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Herdo's Pheidole sp. (Last updated May 28th, 2017)

pheidole arizona phoenix beginner first

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#1 Offline Herdo - Posted June 30 2015 - 6:26 AM

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This thread will be used to track the Pheidole sp. queens and colonies I've captured. This is my first experience with ant keeping.

2014: Became interested in ants sometime in 2014. Became discouraged when I learned I would need to capture my own queen. While it sounded fun, I assumed it was extremely difficult for some reason.

6-22-2015: Found a dead Pheidole sp floating around my pool early in the morning. Thought it was a wasp of some kind, but then remembered what I had learned about ant queens. Finding one resparked my interest in ants.

6-24-2015: Caught some bees. Thought they were ants. Considered giving up entirely. http://imgur.com/a/I2cJs

6-25-2015: First Pheidole sp. queen captured at about 5:30 A.M. Found with wings attached and doing backflips, which I now know was caused by her trying to reach her wings. http://imgur.com/a/cWiVK

6-26-2015: Checked on queen about 24 hours after capture. Wings removed, small clump of eggs have been laid.

6-27-2015: Second queen found on pool deck at about 5:15 A.M. Watched her and the male land. She immediately removed wings and the male lay dying. I scooped her up and put the male out of his misery. http://imgur.com/a/gbpty

6-28-2015: Third queen found on pool deck pulling her wings off at 5:30 A.M. Placed her with the others and checked on the the other two around 6:00 A.M. I believe the first queen has laid more eggs and the second queen has started to lay a few of her own. Pulled about 15 other queens (same species) from pool before heading inside. Found large worker which I successfully identified as Odontomachus clarus.

http://imgur.com/a/gbpty http://imgur.com/a/RRDGE

6-29-2015: Pulled about 15 more Pheidole sp. from pool. Took 2 queens for a total of 5 queens now. First 3 queens all have eggs now I believe, with queen #1 having a somewhat large pile.

6-30-2015: Heavy rains last night. Went outside around 5:00 A.M. (this is the sweet spot for this Pheidole sp. in Phoenix). Saw about 20 of the same Pheidole species, but nothing new unfortunately. I've ordered a "GroTube XL" from byformica through Amazon. Should be here Thursday at the latest. I've also ordered a desk temperature/humidity gauge which should be here Thursday as well. I'm starting to question how hot I should be keeping the queens. My initial feeling is that they are use to a hot environment here in Arizona (well over 100F), but I'm afraid I'm cooking them.

7-9-2015: It's been two weeks since I first caught queen #1. She and queen #2 were both caught running around on the ground and both have removed their wings. Queen #1 is doing well and I believe her eggs are no longer eggs and are now larva. I think I can see one with a tiny black eye even! Queen #2 is doing equally as well, and I think she may have more brood, although they aren't quite as developed. The other three I believe all have eggs, but only a few and they don't seem to be growing nearly as fast. Maybe them landing in the pool has some how impaired them?

Unfortunately, I accidentally flooded queen #1s tube.. It was with maybe a few drops of water but all of her larva got soaked. I took some tiny tweezers and pulled slightly on the cotton which wicked up most of the water. I let her be for about an hour and came back to her moving her larva towards the center of the tube. I then tilted the tube upside down and tapped it several time with a pen until they all slid down to the dry cotton cap. I let them sit a bit before sliding them back towards the middle. Hopefully it dried them out quickly and none of them have died. I was concerned that the test tube was too dry. Queen #1 particularly was trying to stuff her eggs/larva inside the cotton rather than next to it like the others. I guess we will find out in a few days. I took a few quick pictures. I'm currently in the process of shopping for a real camera so hopefully these cell phone photos won't be around much longer.

Queen #1:

Queen #2:

Queen #3:

Queen #4:

I'm planning on keeping queen #1 at the very least, and possibly queen #2. The rest I will most likely release assuming everything goes fine with queens # 1 and 2.

Edited by Herdo, May 28 2017 - 9:30 AM.


#2 Offline LC3 - Posted June 30 2015 - 9:14 AM

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Maw Gawd'

Suu Many Pheidole evrewer!

Dun't yu evr git enuff of dem?

 

:lol:


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#3 Offline Herdo - Posted June 30 2015 - 11:46 AM

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Maw Gawd'

Suu Many Pheidole evrewer!

