6 replies to this topic

[benjiwuf]

So on Monday I should receive my Messor bararus colony of a queen and a handful of workers. I will document the opening and first glances for this journal then along with their move into a formicarium or any other setup that I have yet to decide on. Until then this is mostly a placeholder.

[benjiwuf]

so, the mailman came today and i was very happy! the queen arrived with 2 live workers, and one dead in transport. they seem extremely calm, but i'm going to put them in the drawer with the lasius for now until they settle in a bit more. picture quality isn't good, but she is gorgeous! i can't wait to see how they develop. i'm pretty sure you all know where and how i got them from the photos, so i won't go into those details.

 

 

Edited by benjiwuf, July 18 2016 - 1:53 AM.

[benjiwuf]

i fed this small colony a fly and large cricket leg, and had time for a head count while the queen was dragging the cricket leg in for the nanitics. there are 3 more pupae about ready to hatch into nanitics any day now, and one oversized larva. i mean the larva alone is bigger than the nanitics so i'm hoping this will be my first full sized worker (not major worker, but worker). there are also a pile of new eggs. i took a few videos, some long some short, but i now have my webcam setup so i can take pictures/videos of this colony at whenever i like so more should follow. the first one is a little long as i was hoping to capture them moving the cricket leg into the test tube and watch them ripping it apart. however in that regard it didn't go as planned.

 

 

Edit: so today i found the queen wandering around the foraging area alone. This has me a little bit worried, but i quickly herded her gently back into her test tube. She then proceeded to act like she was just out for a casual stroll and had returned just in time for dinner. i'll try to give them a bit more cricket (as i took the one piece out this morning after it had stayed in there all night), and hope that was all she was after. Also to note, i keep all my queens now in my small computer room where it stays around a balmy 27-33 C night and day. I have also removed the extra test tube of water i added last night as the humidity was staying around 90% which (from what i've read) is considerably too high. And better yet, I just watched one of the nanitics (whom i thought was inside the container i have them in) wander off and can't find it anymore. i have no idea how they're escaping, but fluon is on the way shortly.

Edited by benjiwuf, July 29 2016 - 2:39 PM.

[benjiwuf]

i have no idea why, but today i looked into the test tube and found the queen dead. the nanitic left is fine though, and acting normal. i have no idea now what killed her so this journal is ended until i get a new queen and better setup. bleh

Edited by benjiwuf, August 2 2016 - 5:11 AM.

[AntsAreCool55]

Sorry for your loss, but in my experience Messor queens can be tricky until they get some workers. Next time I would suggest ordering a queen with at least ~20 workers,so she has better chances at starting a colony.

[CozmoDog]

I have a messor wasmanni colony which i got before winter hit so she was hibernating all winter long now she has about 40+ workers and a ton of brood, I'm not an expert but the way i got this colony started is I left her in the test tube in the dark I'm pretty sure they don't need a foraging area until they are very big so you should try to keep her in just a test tube until 50+ workers also i first gave my colony seeds/protein when they had 7-8 workers I'm not sure how similar the species are tbh so I don't know if my way will work for you too.

[benjiwuf]

Interesting. I opened mine up to forage and they definitely dragged everything into the test tube, but i have no experience with any of these species here (not that i was very good beforehand either).