15 replies to this topic

[Gregory2455]

I caught this queen sometime in February this year, and after she butchered two generations of pupae, she finally let the third generation eclose. Originally there were two pupae but I guess she killed one of them too... Well she has a lot of young brood again and hopefully this worker will help her actually raise them.

 

Here is a video of the colony as of now:

 

Here is the worker and brood as or now:

Edited by Gregory2455, February 20 2019 - 10:07 PM.

[Ants4fun]

Congrats! Not too many people have raised mymecosystus queens to have workers! I hope there's a lot more where that came from.

Edited by Ants4fun, February 17 2016 - 1:55 PM.

[Gregory2455]

Well the only two Myrmecocystus queens I have both have workers now, but hopefully I will catch some M.mexicanus out in the desert tomorrow.

[dspdrew]

Awesome!

[Gregory2455]

Update: 7/28/2015

Here is some update to all that brood.

[Gregory2455]

Update: 8/11/2015

This colony has three pupae now and one more pupating larva with a bunch of smaller larvae too.

Here are some photos from a few days ago when they still only had two pupae. I gave them green sugar water- look at the queen's gaster!

[Gregory2455]

They now have five pupae!

[Gregory2455]

Pictures of them with five pupae. By now they actually have six.

[Gregory2455]

Update: 9/3/2015

The colony gained four workers in very quick succession, so now they have five total workers.

[dspdrew]

Wow those are doing pretty good.

[Gregory2455]

As you can see, they stuck dirty cotton fibers onto both the floor and the cieling so I am in no rush to move them because the first repletes will be easily able to grab onto the cieling of the test tube.

[Gregory2455]

Update: 2/17/2016

I moved this colony into a new test tube today. They have all six workers still, but no brood since the last update.

I also decided to handle them myself while moving them just because they are so docile and calm. Both the queen and workers just sat on my hand as i nudged them one by one into their new test tube.

[dspdrew]

That's a strange technique.

[drtrmiller]

You may want to consider the possibility that some toxin or other defect might be contributing to their docility.

Edited by drtrmiller, February 17 2016 - 3:32 PM.

[Gregory2455]

You may want to consider the possibility that some toxin or other defect might be contributing to their docility.

No they are just always chill. Sort of like small Myrmecocystus mexicanus colonies.

[Gregory2455]

Well not much of an update but they got some eggs and the smallest (most likely oldest) worker died most likely from old age yesterday.