Dun't yu evr git enuff of dem?

 

:lol:

 

Haha seriously.  I am amazed at how many I see every morning.  I think 5 queens is enough for now.  I am just planning on having 1 colony to start with, and will set free whoever is left.



#4 Offline LC3 - Posted June 30 2015 - 9:29 PM

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Did you put multiple queens in one tube yet? I'm still curious on what would happen.



#5 Offline Herdo - Posted July 2 2015 - 5:41 AM

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Oh I completely forgot about trying that.  Yesterday and today I wasn't out early enough to find any though anyways.  I am probably heading up north today so I am going to keep an eye out for some different species. :D



#6 Offline Herdo - Posted July 9 2015 - 5:27 PM

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Updated original post.



#7 Offline LC3 - Posted July 9 2015 - 9:04 PM

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It says: LAST UPDATED: June 9th, 2015 

IT'S JULY!    :lol:


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#8 Offline Herdo - Posted July 9 2015 - 9:29 PM

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It says: LAST UPDATED: June 9th, 2015 

IT'S JULY!    :lol:

 

 

Haha oops. Thanks LC3!



#9 Offline Herdo - Posted July 21 2015 - 2:58 AM

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JULY 21, 2015

 

We have workers!  I got to the point where I was checking in on my queens pretty much everyday, but I felt I was disturbing them too much so I decided to give them so privacy for a while.  That lasted a whole 2 days before my curiosity got the better of me.  I just went in to check on them after about 48 hours and queen #1 has 5 or 6 workers!

 

The interesting thing is that they workers already have color as well.  I expected them to be clear or at least lightly colored.  I also notice some of her larva are much yellower now.  Two days ago they all looked like white larva still.  Is it possible they enter the pupae stage and eclose all within 48 hours?  I wasn't expecting workers for quite a while considering none had even grown past the larval stage yet (or maybe they have and I just didn't notice).

 

I will post some pictures here in a bit.  Once she gets another 5 - 10 workers I will place them in their new home.  Considering how quickly these workers arrived, I'm assuming that will only be another day or two.   :dance:


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#10 Offline Mdrogun - Posted July 21 2015 - 1:52 PM

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I'm still super jealous of your pheidole!


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Currently Keeping:
Trachymyrmex septentrionalis

Pheidole pilifera

Forelius sp. (Monogynous, bicolored) "Midwestern Forelius"
Crematogaster cerasi

Pheidole bicarinata

Aphaenogaster rudis

Camponotus chromaiodes

Formica sp. (microgena species)

Nylanderia cf. arenivega


#11 Offline Mdrogun - Posted July 21 2015 - 9:23 PM

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do you have any pictures?


Currently Keeping:
Trachymyrmex septentrionalis

Pheidole pilifera

Forelius sp. (Monogynous, bicolored) "Midwestern Forelius"
Crematogaster cerasi

Pheidole bicarinata

Aphaenogaster rudis

Camponotus chromaiodes

Formica sp. (microgena species)

Nylanderia cf. arenivega


#12 Offline Herdo - Posted July 22 2015 - 1:17 AM

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Woops, sorry Mdrogun.  Here are the ones I snapped real quick while trying not to disturb them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonus pic of queen #2.

 

 

 

Also, I think I was wrong about their coloring.  They seem much darker today, and some are even black!  I assumed they would be mostly red like the queen but it appears the workers are actually black.  She has at least 10 workers now with more right around the corner.  The workers are only a few mm long, so I think they will be comfortable in the GroTube.  I will probably put them into the nest tomorrow.

 

The other three queens have some eggs, but none of them are growing very much and they still look like little white dots.



#13 Offline LC3 - Posted July 22 2015 - 10:45 AM

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Wow. That Pheidole queen is really successful.  :)

Interestingly when I keep ants I usually keep two of the same species just in case one doesn't make it. All the time I have one of the queens do way better than the other.


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#14 Offline Herdo - Posted July 22 2015 - 6:51 PM

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Wow. That Pheidole queen is really successful.  :)

Interestingly when I keep ants I usually keep two of the same species just in case one doesn't make it. All the time I have one of the queens do way better than the other.

