106 replies to this topic

[AntsCali098]

Great photos! My colony was doing well with tons of brood and 100+ workers until the queen suddenly died last week 

Yeah sorry about that. Thanks for the compliment

[AntsCali098]

Not gonna lie, I got worried for a while there. But after months and months, we finally have a new batch of eggs!




Now that they've laid, I am confident about the colony's future to get up to the numbers that they probably should be at by now.

Other than that, still not much to say. Same amount of workers. They still are able to finish a liquid feeder of nectar in just a couple days.

Thanks for checking out my journal!

[AntsCali098]

The eggs from last time have turned into larvae, and the queen laid new eggs, she is producing so much. Here are some photos I took when feeding



This colony has a bright future and hopefully they can finally grow to big numbers. They are finally growing fast.

Thanks for checking out my journal!

Attached Images

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[AntsCali098]

The trend continues. These gals have really been "activated" by the hotter temperatures and upcoming summer. They now have a lot more repletes, and I'm feeding them more now. 

 

Whenever I open the outworld, the activity really starts. Its almost like they know its feeding time, and they are waiting far me to drop it in   The queen recently laid even more eggs, and they now have cocoons, most of which are out of view from the camera. I was able to catch a bit of the queen today in her usual area up against the back of the nest. Sometimes she likes to hang out on the celling as well, but its been a very long time since I've seen her on the water tower and ground.

 

If there's bad news at all, their biggest replete recently died. You can see it in the front of the 1st picture. It seems they are saving the body for the nectar inside.

 

 

Thanks for checking out my journal!

[AntsCali098]

Was able to finally get at least okay footage of the bulk of the brood. It's not perfect, as this isn't all of the brood, but it's tough to film at an angle and get all of it.

You can also see the queen in this video for the first time in a while!

https://youtu.be/anQ...gntARKtrKszXlh7

As you can see, the queen has been very busy and they now have more larvae then ever and quite a few fresh eggs!

[AntsCali098]

Apologies, this reply was a double post.

Edited by AntsCali098, June 19 2024 - 4:54 PM.

[Stubyvast]

Wow amazing! This colony is growing crazy fast! The little grains of sand on the cocooned pupae look a bit like tiny jewels. Cool stuff! Also judging by the size of the cocoons you may get some larger workers/repletes soon, although hard to tell.