5 replies to this topic

[Vendayn]

Won't be much of a journal for now. However, on August 29th of 2016 I found two winged alates in the pool.

 

One queen took off one wing, the other left her wings on. However, both queens have laid eggs and have their own pile they take care of. I moved them three days ago into the garage with my ant heat lamp, because the eggs were growing way too slow. I have noticed the eggs have already started getting bigger. So, that made a big difference.

 

I plan to use this species (if they get workers) for my Antscanada nest that I'm getting next month. It'll be the omni nest large, that comes with that all in one pack.

Edited by Vendayn, September 20 2016 - 8:48 PM.

[Vendayn]

Also, for those curious. It seems like they are the multiple queened Solenopsis invicta, but I'll have to confirm when they get workers. In any case, I highly doubt they'll kill off any queens when they get workers.

 

However, whenever I've found a local mound, there is only one queen in each mound. Its possible I've missed some when I've been digging through the mound, but I've always only found one queen in a single mound. Unlike the colony of them I discovered in San Diego, which had lots of queens in each mound. The colonies here however make a lot of mounds all inter-connected, each with (again, as far as I've found) a single queen. 

 

They also don't do very well against the Argentine ants around here, with or without my influence from digging into their mound(s). The Argentine ants seem to do a lot better in this local area. Probably because there are so many Argentine ants, that the Solenopsis invicta have a hard time securing an area. Seeing that they send off a lot of alates and nests pop up randomly though, means they do have some location secured. But, I can't get to it if there is. I've been all around the non-fenced off areas and never find a large colony of them, just the occasional mounds. Its mostly just Argentine ants.

Edited by Vendayn, September 18 2016 - 11:23 AM.

[Reacker]

I feel that the quality of all of your posts would be greatly improved with photos, even of smart phone quality. Owning some kind of camera is like basic anting equipment in 2016 I think.

[Vendayn]

My phone takes terrible pictures, so I have to use my dad's phone. Mine can't even take pictures of Pogonomyrmex and those are large ants. Even the Pogonomyrmex rugosus queen ends up being too blurry, my phone sucks so much. And half the time it crashes randomly when I'm taking pictures or doing anything with it, its a piece of junk.

 

I have taken pictures of my Acromyrmex versicolor (I have a bunch on my journal of them) with my dad's phone, but he is always using it. His phone (its the latest Nexus phone) is awesome for quality, its 4k resolution and takes amazing ant pictures. It can get really close to where I can get shots of eggs/larvae (though a little bit blurry, still amazing for a smartphone since eggs/larvae are pretty small). But, I do plan to take more pictures of my various colonies once dad lets me use his phone for pictures.

[Reacker]

You should get a geology loupe or similar and tape it to the front of the camera. That's what I used to do, and it worked reasonably well. 

[Vendayn]

Sadly, the test tube flooded at some point the past couple days and drowned the entire brood and queens.

 

Which means I don't have a single ant I can use for the Tarheel formicarium.

 

I do have Pogonomyrmex rugosus, but I want to use a different setup for them.