26 replies to this topic

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

Yes some tend to be darker in coloration mostly the queen.

[Yusteponant]

Can't wait. I bought a colony of these girls from JenC and once I get home I can open them up and see how they're doing. Hope they are alive!

[Izzy]

A bit late on this update but better late than never.

 

I'm happy to announce that the two large cocoons from the Left Colony did indeed turn out to be majors! They eclosed a little over a month ago.

 

I wasn't sure if the first major was going to make it, as it took them about 4-5 days to fully remove all the cocoon that was wrapped around her legs. Meanwhile she just sat around unable to move. During that time they seemed to be ignoring her. I thought for sure she would die, but eventually I woke up to find that they had unbound her and she seemed to be doing well.

 

Unfortunately the second major did not make it. I'm not sure if there was an issue with eclosing or what, but I woke up to find her ripped into two pieces in the outworld.

 

Here is a picture of the sole major between the two colonies.

 

The larger colony (the Right Colony) has yet to produce any majors, but this colony has outgrown the other by leaps and bounds and they have several medians at this point.

 

I bought and built my first home and I specifically requested extra lighting to be installed in all of the rooms since I just really like light, but I'm hoping it'll help provide some better pictures and viewing experience going forward. Both colonies did great during the move and it didn't seem to stress them out too much.

 

This will probably be the last update for these colonies until next year. I'm not anticipating a lot of growth in the next few weeks. The new ant room in my house is a bit cooler than the previous one (sits around 68-70 where as the other was 76-78 degrees) so its served as a nice way to start slowly cooling them down before they move into the garage in a few weeks.

 

I'm really excited they were able to produce a major during their second year. That was one of my goals for these colonies and I wasn't sure if it was going to happen till year three. Looking forward to their explosive growth next year.

 

Also here is a bonus picture of my current ant room setup. I probably need another desk at this point. I'm looking forward to doing some more interesting things now that I don't have to worry about landlords and moving.

 

[Izzy]

Time for a post-diapause update for these colonies.

 

They both seemed to have handled the diapause like champs. Very few dead, obviously more for the bigger colony and fewer for the smaller colony, but percent-wise the large colony faired better than the smaller colony.

 

The small colony. I'm glad to see the lone major made it through diapause. Hopefully she'll be joined by some others this season. This colony actually spent diapause in the vinyl tubing seen in the picture where some of the ants are still hanging out. The queen sat in tube where it connects to the nest where there is the most darkness, but as soon as I moved them inside she moved back into the nest again.

 

Here are the dead of the small colony. I want to say about 6-8 dead? Picture is a little fuzzy.

 

The large colony, still a lot in there and I see some brood as well they overwintered with.

 

The dead of the large colony (RIP). Around 9-11 dead I would say.

 

The large colony has a few workers who insist on being outside the nest. I'm not sure what their purpose is. The nest is still far from full. Perhaps they're guarding the door or are just confused where the nest ends and begins since there isn't much airflow? As far as I can tell its the same median and I'm not sure about the workers since they're more numerous and harder to tell apart. They just stand motionless.

 

I unfortunately broke my Pixel 5a phone, which fortunately allowed me to upgrade to the Pixel 9 Pro, which has macro (not too impressed with the macro so far), and up to 5x optical zoom (this has been awesome). Seems like the pictures of the smaller colony weren't as good as I was still messing with the settings, but the large colony pictures seem an improvement over my previous phone shots. Still not as clear as the macro from a real camera, but a nice quick and easy option and will be nice for taking pictures in the field.

 

[Izzy]

Another quick update on these colonies as there have been some developments.

 

Unfortunately, the lone major of the smaller colony has died. Which is tragic because she was only just born right before diapause. Her other sister (a major as well) didn't make it after eclosing so they may have had some defect. I noticed the last 3 days she was in the outworld and seemed solely focused on trying to climb out and escape. As Antdrew mentioned ants sometimes do when they know they're dying, so I was ready for it, but I found her dead this morning.  RIP friend.

