1787 replies to this topic

[CoolColJ]

That's a big Pheidole you got there.

 

A special kind, it might be a Pheidole antipodum queen or a Carebara species.

P.antipodum  are more like the old Pheidologeton, now renamed as Carebara, with the huge queen, small workers and multi sized majors

 

I have two of these, one has laid eggs already, this one remains in a test tube

Edited by CoolColJ, July 19 2018 - 4:49 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Winter 20th July 2018
 
2x Phediole sp. red head/black body 8mm queen - Pheidole Colony C

Woah, first time I see both queens together at the heatcable, along with most of the brood.
Both attending to the brood.
Maybe they will stay together on equal footing!

The 4th nanitic has eclosed.
The extra worker sure helps ease the workload.

Edited by CoolColJ, July 19 2018 - 5:33 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Colony update - Winter 21st July 2018

Opisthopsis Rufithorax (strobe ant) 10mm queen

7 nanitics, at least 10 larave
Steady and uneventful


Melophorus sp.- red black 6-7mm queen
1 minor worker, no brood. 


Melophorus sp.- black orange 7-8mm queen
No eggs. 5 workers

 
Phediole sp. red head/black body 9mm
 
Just under 30 workers, 1 large major larvae, at least two major larvae, maybe as much as 6 total
Brood near heat cable - 1 to eclose tonight


 
Pheidole sp, all black  7mm
 
15 workers. 1 Major larvae
1 brown pupa, which may eclose tomorrow

major larvae at the back



2x Phediole sp. red head/black body 8mm
 
4 nanitics

No major changes in the short term, but decent amount of brood.
Both queens at heat cable now


 

Polyrhachis rufifemur 9mm
 
No eggs, 2 nanitics
No changes


Camponotus suffusus 18+mm - queenless
 
6 workers, over 10 larvae (some foreign) and 6 pupa
No major changes, waiting till the pupa eclose, especially the foreign ones




Polyrhachis femorata - triple 11-12mm queen

About 12-15 workers and 3 queens. A bunch of larvae
Settling into Mini hearth.

They are definitely nocturnal. After 10pm every night, after I turn the lights off, while leaving a lamp on so I can see them.
After about 20-30secs they come charging out to forage. Never see them out during the day.
Usually the queens come out to forage. Pretty much a semi-claustral queen thing, despite having workers.

[CoolColJ]

Winter 21th July 2018 - Queen update


Banished Phediole sp. red head/black body 9mm

clump of small larvae - heat cable
Seems less, maybe she ate some




Pheidole sp. red 7mm

12+ larvae and eggs - heat cable
Wow, she laid more eggs since the last time I checked up on her. And one large larvae.
She is no longer skittish when exposed to light
I have a soft spot for this queen, having found her on the wind screen of my car straight after she mated, so will most likely keep her
And a different species to the red Pheidole in my backyard




Iridomyrmex sp. 7-8mm

Week 15 done - there is light at the end of the tunnel, after almost 4 months, and the last month on the heat cable!
Yesterday the pupa was slightly brown, boom, looks like it will eclose tonight
I think this queen is a bicknelli, she is smaller than the batch of Iridomyrmex queens I got recently





3x Phediole sp. red head/black body 8-9mm

On heating cable
I see some large larvae, but man they once had over 30 eggs!




Camponotus consobrinus 16-17mm

No eggs

Pheidole sp, light red head, dark red body, 6-7mm

Queen 1 - clump of eggs
double chamber setup
 
Queen 2 - clump of eggs
I have her in my double test tube modded setup, with a polystyrene foam chamber entrance

Both queens finally laid eggs this week!

 
Pheidole antipodum? 14+mm

Queen 1- in test tube, aquarium filter wool dam, cotton double chamber setup - clump of eggs
Queen 2- in gypsum founding nest - eggs?

Queen 1 laid this week, middle of winter, which I did not expect! 
I think queen 2 has laid some eggs, as I did see her bent over looking at her gaster for periods of time, but I don't want to disturb her to check. Will next week. 


Lioponera ruficornis/larvata 5mm

Put her inside a test tube with a cotton double chmaber setup.
But she has been hiding under the polystyrene sheet raw honey dish... she likes the small tight space


Rhytidoponera species 6-7mm
 
She has settled down. I opened up her test tube inside a small container/outworld, but she never comes out, so I sealed it back up for now.


Camponotus humilior

30 donated larvae - on heating cable

One of the larvae looks eaten out.
I also saw her lash out on a larvae during the week when it wriggled, and squirt formic acid on it...
So I'm not sure if she is really raising them all as her own


 

Iridomyrmex queens - 8.5mm - multiple test tube setups with aquarium filter dam and cotton wool chamber wall/entrance
3x singles, dual, one quad queen - two singles in red test tube rack, the rest exposed to light
Exposed to light setups on heat cable

As of this morning all 8.5mm Iridomyrmex queens I grouped a week ago have laid eggs, but the last one to lay, Solo queen in red test tube rack, only had 1 egg... maybe the rest are hidden...
For just over a week, things have moved faster than I imagined. In the middle of winter as well!