 

 

Yea they are both very fertile.  Queen #2 is probably just as fertile but I caught her about 3 days after queen #1.  I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but I think the other 3 are actually a different species.  They are more red than queens #1 and #2 and a couple mm smaller.



#15 Offline LC3 - Posted July 22 2015 - 8:34 PM

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o.O 



#16 Offline Mdrogun - Posted July 23 2015 - 6:41 PM

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Wow. That Pheidole queen is really successful.  :)

Interestingly when I keep ants I usually keep two of the same species just in case one doesn't make it. All the time I have one of the queens do way better than the other.

 

 

Yea they are both very fertile.  Queen #2 is probably just as fertile but I caught her about 3 days after queen #1.  I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but I think the other 3 are actually a different species.  They are more red than queens #1 and #2 and a couple mm smaller.

 

Its probably unlikely that they are different species. Normally there is some variation of color,size etc. within the species.


Currently Keeping:
Trachymyrmex septentrionalis

Pheidole pilifera

Forelius sp. (Monogynous, bicolored) "Midwestern Forelius"
Crematogaster cerasi

Pheidole bicarinata

Aphaenogaster rudis

Camponotus chromaiodes

Formica sp. (microgena species)

Nylanderia cf. arenivega


#17 Offline Herdo - Posted July 24 2015 - 1:42 AM

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Wow. That Pheidole queen is really successful.  :)

Interestingly when I keep ants I usually keep two of the same species just in case one doesn't make it. All the time I have one of the queens do way better than the other.

 

 

Yea they are both very fertile.  Queen #2 is probably just as fertile but I caught her about 3 days after queen #1.  I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but I think the other 3 are actually a different species.  They are more red than queens #1 and #2 and a couple mm smaller.

 

Its probably unlikely that they are different species. Normally there is some variation of color,size etc. within the species.

 

 

That is good to know, thank you Mdrogun.



#18 Offline Herdo - Posted July 24 2015 - 2:42 AM

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July 24th, 2015

 

I've successfully transfered the queen and her brood to the GroTube.  I got myself a heating pad today to try and nudge them out of the test tube, but I ended up giving up on that because I was afraid I'd kill them.

 

I decided I should try and give them some food so I coated 2 small cricket legs in some Ant Nectar and placed it between the test tube and GroTube.  After a couple minutes, one of the workers wandered into it from the test tube.  Another couple minutes later and a second worker that was exploring the GroTube ran into it.

 

 

A few minutes later and a third worker from the test tube side found the legs.  This is where things got interesting.  Pretty much immediately after the third worker found the legs, all of the workers started to go nuts and raced over.  Even the queen ran over to check it out but then quickly ran back to her brood.

 

 

When I placed the crickets legs in the tube I did two things.  I placed the lamp a few inches from the test tube, and I also placed the test tube over the heating pad (unintentionally).  I'm not sure what cause it, but either the feeding, light, or heat from the heat pad made them decide to move in a hurry.

 

The first few workers started to grab clumps of eggs, larva, and pupa.

 

 

 

 

After most of the brood was moved, some of the workers started getting rough with the queen, trying to make her move.  She ran up to where the test tube ends several times, but would then run back into the test tube.

 

 

 

 

She finally made one last dash after all of the brood had been moved and several workers were pushing her.  She made it past the end of the test tube and was on her way into the GroTube.

 

 

Then she saw the juicy cricket legs and stopped for a snack.

 

 

She sat there and munched on some cricket legs for a good 20 seconds before the workers convinced her to keep moving.

 

 

I've detached the test tube and attached the outworld via the two vinyl hoses.  Several workers have made their way out already and have found some of the Ant Nectar I've left for them.  So far they love this stuff.  I'll update this thread with some pictures of the workers and queen in the nest tomorrow.  At this moment, any time I remove the cardboard cover I've made for the GroTube, the queen runs around like a mad woman so I'm going to let her calm down for a while before trying to snap some pictures.


Edited by Herdo, July 24 2015 - 2:45 AM.

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#19 Offline Ants4fun - Posted July 24 2015 - 7:48 AM

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Cool! And better feed them good! That queen is looking pretty skinny...

#20 Offline LC3 - Posted July 24 2015 - 10:27 AM

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Queen ants are always acting funny even after workers are formed. :lol:


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