 

The other bigger colony seems to have had a second die off. I'm hoping this is just another diapause die off, as they lost relatively few workers when I first took them out of diapause, but it seems like another ten or so have died.

 

Both colonies look more sparse than they did, but they both seem positioned well to grow from here and replace the dead. The bigger colony has 6-7 large larvae (not majors though) they overwintered with and about 15-20 smaller larvae. The smaller colony queen seems to have finally laid a clutch of eggs in the last few days so I'm glad to see they continue to show signs that they are healthy. They've been foraging and eat their protein and liquid foods when provided and show signs of having a good appetite.

 

Now time to get some majors... again!

[Izzy]

It's been about two months since I've updated on these colonies, and I wish I had all good news but I don't.

 

The larger colony has had their third die off, and it has been very significant this time. The colony is down to about 15-20% of the size they were upon exiting diapause. It started about two weeks ago when I noticed the queen outside of the nest. This immediately alarmed me. I even found her trying to climb up and escape a few times which made me think her death was imminent, but she never died. However, she does continue to spend almost all of her time outside of the nest. She occasionally will go back in on her own, or when dragged in by a worker, but very quickly leaves again. The colony continues to maintain a small presence inside of the nest with their brood near the heat source, but a few workers and the queen spend their time outside. I am not sure what is causing the issue here, but its clear that something is wrong with the nest as the die off has been very large, and the queen seems to be avoiding it. I don't see anything obvious like mold, or mites. They've never been without protein, water, or a liquid carb source (sunburst nectar). So I am unsure of the cause, but its quite disappointing as this is one of the colonies I've been growing since the beginning and was hoping to see make some big leaps forward in their 3rd year. They are in a very simple perfect cast nest I created, and have been there since last year.

 

Here is the large pile of dead. RIP my friends. 

 

Here is all that remains of the colony except for the queen and a few workers outside the nest.

 

However, not all is lost as the queen seems healthy, and there is still brood. I'm going to make an effort to provide them with the option to move nests if I can find some time to create another nest or free up another nest I have in use.

 

The second smaller colony is now the bigger of the colonies, and they seem completely unaffected by what has happened to their sister colony despite being 3-4 inches away. Their growth seems normal, and there isn't much to update on them yet, but they seem healthy. I hope they continue to be.

 

Other good news: I have had great success with catching new Camponotus sansabeanus queens this year, with a total of 20 queens. I still stand by my goal to raise a successful sansabeanus colony, and hopefully eventually get majors and alates. With that being said, I am planning to add at least two more colonies from the captured queens to my colonies that I plan to keep, as I worry about the conditions of the one colony and was keeping two to begin with as an insurance policy to increase my chance of success. I may try some other types of setups with these others. I will wait until their workers arrive and select the healthiest of the bunch.

 

I'm looking forward to introducing them and hoping for a successful recovery of the "larger colony". Hopefully the next update will be all good news.

[Izzy]

Well it happened... the queen of one of the colonies finally died. Its a bit sad to see her go after two years of raising them. She is the first queen I've lost of one of my major colonies that was past the starting point. I'm a bit late to updating but it happened about two days after my last post. The sick colony still appears to be in total collapse due to unknown reasons.

 

I still have 16 other sansabeanus queens who seem to be in good health and I will be picking the two more successful to add to this journal.

 

The remaining lone colony appears to be doing well. They have a good appetite and still appear to be unaffected by whatever is killing the other colony. They are at 25 workers, which is exactly the worker count they had back in July of last year, but they did have some losses during diapause. They have around 6-7 larvae and a small clutch of eggs so hoping they continue to grow and don't cap out here.

 

I'm considering discontinuing this journal and either starting another for all of my Camponotus species (vicinus, modoc, sansabeanus, ocreatus, laevissimus and nearcticus) or just a desert Camponotus journal (sansabeanus and ocreatus). Still not entirely sure yet but I'll continue to update the sansabeanus here until I make up my mind.