117 replies to this topic

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus festinatus (9/20/23):

 

Way more workers in this colony now. They don't seem to be taking much protein though, which is interesting. I just ran out of crickets, so I'll try again with dubias. Thjs colony absolutely loves hummingbird nectar though.

 

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus ocreatus AZ variant (9/20/23):

 

This queen just got her second worker, who is already a pretty large ant herself. Two more pupae are on the way to eclosing, with a few small larvae and eggs. The queen isn't actually laying an egg by the way, just cleaning her gaster. I still can't get over how cool the queens look...

 

[bmb1bee]

That's it for today's update. My C. us-ca02 got larvae, but I forgot to take pictures of them earlier. I'll get around to that tomorrow maybe. It's going to be a challenge juggling antkeeping and school, but the experience is worth it. 

[ChenZ]

Awesome collection! 

What temperature do you keep Camponotus ocreatus? I've got a colony not doing so well under room temperature (~80F), sitting right next to a ca-02 colony which is growing quite fast...

[100lols]

Will the ladies be utilizing a feeding container attached to their tubes or some kind of tubs and tubes setup? That would make your feeding and care regiment easier! Keep up the good work in school and keeping these beauties

[bmb1bee]

Awesome collection! 

What temperature do you keep Camponotus ocreatus? I've got a colony not doing so well under room temperature (~80F), sitting right next to a ca-02 colony which is growing quite fast...

I keep them at around 85+, same with all of my other Camponotus. Not sure why yours aren't doing well, unless if you're not keeping them in a test tube. They usually do better in test tubes with small colonies.

[bmb1bee]

Will the ladies be utilizing a feeding container attached to their tubes or some kind of tubs and tubes setup? That would make your feeding and care regiment easier! Keep up the good work in school and keeping these beauties

I'll be putting them into some "pencil case" tubs and tubes setups once I can get my hands on some. Most of these are doing fine in just test tubes though. And yup, I definitely won't be wavering in school and ants lol.

[100lols]

Will the ladies be utilizing a feeding container attached to their tubes or some kind of tubs and tubes setup? That would make your feeding and care regiment easier! Keep up the good work in school and keeping these beauties

I'll be putting them into some "pencil case" tubs and tubes setups once I can get my hands on some. Most of these are doing fine in just test tubes though. And yup, I definitely won't be wavering in school and ants lol.

I recently made some with containers from Daiso Japan. $1.75 per container, steel mesh, a bit of perfect cast, and a bit of red sand.

[bmb1bee]

 

 

Will the ladies be utilizing a feeding container attached to their tubes or some kind of tubs and tubes setup? That would make your feeding and care regiment easier! Keep up the good work in school and keeping these beauties

I'll be putting them into some "pencil case" tubs and tubes setups once I can get my hands on some. Most of these are doing fine in just test tubes though. And yup, I definitely won't be wavering in school and ants lol.

I recently made some with containers from Daiso Japan. $1.75 per container, steel mesh, a bit of perfect cast, and a bit of red sand.

Nice! The ones I'll use for my Camponotus will be a bit shallower, but a little longer. Hopefully it works out as planned.

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus us-ca02 (9/21/23):

 

One of my favorite colonies so far! The brood is growing pretty quickly, with big larvae almost the size of workers as of today. The queen is still as chunky as ever, although I haven't fed them protein in a few days. These currently stand at 5 workers, but there'll be more soon.

 

Edited by bmb1bee, September 21 2023 - 10:06 PM.

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus cf. semitestaceus variant B (9/21/23):

 

I finally managed to find one of the fall-flying Camponotus species this year! It wasn't very hot this week, but I saw that C. semitestaceus was flying in a couple locations. I went to Menlo Park near Stanford the day after an observation to look for some. It was around 8:30 PM when I was just about to give up and turn back when I found this interesting queen. I only got one, but it was still a good experience, although a bit scary since it was really dark outside. It didn't look like C. semitestaceus at first since it was so dark compared to the other bright orange one from the iNaturalist observation nearby, but one of my friends keyed it out to be in fact C. semitestaceus due to the shape of its antennal lobules. Compared to my other Camponotus semitestaceus though, it looks almost completely different in coloration. So dark on top, but has red legs and some reddish coloration on the underbelly. I really hope that this queen turns out to be good and lucky one...

 

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus essigi variant A (9/25/23):

 

These C. essigi are doing pretty nicely. They finally got more cocoons, which is nice. Hopefully their growth starts accelerating a bit more now that they're going to get more workers.

 

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus essigi variant B (9/25/23):

 

This queen is also doing good, even though she had a massive worker dieout before I got her. Any piece of food I drop in is readily eaten directly by the queen, although the introduced worker sometimes helps process smaller bits of food and hummingbird nectar. She currently has a few eggs and a larva.

 

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus cf. hyatti variant A (9/25/23):

 

This colony also has pupae now. They're growing at around the same rate as the polgynous C. essigi are, despite only having one queen.

 

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus clarithorax (9/25/23):

 

I forgot to update this colony, which I got from That_one_ant_guy a couple weeks ago. They currently have 4 workers and a decent pile of brood. Although they look pretty similar to the C. hyatti I have, I noticed that they have yellow legs compared to C. hyatti's black legs and have longer shaped eggs. You can probably see for yourself in the pictures I provided.

 

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus cf. semitestaceus variant A (9/25/23):

 

Now I currently have two, both from Benxixi. I'll updating on the newer queen since she looks more promising than the other one. Nothing much about these, since I suspect they won't lay until next spring according to what I've seen from dspdrew's journal. I offered 3 C. ocreatus pupae to boost her with, which she's been taking decent care of so far.

 

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus cf. semitestaceus variant B (9/25/23):

 

The dark variant queen I caught a few days ago was also boosted with 3 C. ocreatus pupae. She doesn't look too interested in them, but hopefully she makes use of them one way or another. I might try using C. vicinus pupae if I can get any, but having yellow C. ocreatus workers with a dark colored queen would look more interesting.

 

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus modoc (9/25/23):

 

After eating all of their larvae a couple weeks ago, they finally laid about two more new eggs. Hopefully they don't eat them this time and raise them well. I fed them lots of protein, so they shouldn't be eating any of their brood at this point.

 

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus vicinus variant A (9/25/23):

 

One of their eggs finally hatched into a larva. Other than that, no other big updates. The dark C. vicinus are likely duds, so I might get a new colony soon.

 

[bmb1bee]

Camponotus ocreatus CA variant (9/25/23):

 

This colony has tons of pupae, which I've been using a few of to boost my C. semitestaceus queens. I only see 10 workers, so I'm not sure where the other two or three went. Hopefully they didn't escape. Despite that, they should bump back up to 15+ workers after this batch of pupae ecloses.