thread. Occasional updates, questions and answers. Information for the knowledgeable and pearls for the newcomers. 

[Canadant]

Had:
Camponotus novaeboracensis - several hundred. Males plus many, many majors.

Tetramorium immigrans - well over 500

Current:
Formica neorufibarbis - 200-300 (I think. Could be wishful overestimation)

Crematogaster cerasi - they have to be at 400-500 its hard to count these guys. They've created males though. Several last season. The queen sits in her formicarium surrounded in a pile of brood. Kinda cool.

Yes I've noticed on here the lack of journals with mature colonies. 90% are in the founding stage. It's an exciting time for sure but.... yeah, a lot. Updating a mature colony can become kinda redundant after a while but 'My colony grows' is always something I'm interested in seeing in the journals. I love the pics.

Edited by Canadant, July 15 2021 - 3:40 PM.

[cap_backfire]

My most successful, by far, is my Camponotus Discolor colony which started as a queen and about 20 workers.   These girls now have close to 300 and have a respectable pile of brood.  They scout their entire enclosure, explore every facet, once in awhile one of them somehow gets up on the lid of the tank (I need to address that probably tonight, before it becomes an issue.  I have their enclosure "surrounded" with houseplants so if they DO plot an escape, it will likely be into one of these potted plants again).   But yeah, they are awesome to watch, LOVING honey, crickets, mealworms and June Bugs.   I might actually look up how to raise June bugs as feeders...) 

 

My Trachymyrmex colony is impossible to count but still are going strong.   They have at least the same number of ants as when I got them, and I assume they have grown in number but again, it's hard to tell since so many of them process food for the fungus AND tend the fungus underground.   

 

The other three are... Challenges?   THey haven't died off yet (thankfully) but are in different phases of very small growth.   Camponotus Nova, Camponotus Chromiodes and Formica Subsicera.  

 

This is a GREAT thread, and I plan to watch it closely.  

[yaboiseth]

My 3 most successful colonies are my Solenopsis xyloni 2019 colony 2020 with 200+ workers and a MASSIVE brood pile of at least another 200 larvae and pupae.

A camponotus quercicola colony I got from Vern in 2020 with about 50+ workers and a large amount of larvae.

And last but definitely not least my Formica sp. (Either francoeuri or moki) also from Vern in 2020 with easily over 100+ workers and always with a consistent large brood pile.

I did have a pheidole colony with over 300+ workers but after a failure to give a new water tube they dropped to a staggering 40 workers mainly consisting of majors and alates but they were recently brood boosted and now over 100+ workers again, so glad to see them rebound.

[CheetoLord02]

My Atta: https://www.formicul...ted-729/page-12

When I got them they were nearly dead; or at least the fungus was. They had *maybe* a teaspoon of fungus when they should've had at least half a cup. Then a few months later I accidentally almost killed them again when I fed them some roses that had a fungicide. In the 5 months since that incident they've gone from just a few hundred workers to tens of thousands and probably 2+ liters of fungus.

(not to mention being possibly the most popular formiculture journal? which is awesome?)

[AlexLebedev]

I'm making this to list your most sucessful colonies/queens(and to test a theory of ANTdrews)

my older cousin who got me into anting had a colony of myrmecocystus with alates

[Tyr_Ants]

I'm making this to list your most sucessful colonies/queens(and to test a theory of ANTdrews)

my older cousin who got me into anting had a colony of myrmecocystus with alates

Oh that's nice who's your cousin? I've also never heard of someone that has a colony of Myrmecosytus with alates

[Idontexist]

My current camponotus queen is going from alate to pupa phase in just a few days