Edited by CoolColJ, July 21 2018 - 5:58 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Winter 22nd July 2018
 
2x Phediole sp. red head/black body 8mm queen - Pheidole Colony C

Looks like another dual queen black (red headed) Pheidole colony is about to become single queen again..... one of the queens has moved away from the brood towards the centre/front of the nest.
And even with a total of 4 nanitics, whenever some of the older ones come near this queen they get alarmed, and take a few running swipes at her, well it appears so.
Lucky these nanitics are too small to do any damage.
So she is likely banished already.

Even before this, I could tell the striped gaster queen was the more dominant one, as she cleaned all the eclosed nanitics, and was always attending the brood.

Same thing happened to my other dual queen colony when they reached 6 nanitics.
I moved the banished queen to another setup and she has her own batch of eggs now. had to feed her though.

So far the track record says black Pheidole species are not polygynous. Yet people as a general rule treat all Pheidole as such and keep throwing queens together.

Maybe the red species are, well some of them....

Edited by CoolColJ, July 21 2018 - 3:12 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Iridomyrmex cf bicknelli 7-8mm queen - colony
 
She was cleaning the first nanitic before I went to bed, and she cleaning the second this morning.
As always newly eclosed nanitics are always cute

So once the pupa turn brown they eclose within a day, even faster than my various Pheidole.
Nanitics are also 1mm larger than the Pheidole ones, but still tiny at 3mm or so

Nanitics look like Iridomyrmex bicknelli ones.
Third one should eclose this afternoon, and maybe the fourth one tomorrow

click to enlarge

Edited by CoolColJ, July 21 2018 - 5:34 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Winter 23rd July 2018 - Queen update


Iridomyrmex queens - 8.5mm - multiple test tube setups with aquarium filter dam and cotton wool chamber wall/entrance
3x singles, 2x dual queen - two singles in red test tube rack, the rest exposed to light
Exposed to light setups on heat cable

And so the 3 queen setup is only a dual queen now... Earlier I was seeing the third queen separate herself from the others and was standing/hanging on the cotton wall of the double chamber entrance.
And now she lies on her back, outside of the entrance. I thought she was dead, but when I took her out she was moving.
On closer look her right rear leg is missing a joint. So she may have been attacked by the other queens. RIP, down to 2x2 3x1.

Edited by CoolColJ, July 22 2018 - 6:13 AM.

[CoolColJ]

Iridomyrmex bicknelli 7-8mm queen - colony

 

Fourth nanitic has eclosed. And do they darken fast, only takes a few hours and they are already all black.

They are all fast, zippy and skittish just like the queen

 

I saw the queen go suck on the honey herself, no waiting for workers to feed her.

They freaked out when i dropepd a small wood roach head in, but they don't seem too interested in eating it just yet.

 

Already have a few more pupa lined up, and a clump of eggs.

They are probably one of the fastest growing species, apart from the super long founding stage of my queen

 

 

Phediole sp. red head/black body 9mm queen - Pheidole Colony A

 

Pheidole colony A's first major/soldier larvae has started to pupate.
I thought it would get larger before pupating.

 

They also finally put it near the heat cable along with the rest of the minor worker pupa and a clump of eggs.

So my guess is it gets larger as it pupates into the final form.

 

Around 30 total workers now

 

click to enlarge

[CoolColJ]

Camponotus humilior queen is doing a good job so far with 30 brood boost larvae. she has separated the large ones and placed them on top the heat cable

Small ones against the water side.

Or maybe the ones on the heat cable are the ones will look after, and the others will be food and to be ignored...

 

You can see her here along with the Iridomyrmex setups

 

quick pic from phone - click to enlarge

Edited by CoolColJ, July 23 2018 - 2:16 AM.

[MegaMyrmex]

I'm really anticipating the antipodum(pun intended).

[CoolColJ]

I'm really anticipating the antipodum(pun intended).

 

 

I don't get it    

[CoolColJ]

Winter 24th July 2018

Polyrhachis femorata - triple 11-12mm queen, 15? worker colony

Saw one of the workers come up to the top of the Mini Hearth and suck on the raw honey in the dish this morning for a long time, so they are not 100% nocturnal after all

 

I have been dumping food directly into the top nest entrance, and so it falls ontop of them instead of waiting till night, that way they can munch on it during the day.

They sure are big eaters and have been pretty responsible so far in regards to rubbish, carting unwanted bits back to the top,

sometimes putting them into the raw honey dish, on the unused area, or the side of the outworld away from their nest entrance.

 

They don't like things next to their entrance, if there are any they will push it away

 

 

Camponotus humilior - 9-10mm queen

30 donated larvae - on heating cable

 

Saw her sipping on the honey in the 3D printed dish, see pic above, this morning.

She was almost upside down doing so with her rear legs and gaster up on the cotton double chamber entrance, and her head buried into the dish

Unexpected, as she hasn't come close to the honey at all since I put it in, apart from dumping a dead larvae into it.

Was about to remove it.

 

 

Iridomyrmex bicknelli 7-8mm queen - 4 nanitic worker colony

 

6 pupa already and 17+ eggs

So the queen has already slipped out of founding and into fast colony growth mode

 

Thinking about releasing these, as I'm not really into bicknelli ants. A bit too small and uninteresting for me.

But they are almost foolproof in terms of getting into a huge colony, but that is also an issue, as they can grow to massive numbers without much effort.

 

I'm hoping the other Iridomyrmex queens I have, which are slightly bigger, will be a larger species

[CoolColJ]

Phediole sp. red head/black body 9mm queen - 30? worker, Pheidole Colony A
 
No pupa to eclose in the short term
The recently pupating first major larvae no longer looks like a larvae, and always has a worker on it.
To clean it I guess, because it no longer needs to be fed.
Might take a pic of it later, as it's always cool seeing the transformation in stages.

Lots of idle workers, which would normally be foraging if I had them in an outworld,  


Pheidole sp, all black 7mm queen - 15? worker, Pheidole Colony B

They have one larger major pupa already, and another smaller one lined up.


2x Phediole sp. red head/black body 8mm queen - 4 nanitics, Pheidole Colony C

2 brown pupa looking to eclose today

I separated the queens plus a worker a couple of times already, but eventually reunite them, and it seems to queens are on friendly terms again for the time being, fingers crossed...
2 more workers to eclose today, so things about to get more testy

Edited by CoolColJ, July 23 2018 - 8:49 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Pheidole antipodum? 14+mm queens

 

Queen 1- in test tube, aquarium filter wool dam, cotton double chamber setup - clump of eggs
Queen 2- in gypsum founding nest - eggs?

 

So queen 1 has been seen bent over a lot through the red transparent test tube rack, checking out her gaster tip for long periods of time.

I hope that means she is laying a lot of eggs

But I haven't been able to see where they are, but she may have stashed them against the waterside aquarium filter wool dam, or the recently introduced cotton double chamber entrance.

 

I took this cotton entrance from another test tube setup and slid it in a few days ago.

Queen took a casual glance at it after I slide it in, and l gave the "whatever" look and went back to her business

So far she has been using it as a support for when she's curled over to check her gaster.

Or standing on it vertically like she would normally do on a cotton wool dam, except this one is dry.

 

I didn't think of this, when I did this, but it is an extra surface for queens to use in a test tube that is normally quite bare

Maybe in future setups I will add more low height surfaces for this purpose.

Maybe from cork sheets, as I have bit of that lying around.

Edited by CoolColJ, July 24 2018 - 2:49 PM.

[CoolColJ]

The afternoons are starting to get warmer, hitting the low 20s, so spring is not far off now, maybe another month or so and the ants will start to get into full production mode, and the spring flying species will start to fly.
Around me are ton of Aphaenogaster longiceps nests, so I'm hoping of get a queen of these, spidery looking ants. The queen looks bulky like my antipodum queens though

AKA funnel ants, due to the funnel shaped nest entrances that channel prey into the nest.

 

Iridomyrmex and Rhytidoponera will also be flying - I just want a larger Iridomyrmex, like meat ants, but I don't see them around here.
I have seen a Rhytidoponera metallica nest, but I hope to get a Rhytidoponera Aspera queen, the largest and prettiest of this genus IMO, with blues, purples  and greens depending on the light angle
Much like my current Rhytidoponera sp. queen, have no social stomach so will need to drag their food to the larvae much like the bull ants do.




I most likely won't find one, so I may trade the ants below for a queen with brood, and some workers

Or just sell them outright and use the money to buy one. We will see...

A triple queen femorata colony is worth something

 

 

Winter 25th July 2018

Polyrhachis femorata - triple 11-12mm queen, 15? worker colony

Well this worker yesterday that I saw coming up to feed on the honey, actually did it over 5 times!
She must have been feeding the whole colony by her lonesome!
 They have been primarily nocturnal in their foraging, but yesterday was the first time I saw one of them forage during the day.

 

Must have just discovered the honey dish, even though it's been there for a few days... and they still haven't found the Sunburst in the byformica mini liquid feeder.

So I'll probably just remove it, and go with raw honey, which lasts far longer anyway.

 

They have also started to dump all the rubbish ontop the water pool in the Mini Hearth, in the corner closest to the glass.... I hope it doesn't mold as it's probably the highest humidity there.
And also some rubbish on the other side near the glass as well.

 

Goes to show how little humidity they desire, they have no ants or brood anywhere near the water pool.
Brood is all in the back left corner.

 

 

 

2x Phediole sp. red head/black body 8mm queen - 4 nanitics, Pheidole Colony C

 

Saw the dominant queen tell off the other queen, and secondary queen then moved away to the feeding tray towards the open end of the test tube.

So it looks like she is going to get banished real soon....

The next time they bring all the brood to the heat cable, I may pinch some, and move the outcast queen and a worker to a new setup and give her a fresh start.

or I could just release her..

 

I noticed all the dominant queens in a multi queen setup have striped gasters

 

The two brown pupa haven't eclosed yet, like I thought they would yesterday

Edited by CoolColJ, July 24 2018 - 9:22 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Pheidole colony A's first major larvae transformation to pupa Stage 1 - hard to get a good pic as this test tube is filthy! 

Looking less larvae like now

 

click to enlarge

 

Edited by CoolColJ, July 24 2018 - 10:50 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Melophorus sp.- red black 6-7mm queen, 1 worker - colony
no brood

 

Saw the worker scramble today bringing in red dirt from the outworld into the nest

making a nice comfy resting spot for the queen.

First time since they moved into this new tube a few weeks ago

So the queen may finally be gearing up to lay eggs soon!

 

I moved them into one of these Chinese refillable test tubes, with the dirt hydration chamber, and a gypsum dam.

At first I was filling the water all the way up, after the substrate had saturated, but this only cause the water to leak once you close the refill cap and press it down, causing the compressed air pressure to force the water through the gypsum dam after it has already soaked it's max capacity.

So now I only fill enough water that the substrate soaks up after a few secs, and then only partially push down the cap lid, so the air pressure does not build up too much and push the water out.

 

--

 

I have a 3 tube nest with a different variation of these refillable test tubes coming.

I noticed these tube nests have an extra ring of something around the gypsum plug, maybe to prevent leaks

And the silicon plugs will be easier to take off

 

3x15mm full length tubes with less space required for the water should house quite a lot of ants

Nest has tabs to block access to the other tubes until the colony is large enough

 

I suppose in a way, this nest is just a glorified Tubs and Tubes setup, but I can't think of a cheaper way to get these type of test tubes and get an outworld thrown in at $25AUD

 

Edited by CoolColJ, July 24 2018 - 11:40 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Winter 26th July 2018

 

 

Pheidole sp, all black 7mm queen - 16 workers, Pheidole Colony B
One brown pupa to eclose, bringing them up to 16 workers, but a no others ready yet for a while.
 

 

2x Phediole sp. red head/black body 8mm queen - 7 nanitics, Pheidole Colony C

I counted 6 workers, and another brown pupa to eclose tonight.

So far with the extra workers, the less dominant queen is still OK, and has not been outcast yet...

 

 

Iridomyrmex bicknelli 7-8mm queen - 4 nanitic worker colony

 

5th nanitic should eclose by tomorrow night, pupae is quite brown today.

 

Workers have been sipping honey and feeding the queen.

Since I slipped in a cotton double chamber entrance yesterday, the queen no longer feeds herself

 

 

 

Opisthopsis Rufithorax (strobe ant) 10mm queen, 7 workers, colony

 

Today is literally the first time my Strobe ant (Opisthopsis Rufithorax) colony of 7 workers has eaten an insect....!

 

I have left insect bits outside in the outworld but they never touched it.

Up till now I have seen a worker nibble on a raw macadamia piece, and sipped on raw honey. Then nothing for weeks. The queen was looking flat, and then last week she just ballooned up all of a sudden with a swollen gaster, so the workers must have topped her up.

 

Today I saw a worker hanging outside, and decided to drop a piece of a small wood roach I breed, just outside their nest entrance. This off course scared the ant away, but she did come back and has been gorging on it since, and still is as I type this

 

click to enlarge

 

taken outside the outworld so blurrier

Edited by CoolColJ, July 25 2018 - 10:15 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Winter 27th July 2018

 

 

Iridomyrmex bicknelli 7-8mm queen - 5 nanitic worker colony

 

released....

Edited by CoolColJ, July 26 2018 - 9:25 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Pheidole antipodum? 14+mm queens
 
Queen 1 - in test tube, aquarium filter wool dam, cotton double chamber setup - had a clump of eggs
Queen 2 - in gypsum founding nest - eggs?
 
Well last night I checked the one with eggs, and could not see any sign of the eggs...
and the queen was acting a little strange, hanging onto the dam, twitching her legs.
The next morning she was ok, but just then I found her dead, on her back!

When I took her out there was brown fluid where she was lying.... oh man

 

Queen 2 better not die!!