149 replies to this topic

[FeedTheAnts]

Would a blacklight be an effective way to find these queens? My parents’ yard is full of them. This is my dream species, for sure.

I honestly don't know, I've never used one. There are a lot of threads on the forum about using blacklights, and I gather from them that Camponotus are one of the genera that are more commonly caught.

[MegaMyrmex]

Those roaches look like cryptocercus sp, they are the closest living relative to termites. Are you going to keep them or feed them to your ants, I would highly suggest keeping them as they are pretty rare and hard to come by. I myself have been looking for them for quite a while now so good find! If you do plan on keeping them keep them like termites with lots of moist rotten wood.

[FeedTheAnts]

Those roaches look like cryptocercus sp, they are the closest living relative to termites. Are you going to keep them or feed them to your ants, I would highly suggest keeping them as they are pretty rare and hard to come by. I myself have been looking for them for quite a while now so good find! If you do plan on keeping them keep them like termites with lots of moist rotten wood.

I was planning on keeping them, but they started to die. I was feeding them the same diet as my dubia roaches but I think something wasn't right. I ended up freezing them so I can use them to feed to my leopard gecko.

[ANTdrew]

Please tell us the Valentines are doing better!

[FeedTheAnts]

The Valentine - Crematogaster ashmeadi - 3/25

A few things to update on this colony. One, I cannot find the alate brood for the life of me, I'm thinking that the may have actually consumed it for protein. Does anybody else ever have mysteriously disappearing alate brood? I could just be overlooking them because the ants tend to stuff all of their brood in one or two chambers and then completely cover the massive pile with their bodies. I'm going to try and stick the heat mat on top of the nest so that they will put their brood against the glass(they always try to get as close to the heat as possible). Maybe then the alate brood will be visible, if it is even there. Second, yes they are making a recovery from their little population drop. The pupae are started to eclose pretty fast now, and there appetite and foraging are back to normal. I've noticed that they like to stick the eggs a little farther from the heat, so it is sometimes stuck to the glass, or else it is put in one of the farther chambers. Because of this I can usually see their pile of eggs, and it currently very large.

 

New Colony(no name) - Crematogaster cerasi(maybe) - 3/25

I'm adding this colony to the journal, I just got it from another ant keeper. There are about 40 workers and maybe 25 brood. They are probably C. cerasi as well, seeing as they are larger than the Valentines. I'm no expert at this though, so I'm probably wrong, but I will refer to them as C. cerasi.

Leave your name suggestions 

 

*not the best pics sorry

Edited by TennesseeAnts, March 25 2019 - 12:22 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Whew. I had a s***** day, but this is a bit of good news. I look forward to hearing about this new colony. You could name the queen Skuld, one of the three Norns from Norse mythology.

[TennesseeAnts]

Why???? I just had to second guess myself! Mine are cerasi...

[FeedTheAnts]

I caught five Prenolepis imparis queens today

Here's the catch, all but one still have their wings, but I wasn't going to be able to search for queens later in the day so a took what I got. The one that doesn't have wings(technically it has half of a wing) was running about the ground frantically, like mated queens usually do. I'm going to put them all in one tube together and hope I see eggs. Maybe this year I'll have better luck and they won't drown

Edited by TennesseeAnts, March 30 2019 - 4:48 PM.

[TennesseeAnts]

I was out all day...

[FeedTheAnts]

Ha, funny yet kinda sad story. I've been finding a few Crematogaster workers walking around my ant desk recently, and so I threw a couple of the escapees into the outworld of my younger Crematogaster colony, assuming that's where they had come from. Turns out I was wrong! When I checked back a few minutes later then the workers I had thrown in were being spread eagled by the resident workers! I guess it's not easy to know what to do with escaped ants when you have two colonies of very similar species situated right next to each other. 

[TennesseeAnts]

I did that with Camponotus chromaiodes last year...

[ANTdrew]

Funny story!

Could you offer me some advice regarding my two struggling Crematogaster queens? You can read the whole saga in my journal. Any advice would be welcome from seasoned CrematoMasters.

[TennesseeAnts]

If they are not doing well, brood boost. If you don't want to brood boost, freeze them.

[FeedTheAnts]

The Valentines - Crematogaster ashmeadi - 4/3

 

A ton of workers shove into this chamber, This is where the queen probably is.

 

 

Here is where a lot of the pupae are kept(covered by ants in this photo).

 

 

The colony as a whole(most of it that is).

 

 

Crematogaster cerasi - 4/3

They are doing great! They have a very large appetite and are eating up all of my young frozen roaches. The brood has developed a lot in just the past couple of days.

 

 

 

 

Edited by TennesseeAnts, April 3 2019 - 1:34 PM.

[FeedTheAnts]

I got rid of the Prenolepis queens. They were all tugging at the cotton and trying to get out of the tube, it was clear none of them were fertile. It's supposed to be warm for the next couple of days and I will actually have the time to go anting so maybe I'll end up with some queens before spring's gone.

On a different note, I've never seen the ants from two separate colonies be as viscous towards each other as my Crematogaster. I keep discovering even more random workers crawling around my desk, and I always throw them into the outworld of my young cerasi colony(should have learned by now that they aren't coming from there). Just a few minutes ago I did this, and within 2 seconds it was already grappling with another ant. A few seconds after that more workers began to join the fight and it looked like an all out war. They must know that they're competing for the same space in my heart

[TennesseeAnts]

I finally got some invicta! 7 queens, 600 eggs and 50 workers!

[FeedTheAnts]

First off, to keep from any confusion I'll explain my name change. I don't live in Tennessee and haven't for the majority of my time on this forum. If you've noticed I've never(for a long time that is) actually made a post claiming to live in TN, because it was a mistake to make my username TennesseeAnts seeing as I didn't actually want to give my location, and that is why I never corrected my username. I don't mind giving more information on my location now though, and so I've changed my name to clear up any confusion. I live in Virginia.

 

With that out of the way I can get onto the update.

Yesterday I was anting and I found a dealate Lasius claviger queen who I assume had just emerged from her hibernation chamber. I've always wanted to try raising temporary social parasites, and last year I had a chance with a Polyergus queen(my profile pic), but she escaped before I gathered her some workers. I read up on the various posts about how to do it, and decided to do it the natural way and let her "take over" a test tube of workers. Luckily I had no problem locating a nest of Lasius, and was able to gather about 20 workers. I offered her some dead workers outside of the tube, as sometimes they will rub them on themselves to disguise their scent, but she was acted afraid of them. Everything went as planned, and after about 5 minutes roaming the container with the tube of workers, the queen entered and started her takeover. I didn't peak into the tube for a few minutes, but when I did I could see the queen thrashing and killing workers. She was getting pretty beat herself though, so I put the entire thing in the fridge to slow the fighting and chill them(should have done this earlier). Fast forward about 15 minutes and I took them out. After waiting for them to "unchill" I could see that there wasn't any aggression from the workers, but the queen had unfortunately sustained to much damage. She is currently alive, and she did kinda successfully take over the tube of workers, but she is way too damaged to lay eggs and raise a colony. I'll be trying again as soon as I catch another queen though, probably using the chilling method from the beginning. 

[ANTdrew]

Thanks for the explanation! I'm stoked to learn about more members from Virginia on here.

[TennesseeAnts]

Whoah! Did not see that coming!
I would LOVE to see you keep some Solenopsis though!

[FeedTheAnts]

Whoah! Did not see that coming!
I would LOVE to see you keep some Solenopsis though!

I may try to raise some Solenopsis molesta this year, but other than that S. invicta aren't really established in VA yet... thank goodness.