4 replies to this topic

[L.H]

As the title suggests this journal will be about my Lasius colonies. I am keeping Lasius cf. americanus, claviger, and aphidicola. Since the last updates in my old journal, they have grown tremendously. 

 

Lasius aphidicola: 

Since they killed off all the aphids and all host workers have died, they seem to act a lot like normal non parasitic lasius. They will actively swarm protein sources which is cool because I'd never seen that happen before. 

 

The queen has around 400-500 workers with 200 larvae and even more eggs. They have 3 chambers just pilled with larvae about to pupate although they have no pupae currently.

Swarming a chopped grasshopper!

you can tell they had a huge amount of pupae before just because of all the cocoons.

 

Lasius claviger:

This colony has gotten a growth spurt after I fed them lots of insects. I also boosted their host worker force by adding some pupae. The queen has around 200 eggs and 20-30 larvae.

 

 

Lasius cf. americanus:

I currently have a 2 colonies of Lasius americanus, one has around 50 workers and the other has nanitics.

 

Lasius americanus colony A

 

They have no larvae but have eggs and pupae.

 

Lasius americanus colony B

 

They have larvae and eggs + nanitics.

the nanitics are out of frame but she is extremely fat. 

 

[L.H]

Lasius aphidicola:

Most of the large larvae from the last update have turned into pupae. I estimate around 50-60 pupae. The small larvae have grown a bit and the queen still has the huge egg pile.

 

Lasius claviger:

This queen is on a roll. All the eggs have turned into small larvae and she has even laid another huge batch of eggs. She has 30 large larvae about to pupate and 70-80 small larvae along with a hundred or so eggs. More bio workers have hatched bringing the total bio worker count to 20 workers.

 

Lasius americanus colony A:

I have moved this colony into a small plaster nest. They have around 100 workers with 20 pupae. They have still no larvae and only a small clutch of eggs. However, I don't think that the colony is in hibernation as their feeding response is still very good. 10 seconds after I put a drop of hummingbird nectar in the outworld they had a trail already.

 

Lasius americanus colony B:

The queen still had her single nanitic and 12 pupae. She also has 7 larvae and 10 eggs.

 

Lasius americanus colony C:

This is another queen I had caught last year i was deciding if i wanted to put them in this journal since they weren't doing so well but they had like 50 larvae last time I checked and 20 workers so I'm adding them in.

 

Lasius nearcticus:

There was recently a lasius flight in my area and i found a spot that was absolutely swarming with nearcticus queens. I caught 15 - 20 and put then 3 in test tube setup and the rest in Petri dish with dirt setups. The large group of queens had 3 that dropped their wings immediately after contact with the dirt. They then proceeded to work together to build a large dirt nest.

 

Sadly I did not catch any parasitic lasius or myrmica queens this year.

 

[L.H]

Well, what I said in the last update was not true at all. While I was outside yesterday evening, there was a massive swarm of lasius alates. I assume this will be the last lasius flight of the year since it will be getting colder soon. Surprisingly (or not), I stumbled upon a lasius aphidicola queen. After walking around for a couple of hours, I flipped a couple large stones, collected workers and pupae then went home. This morning, I caught 12 claustral lasius queens, and am introducing the aphidicola queen to the pupae and callows.

 

The aphidicola queen this year seems a lot more aggressive then any other parasitic queens I've caught. Perhaps because its just after a flight and I am already introducing her to hosts. She seems to have retained her natural instincts and behaves like a parasitic queen in the wild. She has killed most of the callows and I see her spreading pheromones on herself wile carrying workers. Hopefully she doesn't kill all the workers and is accepted by the hosts.

 

The collected brood.

After adding brood and callows in the queen panics.

Killing all the callows.

[L.H]

Aphidicola queen Update:

 

After this queen killed all but 2 callows she finally felt satisfied. Pretty soon, more workers eclosed. Now, she has a host neoniger workforce of about 60 workers. There is still a ton of pupae so I expect her host workforce to be around 150 later on. She is pretty fat as I have fed some hummingbird nectar to the colony. I caught her in the act of trophallaxis with a group of workers.  She should lay eggs sometime in the next week.

 

Pictures:

[AnthonyP163]

Loving this journal!