6 replies to this topic

[Batspiderfish]

I have a few new queens this year that I am yet to share about, and I figured it's as good a time as any to start a little journal, as a collective of my photographs and videos. I still need to knock the cobwebs off my macro photography setup which, cumbersome as it is, has nabbed me some pretty decent images in the past. My camcorder is many times more convenient.

For macro, I use lens coupling of vintage lenses from Minolta on a Canon HF S200's fixed zoom lens and a Helios 44 on my Sony A700's Minolta mini-beercan. I have a small LED array for videos and a Frankenstein('s monster)esque flash setup for photography. None of this stuff is really optimized.

So first up Is Camponotus pennsylvanicus. I originally had C. novaeboracensis as well, but she fell prey to parasitic flies and croaked a couple days after capture. The maggots have since pupated and I should have some footage of the flies when they emerge. C. pennsylvanicus has more than the four or five larvae I am used to seeing them raise into the nanitic stage. It will be interesting if she decides to keep all of them. In the video, she is doing something to the egg -- either eating it/making it easier for a larva to eat or removing some kind of membrane from a 1st instar larva. I'm inclined to believe it is the latter. In another clip I haven't published, she has quite a bit of difficulty getting the membrane off of her right mandible (but succeeds eventually, haha.) I've had her for 22 days, and have kept part of the tube on a very small heating pad.

 

 

I found this Tetramorium queen in the road, being harassed by workers of the same species. Somewhere along her way, she seems to have lost her left antenna. She was collected at the same time as C. novaeboracnsis, which was one or two days after my other Camponotus queen (I should have written it down. Always write the dates, times, and locations down, people!) I really like Tetramorium, and hope to give them a permeable nest someday soon. In this clip, the queen doesn't do much, but you can see her carefully checking the nearby eggs.

 

I've wanted to get another Lasius umbratus queen since I lost my first-ever colony two winters ago. This first queen was caught on May 31st in a small forest park. I introduced her, under normal conditions, to eight wild-caught, in-nest Cautolasius (L. nearcticus or L. flavus) from the same location. She killed all but two workers, which was a little excessive if you ask me. They haven't moved out of their gross tube, so I could only film through the opening. 

 

 

This next queen was caught four days ago. I wasn't sure how Lasius umbratus would do founding a colony with only two workers (which haven't been responding to the Lasius alienus pupae I've had on hand to give them.) This second queen was offered somewhere around 20 workers with up to 30 larvae, two days after capture. She killed two workers which were clinging to her leg and antenna, then spent a day in a separate tube with their bodies. Two more workers panicked and ran out of their tubes, but didn't seem to be able to find their way back before dying (this host might be delicate). When I came home from work tonight, she was amongst the workers. Please disregard the audio capture of my breathing, haha:
 

Edited by Batspiderfish, June 19 2016 - 9:54 AM.

[Batspiderfish]

There may be something wrong with my Tetramorium queen, as her brood doesn't seem to get past the early larval stage. My Camponotus pennsylvanicus has already pulled ahead with two pupae. It's possible that having one antenna makes it more difficult to keep up with the needs of her dozens of offspring.

My Tapinoma sessile colony which was in decline since hibernation is producing eggs again after their first pupa of the year eclosed. I'm glad, since I want to see the potential of this species and make up for the lesser care they received.

The Lasius umbratus queen with two workers passed away. I noticed at times that she had trouble communicating with one of the workers. She would try to initiate trophallaxis but the workers would amble on by like she wasn't there.

Edited by Batspiderfish, June 24 2016 - 10:54 AM.

[dspdrew]

There may be something wrong with my Tetramorium queen, as her brood doesn't seem to get past the early larval stage.

 

That's what always seems to happen with my Camponotus sansabeanus.

[Batspiderfish]

So proud of my Camponotus pennsylvanicus queen! She's set to have seven nanitic workers as opposed to the usual four or five. What a good mamma! There's also a dozen larvae at various stages.

 

 

I gave my Camponotus nearcticus queen a length of vinyl tubing in addition to her claustral chamber, in hopes that she would find a better humidity level and settle down. She hasn't really settled down, but she did lay an egg. I haven't seen her taking care of it, but she does sometimes stand over it. Who knows how she'll do. Maybe I should give her a dirt setup and try to let her settle on her own terms.

 

My Lasius umbratus queen has been carrying an egg around, which you can barely see through their tube:

 

I looked in today, and now there are seven of them in a small pile. My experience with Lasius umbratus is that the queen will wait for some time before laying (compared to a claustral queen) but when she does start laying, she'll lay a lot. My profile picture is of my first L. umbratus queen sitting over a large clump of eggs which showed up over the course of a week.

