383 replies to this topic

[Serafine]

 
Not much happening at the moment, they haven't even left their tube in over a week. In fact they did not even find the small feeder with the Sunburst.
On the left side you can still see something rather special though, a larva in the process of shedding it's skin.

Some new larvae have hatched and the egg batch has grown significantly as well.
They now count a queen, 4 nanitics, 2 pupae, 9 larvae in vastly different development stages and about a dozen eggs.
 


 

Edited by Serafine, March 10 2017 - 1:51 PM.

[Leo]

cute!

[Serafine]

Re-arranged the first post a bit (most of it went into the second one).

Now there is not only a complete food list but also a picture series of the colony's development.

[Alabama Anter]

Nobody is Lazy in LAZY TUBE!

We are number twobe!

[drtrmiller]

Just speculating here, but it seems like small colony general demeanor and aggressivity in locating new food sources and readiness to rear brood and expand the colony may be a genetic trait. I imagine if you had several colonies of this species, all the same size, some would be more active, and others, like this one, more passive.

I don't have much patience for passive, slow growing colonies. They generally die of neglect after a couple months in my care. Active ones will tell you what they need, while passive ones will wait for you to shove it down their throats, and then they may just spit it back out at you, almost out of spite—silly personification, but you get the point.

[T.C.]

Ah hah, so my camponotous are not the only ones after all who love spiders.

[Serafine]

Just speculating here, but it seems like small colony general demeanor and aggressivity in locating new food sources and readiness to rear brood and expand the colony may be a genetic trait. I imagine if you had several colonies of this species, all the same size, some would be more active, and others, like this one, more passive.

I don't have much patience for passive, slow growing colonies. They generally die of neglect after a couple months in my care. Active ones will tell you what they need, while passive ones will wait for you to shove it down their throats, and then they may just spit it back out at you, almost out of spite—silly personification, but you get the point.

I think they're just massively overfed. Their gaster stripes turned from yellowish-transparent to white over the last week so I assume they fabricated a massive amount of fat reserves, probably enough to raise most of their brood even without additional resources (and they also still have half a spider in their tube).
 
 
They were quite active two or three weeks ago when I repeatedly found them foraging sugar water. But they had these periods of inactivity before - they drink sugar water in massive bursts for a few days until the entire colony is filled up and then they don't come out for a week or two. When they come out next time they'll probably gonna slurp out the entire Sunburst in the small feeder over a single night.
I've also seen them locating far away food with ease. In their old container the forager found a droplet of honey accidentally left at the container wall about 3cm above the ground and a good 20cm away from their nest entrance. They don't seem to be picky either, they've consumed basically everything I gave them so far (except the fruit flies from that really gross container) as long as they weren't overfed already.
 
 
I assume once they have more workers they'll become more active. The species itself is said to be very active with the workers exploring their surrounding for hours. And I've seen them running, they can be really really fast if they want to.
 
 
Here's one of them in the sugar water tube two weeks ago (the tube has since been replaced with a feeder as it was constantly starting to mold on the cotton after a few days):

Edited by Serafine, March 30 2017 - 1:33 PM.

[Serafine]

Here's their current setup with the feeders, so you can see how tiny these things actually are compared to the usual bird water dispenser. There's no way even Pheidole are going to drown in them.

The tiny one has Sunburst, the brown one sugar water and the water one is more like a control device (I don't expect them to drink from it but it helps me to see how fast water evaporates from the feeders).

 

 

[Serafine]

No one is lazy in Lazy Tube!
 
In fact some are so busy that they don't even get to make themselves a nice cuddly cocoon. Ladies and Gentleman we have a nude bat!

 


The world outside Lazy Tube hasn't been lazy either. They are finally getting a proper home!
Ordered at Antstore on Tuesday, shopping lists says arena cover is out of stock and takes 1-2 weeks to deliver - package gets commissioned on Wednesday, sent AND delivered on Thursday.







Here's a size comparison of their old and their new home.

