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[Ernteameise]

Little update on some of my colonies.

All of my girls are well and are in their strongest growing phase.

 

The Lasius niger are my fastest growing colony.

They go completely insane with brood production.

The colony is now so large and active, it is really hard to take good pictures since they have smeared the glass with waste and dirty feed.

So I apologize that the pictures are blurry.

 

However, as I have observed previously in this journal, these ants are my tidiest and cleanest of my ants.

They have a couple of tidy, well organized waste disposal sites in their outworld and will use these religiously.

They are the easiest to clean- most of my other colonies dispose of waste willy-nilly and much less organized.

And the worst offenders are the Camponotus lateralis and the Messor barbarus, who are just simply messy.

 

So many eggs and larvae!

 

 

[Ernteameise]

Update for the girls-

as one might expect, the Lasius are in full growth mode.

Just look at the massive piles of pupae they have amassed in both nests!

[Ernteameise]

Since these girls are now also rapidly filling up the XXL mini hearth attached to the mini hearth, they need an extension.

Today, I decided to splurge out on a fancy Foranto wooden nest for the Camponotus lateralis, so the XXL mini hearth originally intended for the C. lateralis will go to the growing Lasius niger colony.

So they will live in a real "train-set" of connected XXL and XL mini hearths. 

Therefore, the Lasius niger can look forward to this fancy home extension:

 

Not sure if I will attach this this year, or next spring. 

It might be easier to overwinter them in the setup they have now, and then they can use spring to grow into the new home. 

[Ernteameise]

The Lasius niger girls are getting ready for winter, their protein intake has plummeted. No new brood has been produced, as far as I can see. 

I will place them on my balcony in the coming days.

On the balcony, they will have outside temperatures, which will be 5 (night) -15°C (day) in the coming 16 days (longterm forecast).

So they can get ready for winter.

I will again leave the girls on the balcony as long as possible and only get them inside when there is frost.

To make the move easier, I have already placed the colonies in their transport box.

 

Here is the colony:

 

 

The balcony transport box: