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Solenopsis invicta journal

Started By Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* , Jan 8 2022 10:03 AM

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#1 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted January 8 2022 - 10:03 AM

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This is one of the queens a few weeks ago. I will check on them today or tomorrow.

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#2 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted January 10 2022 - 12:41 PM

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No pictures, sorry O couldn’t find my macrolense. :(
Queen 1 had same amount of eggs, no larvae.(Picture above) This is her 3rd week
Queen 2 also has very little progress, and has a small batch of eggs ready to hatch
Queen 3 has burrowed under a cottenball… now I can’t see her brood. She has larvae ready to pupate(2nd week)
Queen 4 has her eggs hidden
Queen 5 has 5 or 6 larvae and a few eggs
Queen 6 has some mold
Queen 7 has some larvae(1st week)(I'm NOT SURE HOW)
I also have a theory. The queen that layed no eggs for about a week started laying when mold appeared. She is also far ahead any other queen, and is the 3rd youngest. Could it be more beneficial to have mold at the founding stage? Could she be raising them so fast Becuase she needs them?
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#3 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted January 23 2022 - 9:47 PM

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So bad news. I lost 5 queens… I am not sure how, I checked and 5 were dead… this happened a few days ago, and I checked today to find pupae with on of the remaining queens! The other queen, has not layed eggs, and has pooped much… mold has overcome her living space…

Also, good news, I caught 9 queens, and like a complete drunk, I will attempt to make a successful 9 queen invicta colony. (Drunk Becuase I have tried with less queens and it never worked out)
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#4 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted February 5 2022 - 7:21 AM

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Sorry for the wait, but queen #4 has workers. To add, I checked up on the 9 queen colony, and I now understand why they do that in the wild… the eggs…. There is at least 100. This is the old photo from 3 days after catching. Also, the 2 queens that lost their brood have been fed, and no eggs for 2 weeks now. Any tips? I fed them honey, then protein jelly. Should I add them to existing fire ant colonies?
Here is photo
Edit: there is 100+ as of today, not in pitot from a few days ago

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#5 Offline antsriondel - Posted February 5 2022 - 10:49 AM

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Sorry for the wait, but queen #4 has workers. To add, I checked up on the 9 queen colony, and I now understand why they do that in the wild… the eggs…. There is at least 100. This is the old photo from 3 days after catching. Also, the 2 queens that lost their brood have been fed, and no eggs for 2 weeks now. Any tips? I fed them honey, then protein jelly. Should I add them to existing fire ant colonies?
Here is photo
Edit: there is 100+ as of today, not in pitot from a few days ago

wow, that is a lot of eggs!!!!


#6 Offline ANTdrew - Posted February 5 2022 - 11:13 AM

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Tip: don’t feed the Gremlins after midnight and never get water on them!
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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#7 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted February 16 2022 - 1:02 PM

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Indeed, they have about 4x that now. I have successfully founded one invicta with 5 nanitics and more on the way. I am interested to see when they try to break free and forage. No pictures today. Maybe next week.
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#8 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted February 16 2022 - 1:08 PM

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One queen I have had since early December, still no eggs. I have fed her honey and protein. Is she infertile, or just using all of her protein stores to die in founding? I thought she didn’t like the mold her Cotten got, so I switched her and still no eggs.

Edited by SolenopsisKeeper-, February 16 2022 - 5:32 PM.

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#9 Offline ANTdrew - Posted February 16 2022 - 1:30 PM

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Probably fertile, but unmated.
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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#10 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted February 16 2022 - 5:33 PM

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Probably fertile, but unmated.


How can an ant not mate, but be fertile? Can it go on to produce workers?
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#11 Offline ANTdrew - Posted February 17 2022 - 3:09 AM

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Fertile means capable of reproducing. If those queens were to mate, they most likely would produce workers. Infertile would mean they have some issue that renders them incapable of reproducing, whether they mate or not. It is a misused term on this forum.
"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#12 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted February 19 2022 - 9:14 PM

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Now that I think of it, that was something that came to me when I started Antkeeping, I was just told that if a queen mated, she was fertile. Will workers kill off unmated queens, or will they die naturally, or will the workers completly ignore them, causing them to die… would other queens kill it?

Also, on the topic of fertility, apparently workers will sometimes kill off less fertile queens in some ant species, or start laying eggs. I read an article of C. Floridanus that claimed if a queen had “low fertility”, than the workers would start laying haploid eggs. Kind if interesting…

#13 Offline antsriondel - Posted February 21 2022 - 6:46 AM

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Now that I think of it, that was something that came to me when I started Antkeeping, I was just told that if a queen mated, she was fertile. Will workers kill off unmated queens, or will they die naturally, or will the workers completly ignore them, causing them to die… would other queens kill it?

Also, on the topic of fertility, apparently workers will sometimes kill off less fertile queens in some ant species, or start laying eggs. I read an article of C. Floridanus that claimed if a queen had “low fertility”, than the workers would start laying haploid eggs. Kind if interesting…

yes your colony will kill off the infertile queens.


#14 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted February 21 2022 - 6:51 AM

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Ok, I have never raised a multi queen setup like this without the queens obliterating each other.(Still invicta)

#15 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted February 21 2022 - 7:01 AM

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Here is a picture of the 7 worker colony. I fed them the first meal yesterday, as every time I checked on them 2-3 would either be sitting at Cotten or tugging.

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#16 Offline ANTdrew - Posted February 21 2022 - 10:55 AM

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Give them access to an outworld then.
"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#17 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted February 21 2022 - 11:59 AM

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Used AC portal already for them. I don’t have any bigger outworlds that invicta nanitics won't escape. They sipped at the honey for a little bit, and they are the first captive inductance colony to like it.

Edited by SolenopsisKeeper-, February 21 2022 - 12:01 PM.

#18 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted February 22 2022 - 2:51 PM

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I realized last week I was loosing eggs, but thought maybe they were eating unrated ones… but I was wrong… they weren’t eating them… something much worse was. I was checking on them by removing their blanket and looking at them, but never examine the tube completely, so I didn’t see the killer until I lost many, many eggs. I also realized queens trying to escape the tube, but thought that was Becuase if the light exposure… but no… these queens, we’re the smart ones. I checked today, lookin under the tube to find a dead queen in a pile of feces and… mold…. Only a small batch of eggs was left, but I think this is ok…

This is why you don’t make multiqueen setups with invicta in an area where both gemineta and xyloni are present…

Rip Solenopsis app. Queen.

Also, what differs between invicta and Gemini tail queens other than their heads?

#19 Offline ANTdrew - Posted February 22 2022 - 7:48 PM

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I realized last week I was loosing eggs, but thought maybe they were eating unrated ones… but I was wrong… they weren’t eating them… something much worse was. I was checking on them by removing their blanket and looking at them, but never examine the tube completely, so I didn’t see the killer until I lost many, many eggs. I also realized queens trying to escape the tube, but thought that was Becuase if the light exposure… but no… these queens, we’re the smart ones. I checked today, lookin under the tube to find a dead queen in a pile of feces and… mold…. Only a small batch of eggs was left, but I think this is ok…

This is why you don’t make multiqueen setups with invicta in an area where both gemineta and xyloni are present…

Rip Solenopsis app. Queen.

Also, what differs between invicta and Gemini tail queens other than their heads?

This is pretty hard to follow.
"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#20 Offline Guest_SolenopsisKeeper_* - Posted February 23 2022 - 4:16 PM

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Oh shoot auto correct. Solenopsis Gemineta it what is supposed to say sry.

I was asking what is the difference between invicta and gemineta
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