108 replies to this topic

[Klassien]

I carefully checked on her just now and she is active and has ripped her wings off! 

How exciting! Very good sign she's fertile.

 

While looking for Camponotus queens, I destroyed the nest of a small Aphaenogaster cf. rudis colony. Whoops..

 

There's around 12-20 workers along with the queen, I caught them all instead of letting them doe of exposure and the nearby Formica colony.

Hopefully you found some Camponotus queens. At least you saved them; the more ants the merrier right?

 

When I found my Camponotus queens this year, it was right after a flight and they were mostly on the edge of wooded areas. All of them were hiding under small logs and bits of bark. My speculation is that it takes them a few days to find suitable pieces of wood to start a founding chamber in. After that point you would probably need to start looking for them in rotting logs and similar places.

I can agree. Dead stumps, and porous/rotting logs are really good places to look for them.

[Martialis]

 

Hopefully you found some Camponotus queens. At least you saved them; the more ants the merrier right?
 

 

Not today. Caught a Camponotus subbarbatus queen under a twig on Sunday, though.

[ultraex2]

So I'm 99% sure that the queens that flew on 5/13 for me were stenamma brevicorne - I went out yesterday looking and found 1 dealate underneath a stump.  Keep an eye out for these - they're about 5 mm in length and are bigger than temnothorax but smaller than aphaenogaster.

[Martialis]

Well Aphaenogaster is a member of the tribe Stenammini..

[ultraex2]

Yeah, antwiki says that they're closely related to both aphaenogaster and messor.

[Witmen]

I just carefully peaked at her again and she has laid two eggs! This is so awesome. My son is freaking out 

[BMM]

It looks like we may have had another C. pennsylvanicus flight in St. Louis. I found a single wingless queen this morning. I also saw a much smaller ant that I'm pretty sure was a queen, but she scurried off before I could catch her.

 

Also, a bit of good news. All six of my Camponotus queens have eggs. Two have cocoons, three have huge piles of eggs, and the last one only has two eggs. Not expecting much of her.

[ultraex2]

Nice!

I'm having terrible luck with finding camponotus queens this year - I found one, it died a week later and found 2 more dead ones out in the wild within the past couple weeks.  There was a big storm last night so I'm hoping to find some queens today.

[BMM]

Saw a few Tapinoma sessile alates today, along with an unidentified alate around 10mm that scurried off before I could catch it. We're just starting to break 90° here in Missouri and should be in the mid 90's by this weekend. Might be promising.

[BMM]

We may have had a Tetramorium flight in Missouri. This morning I noticed a few workers moving a dead queen on my driveway. No signs otherwise, but it's humid and over 90°, so it's about the right conditions.

[Martialis]

Camponotus castaneus had a huge flight last night, although the only queen I caught was of C. pennsylvanicus.

[BMM]

Temnothorax curvispinosus is flying in MO. I'm finding boatloads of alates around my porch light. 

[Ants4fun]

Oh nice, I set up some lights, but I didn't attract anything. I was going for some temnothorax curvispinosis

[BMM]

Just caught two more Temnothorax curvispinosus queens who were wandering around on a sidewalk. Both wingless. It's interesting that they were traveling in a pair. I'm up to five of them now.

[ultraex2]

Congrats on the temnothorax - good to know those are starting to fly as I'd love to get some too!

 

I'm still even hoping to get some Tetramorium as I haven't gotten any yet so far... 

[BMM]

I managed to catch another two T. curvispinosus queens around the same spot. Up to seven now. That's probably enough.

 

I've been watching like a hawk for Tetramorium flights, but I've yet to see anything. Strange too, since we're in the low 90's and it's been extremely humid with the occasional shower. I only have T. tsushimae where I live though, so I'm not sure exactly when or how big their flights will be.

[BMM]

It looks like Tetramorium tsushimae are flying in small numbers in St. Louis. I've seen the occasional dead queen over the past few days and was finally able to capture two alive ones this morning. Sadly one seems a little sluggish and the other is missing a leg. I'm hoping I can grab a few more if they keep flying.

[ultraex2]

There is Tetramorium all over where I live and I've seen... 1 male alate the past week.  I'm starting to think that they may not even fly this month and it will be sometime in July.

 

Also, they are small, but keep an eye out for Lasius Alienus - I believe these are going to be flying soon.  I'm pretty sure a colony of them moved into my old garden and their alates are running around everywhere.  The wild colony I caught also produced about 30 or 40 alates as well.

 

I did also uncover a colony of either Aphaenogaster or Myrmica that had an alate with multiple alate larvae too, so watch out for those soon too.

[Ameise]

One of the Tetramorium colonies I dug into last week had plenty of alates... but it was the only one with slates out of like ten nests.

[BMM]

Tetramorium tsushimae are flying in full force here in MO. Caught 5 queens just on my drive way, all wingless. Saw plenty more, but I was out of vials. Since they're highly polygynous in the wild, I put three of them together in a test tube. I'm curious to see if it goes well.