Quite a difference, isn't it?



So... onwards to decoration! These are 2kg of sand-clay mix that will form the outworld bottom (I still have one bag left and will use it to give a very thin bottom layer to my soon-to-come acrylic nests).





Behold, the Great Wasteland which will soon be home to Queen Barbarianna and the lazy horde. It has to recover from this terrible mud sweep and dry out first though.

Edited by Serafine, March 30 2017 - 12:35 PM.

[MichiganAnts]

looks nice!!

[Serafine]

They've moved in!

This is the last picture of them in their old setup. Those pupae should hatch soon. The naked one is already developing it's eyes.


After using a heat lamp the new outworld finally dried out.


New Setup without ants.


After they've moved in (tactical towel to keep it shady).


Took off the towel and lid for a few good shots.

Edited by Serafine, March 30 2017 - 12:36 PM.

[Serafine]

Thirsty ants?



They also got a meat fly pupa as a welcome gift which is why they look so fat.

Edited by Serafine, March 30 2017 - 1:47 AM.

[Serafine]

FIRST WORKER! (sort of)
There's at least one new worker, maybe more. It's hard to tell cause they have a talent to hide behind the cotton and inside the straw.





Though I wonder where all these big larvae from last week have gone.
 


To celebrate this happy event they got a really big spider (the worker took quite some time to clip off half of the legs and drag it into the tube).
I also added another meat fly larva but it's probably too much and I don't expect them to take it in.

Edited by Serafine, April 1 2017 - 5:20 AM.

[Tgrmag]

I'm loving watching the progress of your colony!

[Serafine]

So I had another look at them yesterday (just red light, no pictures) and the new worker is clearly not a nanitic. It's about a third bigger than the other workers and has already been promoted to a replete.

 

And it's true what they say, young Camponotus colonies don't travel far. I've marked their travel radius on the picture below and have never seen a worker further out that this. Now it might have to do with the facts that I usually place their meals right at the doorstep and that they're pretty overfed because I know that they have traveled further in their last setup. I'm pretty sure they will start scouting out their new home when the colony grows larger.

 

[Serafine]

Second new worker!
And I think she's a media. She is pretty huge.
In the first picture you can see her chewing on a spider.

Also I found out where the larvae/pupa had gone that where missing last week. They store those at the front end of the tube now. For some reason they started to pile them all up in the rear chamber when while I was looking at them (with just red light) so I waited until most of them were there before I took pictures. There might still be some at the front end I didn't see though.
 

[Nathant2131]

Love this journal 

[Serafine]

My new ant nests arrived!

 

They're from SimAnts, a small german manufacturer. Print quality is fantastic and they're modular, which means I can easily attach additional ones if needed.

 

 

 

 

 

I gave them a base layer of sand-clay mix so the ants have an easier time walking inside and moistening them.

 

 

 

I also got a few feeding dishes (different sizes) and two packs of jelly bears for free (I don't think they're meant for the ants).

 

 

 

 

Adding the water tube was a bit of a hassle (tube is 15cm, nest entrance 14cm) but then I put some vinyl tubing to the entrance and attached the glass tube to that. It didn't hold perfectly (the back of the tube sinks down due to gravity) but the byFormica feeder packaging has just the perfect size to support it.

 

I already added the nest to the setup but I don't expect them to move in any time soon. They barely leave their test tube at all (which is okay, they're still a very small family).

 

 

 

 

 

The colony is doing well, they have lots of pupae now. Those on the picture aren't actually all of them, I've seen a worker carrying one around at the front end so there may be more that just can't be seen.

 

 

Edited by Serafine, April 10 2017 - 2:57 AM.

[Serafine]

Also my ants are hilarious - they've waited forever until the Sunburst turned into a gooey syrup and NOW they are drinking it

Edited by Serafine, April 13 2017 - 6:20 PM.

[Antsinmycloset]

Could you elaborate on your "sand-clay mix"? It seems like it will do a great job of staying put.