12 replies to this topic

[Diesel]

1-29-18

 

This is the 1st entry of what i hope is a very successful Crematogaster colony. i pulled her out of her 3+ month diapause and set her near the heat mat on Monday 1/22/18. i gave her a week to acclimate to the warmer temps and placed her on the heat mat Saturday 1/27/18. turns out that was a good move. the following morning she had laid her 1st egg and by that evening the 2nd. i try not to interrupt her much but just peeking in this morning i noticed her clutch is up to10-12 eggs.  I will leave her in the dark for the next weeks only checking on her every 2 to 3 days to make sure everything is going according to plan. i am really excited about this colony. i tried putting a small drop of honey water in the tube but she wants nothing to do with it. she's stay close by but i have not seen her attempt to eat any. i'll have to get that cleaned up so it doesn't mold. i will post some pictures tonight when i make that small cleanup then i will let her be. I'm not sure if she's fully caustral or not so i will have to do some research. this is either crematogaster cerasi or lineolata. i can't get close enough pictures to count the hairs to confirm. thanks for reading guys n gals.

Edited by Diesel, January 29 2018 - 7:16 AM.

[Miles]

Hi Diesel. It would probably help the viewers of your journal if the entire post wasn't in a small, italicized font. I know that I'm certainly less likely to read it in that format.

 

Best of luck with your new colony! Crematogaster are one of my favorite ant genera and are a blast to keep!

[Diesel]

thanks Miles. i appreciate the feedback. i've edited it for viewers convenience.

[noebl1]

This is my first season with Crematogaster as well.  I've heard they can be really sensitive to any disturbance, but not sure how true that is.  Looking forward to seeing more in your journal   Mine are still in deep sleep in the basement, but as of yesterday still alive.

[CNewton]

That's it. I'm pulling a couple of mine out of the fridge. I have 6 queens. I wanted to wait until February, but this has gotten me excited!

[MegaMyrmex]

They are literally the most sensitive queens I have ever kept. I checked up in them once and a weeek later most of the quee s had eaten all of their brood! The eggs also seem slow to hatch as well, some of mine have been incubating for a few weeks with no sign of hatching. Only one had an egg hatch and the larva was eventually eaten within a few days. Best of luck with them, a big challenge for me and really tests the ant keeper's patience. Keep them warm like you're doing and leave them alobe! I forgot about one queen anf she had a huge pile of eggs and a pupating larva, but I got excited after that and checked on her a few days later, only to find the larvae gone and the egg pile consisting of only 5 moldy eggs compared to 11. So easy to keep but very sensitive and demands extreme patience. In the meantime, I'm occupying myself by looking for hibernating lasius colonies, laaius parasite queens, and winter ant queens.

Edited by MegaMyrmex, January 29 2018 - 4:00 PM.

[Diesel]

Sorry for the poor quality

[MegaMyrmex]

Wow very nice! Speaking of which I habe to check on my queens...good luck

[EthanNgo678]

Are these girls hard to keep? I just found a queen.

[antnest8]

man mine has had eggs forever and no larvae!? is this because she is eating her eggs continually

[Zmagz]

man mine has had eggs forever and no larvae!? is this because she is eating her eggs continually

They are very very very sensitive, I kept checking on them maybe once a week or so but they would still eat their eggs so I decided to leave them alone for a whole month (which was pretty hard to not peek). When I finally looked, she had pupae, larvae, and more eggs. Right now they are at about 10 workers.

[antnest8]

ok i'll do that

[Naturenut1233]

It's interesting that you guys are saying crematogasters are difficult. I look at mine ever few days, feed them, even driven them to locations an hour away a couple times, and they have never seemed distressed or eaten any brood. I have several. I am excited to finally have my first workers this week. Their brood piles are HUGE. I don't know if it makes a difference but I feed all my queens in the fall and all winter / spring, alternating protein and sugar sources or sometimes, like today, I gave them both at the same time. I also push the cotton in farther every few months because it doesn't seem to wick enough moisture at times. The ants I have the hardest time with thus far a camponotus, however I have one queen doing great, but I brood boosted her with a couple major cocoons last fall and it's made a huge difference. She's well fed and as a result has a much larger brood pile and more workers than my other Camponotus colonies. I will say the little crematogaster workers are adorable.