5 replies to this topic

[Socalfireants]

Queens of many species are sure to fly this weekend, or so I'm guessing. My neighbor is digging up his parking lot and I happened to find a Myrmecocystus nest in the dig area I'm going to try to save. We found their nest while digging but I noticed a lot of Alates near the surface so I decided to stop digging there until after their flight, instead of destroying their nest. They seem to be very deep, so I'm concerned about not collecting the queen.  It just rained and then is starting to dry the top layer of soil. I feel like maybe the queen could be closer to the surface in these conditions? I've heard the founding chambers of newly flown queens of Myrmecocystus can also be very deep. Does anyone have any advice or tips on catching Myrmecocystus?

[soulsynapse]

I don't have experience but I'm very interested as well!

[dspdrew]

Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty cold all over Southern California, so I doubt anything will fly. I highly doubt you're going to find the queen digging up that colony too. As for founding chambers, the queen could be any depth. It depends on a lot of factors, mainly how long the queen has been digging for.

 

Just curious... Where is this honeypot ant colony, and what do they look like?

[Socalfireants]

Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty cold all over Southern California, so I doubt anything will fly. I highly doubt you're going to find the queen digging up that colony too. As for founding chambers, the queen could be any depth. It depends on a lot of factors, mainly how long the queen has been digging for.

Just curious... Where is this honeypot ant colony, and what do they look like?

[Socalfireants]

Sorry I'm still getting used to how this site works, sorry for my mess ups. The colony is in my literal front yard in the Trabuco canyon area. They are shiny black ants .

[dspdrew]

Oh okay. Those are probably Myrmecocystus mimicus. I think they should be flying soon.