 

I snagged another Tetramorium queen after the flights this morning. Hopefully this one will not have any trouble. I'll take care of both of them if the first queen pulls through, but something is not going well for her. 

Edited by Batspiderfish, July 1 2016 - 5:06 PM.

[Batspiderfish]

Sorry for not updating the most momentous occasions for my young colonies. I don't even have photographs right now while I'm designing a macro flash diffuser that I can clip onto my massive, ancient external flash. It's not so much having anything functional to diffuse light as a challenge to my budding 3d design skills -- I could use a couple pieces of tissue paper just as effectively. I am just stubborn.

 

My Tetramorium queen with the one antenna could not raise any brood past the larval stage, and eventually stopped laying eggs altogether. I euthanized her in the freezer.   

Luckily, I had managed to find another Tetramorium queen before their season ended. her first worker eclosed a few days ago, and now she has quite a few of them. It's kind of hard to tell just how many because the wet cotton bung is convex and just over the white label of the tube.

 

My Camponotus pennsylvanicus queen is doing fantastically so far! She has ten workers and perhaps twice as many eggs, larvae, and pupae. The queen has gone from one of my more skittish queens to a totally complacent egg-laying machine. She is full of food right now, and her gaster is distended almost to the point that you can see the white between her black tergites. I am so pleased with how this colony is doing so far, and I hope they have as much vigor after hibernation as well. I have never had the best luck with Camponotus; I can't even get Myrmentoma to lay eggs.

 

I caught a queen of Lasius subumbratus back in July. While these social parasites have been recorded as only parasitizing Lasius pallitarsis, I've managed to adopt queens to Lasius umbratus in the past, and got them to the egg-laying stage before a wild Camponotus major either fell into the outworld or deliberately climbed its way in to murder the entire colony. Anyways, I collected some Lasius cf. nearcticus workers and introduced Lasius subumbratus on the same day. She adopted herself successfully to the workers after an entire day of being pinned and roughly handled, which I have observed as part of one founding strategy with Lasius umbratus. Lasius subumbratus is larger than the Chthonolasius I've seen, and has a particularly rough method of extracting food from her host workers, almost knocking them over -- maybe trophallaxis is more ordinary with L. pallitarsis. A few days later, she died suddenly. The two times I've had better success with this species there was one additional partner queen involved; maybe a second queen increases the odds of extracting food from the workers, which the queens may then share. The other potential cause of this outcome could be a depleted food supply of the workers, which were freshly caught. Since Cautolasius seem to be rather shy foragers, they may not have been able to adjust to captive food supplies while also sustaining a queen. There were no larvae in the host worker sample, which I predict that parasitic queens may utilize as a source of protein. I still have the host sample for when the Acanthomyops finally fly in Portland. It should be worth noting that after the first large batch of eggs, the two Lasius subumbratus queens turned against each other and the workers stopped feeding one of them.

 

I have caught one queen of what I believe to be Formica pergandei. I didn't need to try hard to find host pupae for this Formica social parasite, as there was a column of raider Formica nearby with seemingly endless pupae in tow. All of the pupae which the queen raised to maturity are from the fusca group, but I am yet to take a closer look to see what kind they are or if any of them are different from the others. I hear a lot of conflicting information as to whether or not all raiding Formica are facultative raiders or only a few of them are (i.e. Formica aserva). The first egg showed up tonight.

 

My old Lasius alienus colony of five years is making a huge comeback. There are three times as many workers as the beginning of the year, and hundreds of larvae, eggs, and pupae. I'm happy they are doing so well, now. 

 

Lasius umbratus has a large mass of eggs that are now constantly tended to by her Lasius cf. flavus host workers. They are doing a great job foraging. There are some large larvae and pupae which are either remnants of the host colony or hopefully some of the early L. umbratus eggs which were raised to maturity.

 

My Tapinoma sessile is still very vulnerable. The queen is putting out a few eggs, but I'm worried that this pace won't be enough to sustain the colony. She is also five years old, but hasn't been recovering nearly as well as L. alienus.

 

And tonight, I caught a Solenopsis molesta alate at the lights on my porch.   There also were a couple of Camponotus males, lots of Lasius alienus/pallitarsis males and females, and what I think are Brachymyrmex males.

Edited by Batspiderfish, August 12 2016 - 2:08 AM.

[Goldsystem]

Portland Oregon or Maine?

[Batspiderfish]

Portland Oregon or Maine?

 

Portland, Maine.

Edited by Batspiderfish, August 12 2016 - 2:06 AM.