16 replies to this topic

[FinWins]

On August 23rd my two M. mexicanus queen arrived through the mail from Vick09usmc when the first came the were in good condition but their eggs were spread all over the end of the test tube. Luckily by the next day they had gathered all their eggs into neat little piles.

[FinWins]

Now they have tripled the size of their egg piles, this species seems to lay a lot of eggs in the first batch. I can’t wait for them to start producing repletes. 

[FinWins]

So one of the queens died , but I gave her brood to the other one which accepted it. Now that queen has her first nanitic!

[FinWins]

One surviving queen is Thriving! She now has 5-6 nanitics and is on the road to success! I’m honestly shocked that she made it this far as honeypots can be finicky, but for once my neglect has paid off.

[Ant-nig321]

Glad the're doing fine.And goodluck with them.

[T.C.]

With that PVA sponge pushed so far back you can expect it to dry out real soon.  

[Locness]

Yes, do you have a different water source? When my mexicanus arrived, the test tube was flooded. I tried putting them in a temp setup, but the queen wouldn't leave and she ate some of her eggs. After several weeks, I decided to just move her into a mini hearth. The eggs hatched shortly after and all 9 pupae eclosed together within a single week.

Edited by Locness, October 29 2022 - 9:47 PM.

[FinWins]

With that PVA sponge pushed so far back you can expect it to dry out real soon.  

Ok so I should clarify. I moved them in to a different test tube weeks ago, that has a much larger amount of water behind a cotton ball.

[Ant-nig321]

How are they doWIN finwin?

[FinWins]

They are doing very well, they LOVE sugars but aren’t always the biggest fans of proteins though. Lol. The queen is currently the only replete in the colony and you can see all the honey I fed her through her gaster which is super cool.

[Ant-nig321]

Feed them more sugar water which will make the queen tired of being the only replate and produce some.

[FinWins]

Sorry it’s been forever and a day since I posted I’ve been pretty busy. 
As for the Myrmecocystus colony they are doing very well. I moved them in to my second model of mini nest and they seem to LOVE it. Although it looks similar to the to THA’s nests it is actually quite different. I’ve made several upgrades from my previous nest model and this one is by far the best nest I’ve built yet, even though it’s pretty simplistic.

Here are some pictures of the colony and nest.

[Ant-nig321]

Cool

[Katla]

I Wish you all goodluck for that young foundation and hope that they will thrive and become strong and numerous!

[FinWins]

Update time: They are doing well in their nest but haven’t grown a whole lot though I think it’s just because it is winter because most of my other colonies have slowed down too. I can’t believe that they have survived this long though!

[Ant-nig321]

Can't really see them due to the condensation tho but keep up the good work.

[FinWins]

They have been growing quite a bit lately. It seems like everyday that a new worker or two is eclosing. There are now around 12-14 workers.