24 May 2018
Camponotus suffusus
Oh man disaster... my queen lost her whole left antenna, all my fault
Talk about mistakes galore.
So the plan was to put their broken test tube in a container, smash the water end to drain it and remove the cotton.
Place the remaining test tube into an outworld with a fresh test tube for them to move into.
Plan would have worked if i had gently smack the rear end on a concrete corner or something.
Instead I took a dumbbell plate I use to foot stop my door, and smash the end of it.
Result = glass flying everywhere and the whole test tube collapsing.
Off course the ants were both shocked and freaked that whole nest was gone.
I had to scramble, but lucky the ants were in no hurry to climb out of the container, they were instead stumbling around looking for a place to hide.
I placed their new test tube into the container, but it wasn't quite big enough to place the entrance right where they were.
So I had to guide the queen there, as they tried to wedge themselves under the red film around the test tube.
Once the queen found the place, the workers eventually did the same and carted the larvae into it.
I could not locate the single egg anywhere in the container nor in the old and new test tube, so it's lost
But all 6 larvae are fine.
And then I saw a limb, which I thought was an ant leg, but none of the ants were missing any, so I just assumed it belonged to the wood cockroach I fed them earlier.
It was only later on when I was examining them did I notice the queen was missing a whole left antenna!
She seems fine, as far as worker interaction goes, but she is definitely more clumsy and stumbling into things as the single right antenna has to do the work of two
I also have another 5 worker suffusus colony coming next week, so this hurts less, but still......
Camponotus humilior
Having moved them out of the red transparent test tube rack, and Blu tacking them outside on my desk next to a Pheidole test tube, the queen must be fairly happy with things as she laid a whole new egg sometime last night!
After they ate the last 3 and all of their eggs, I had given up hope.
I gave them 3/4 of a small wood roach, and they have been munching on it for a few days now, so they that helps.
But their test tube is not covered from light at all, only a small piece of red cellophane wrap loosely drapped over one side of the test tube.
So I guess the it's not the ambient light so much that bothers them, but having a constant stable environment more so.
The Pheidole colony next door is exposed to light pretty much all the time, and the queen is laying eggs.
I in fact saw an egg stuck on the queen's gaster for a while a few days ago
So I did plan to release these ants, starting to have too many colonies, but now emotionally, I am uncertain I want to do so.
Sigh...
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On that note
Someone is giving me a Meat ant queen, Iridomyrmex purpureus, she basically looks like a 14mm version of my current 7-8mm Iridomyrmex queen
They all look about the same, these Iridomyrmex queens but the workers are not.
And she does have a fair few eggs, so that's another soon to be colony in the future....
her
Despite being fairly big, they are fast growing and aggressive ants.
7-8mm workers
Edited by CoolColJ, May 23 2018 - 9:40 PM.