26 replies to this topic

[Hightlyze]

eh I'm kinda lacking interest ever since my exam finished since i can play video games again.

[Joehostile85]

Did you know some colonies can live upwards of 30 years? Ant keeping is sort of a long term hobby that requires patience and commitment.

To answer your question it depends. It depends on the species, it depends on the time of year, it could depend on how much food they have, it depends on the temperature, it depends on if they have a suitable home, it depends how often the queen enters a panicked state. It could be anywhere from a few days to a few months. Typically a founding queen would lay eggs within a week or so. The longest I had to wait for eggs from queens that were viable was 2 months after their hibernation ended for parasitic Lasius colonies.

Edited by Joehostile85, April 3 2019 - 6:14 AM.

[Hightlyze]

Did you know some colonies can live upwards of 30 years? Ant keeping is sort of a long term hobby that requires patience and commitment.

To answer your question it depends. It depends on the species, it depends on the time of year, it could depend on how much food they have, it depends on the temperature, it depends on if they have a suitable home, it depends how often the queen enters a panicked state. It could be anywhere from a few days to a few months. Typically a founding queen would lay eggs within a week or so. The longest I had to wait for eggs from queens that were viable was 2 months after their hibernation ended for parasitic Lasius colonies.

its been so long since i got my queens (different species) prob more than 1 week

[Somethinghmm]

Some semi-claustral queens will eat their brood if you don't provide them enough protein. Some queens just take a long time to start laying.

[Serafine]

"So long."

A week.

 

Just to bring this into persepective, ants usually take 4-8 weeks from egg to worker and when I got my Camponotus colony just before their hibernation period they sat in their tube with a tiny batch of brood doing nothing for SIX MONTHS.

 

If you're not a semi-patient person this hobby isn't for you. Probably ANY hobby involving pets isn't for you.

[Rstheant]

"So long."
A week.
 
Just to bring this into persepective, ants usually take 4-8 weeks from egg to worker and when I got my Camponotus colony just before their hibernation period they sat in their tube with a tiny batch of brood doing nothing for SIX MONTHS.
 
If you're not a semi-patient person this hobby isn't for you. Probably ANY hobby involving pets isn't for you.

Affirmative...

[sirjordanncurtis]

I'm not sure, but I think I remember you catching some Camponotus. Those will take around 1.5-2.5 weeks before the queen can start laying eggs.

[Hightlyze]

"So long."

A week.

 

Just to bring this into persepective, ants usually take 4-8 weeks from egg to worker and when I got my Camponotus colony just before their hibernation period they sat in their tube with a tiny batch of brood doing nothing for SIX MONTHS.

 

If you're not a semi-patient person this hobby isn't for you. Probably ANY hobby involving pets isn't for you.

i have a dog...

[Leo]

 

"So long."

A week.

 

Just to bring this into persepective, ants usually take 4-8 weeks from egg to worker and when I got my Camponotus colony just before their hibernation period they sat in their tube with a tiny batch of brood doing nothing for SIX MONTHS.

 

If you're not a semi-patient person this hobby isn't for you. Probably ANY hobby involving pets isn't for you.

i have a dog...

 

 

 

Did you know some colonies can live upwards of 30 years? Ant keeping is sort of a long term hobby that requires patience and commitment.

To answer your question it depends. It depends on the species, it depends on the time of year, it could depend on how much food they have, it depends on the temperature, it depends on if they have a suitable home, it depends how often the queen enters a panicked state. It could be anywhere from a few days to a few months. Typically a founding queen would lay eggs within a week or so. The longest I had to wait for eggs from queens that were viable was 2 months after their hibernation ended for parasitic Lasius colonies.

its been so long since i got my queens (different species) prob more than 1 week

 

My good sir. You don't know the feeling, when you are told that your species is fast growing and has 20+ workers in its first batch. Only to wait 6 months and realize it has 2 workers and one is crippled. Then you spend lots of money on a rare queen, only for it to not do a thing for 3 months before dying. Stop whining.

Edited by Leo, April 3 2019 - 11:47 PM.

[Joehostile85]

its been so long since i got my queens (different species) prob more than 1 week

I think maybe you’re trying to get people going on here. But I know what you mean. I think most new ant keepers really don’t realize how long an ant colony takes to get going. We’ve all seen huge ant colonies in the wild and just assume it happens over night or pretty quickly anyway. I know I was shocked when I learned queens can live 30 years and the huge colonies I’ve seen could be 10, 15 years old for example.

When I first got into ant keeping I ordered full size nests from Tar Heel ants before I even had any colonies. Only to realize oh they live in a tube for the first year. The very first nest I bought I wasn’t able to use for three years.

I mentioned my Lasius claviger colonies. I have 5 colonies that are 18 months old and the biggest one only has 5 workers. 2 more have no workers, after 18 months! I’ll be lucky if any of them have 30 workers by the 2 year mark. I’ve been trying to get this species going for over 3 years now and even I’m bored with them.

Ant keeping is a long term game with extremely long periods of time where nothing meaningful or exciting is happening. It really is kind of a boring hobby, kind of like waiting for plants to grow. That’s why I think a lot of ant enthusiasts actually end up with more than one colony so that there is more to do and look at and watch happen.

[ANTdrew]

Great comparison, Joehostile. Actually, many plants growing far faster than an ant colony considering that they reach reproductive maturity in one season or less. I love gardening and ant keeping partly because of what they have taught me about patience.

[Manitobant]

Listen, antkeeping takes a lot of patience. If you seriously want to have a big colony immediately i would reccomend either buying one or finding a queen and her workers under rocks

[Hightlyze]

Listen, antkeeping takes a lot of patience. If you seriously want to have a big colony immediately i would reccomend either buying one or finding a queen and her workers under rocks

i was just asking how long it will take. I never said  I wanted it to lay an egg right now... -_- *sigh*

[Serafine]

I mentioned my Lasius claviger colonies. I have 5 colonies that are 18 months old and the biggest one only has 5 workers. 2 more have no workers, after 18 months! I’ll be lucky if any of them have 30 workers by the 2 year mark. I’ve been trying to get this species going for over 3 years now and even I’m bored with them.

Lasius claviger as any social parasite are a beast of their own though. Having a large host colony can help them go faster but their founding is always a gamble and can go bad quickly (like when the host workers decide to murder the parasite callows).
 

stfu people should stop being against me just stfu
I'm JUST ASKING A [censored] QUESTION STOP TALKING TO ME LIKE A [censored] RETARD

I can already see a ban incoming...

Btw, we're not against you but you're not doing yourself a favor by essentially telling that you're not interested in any help anyway because you'd rather play games than care for your pets.
Ants aren't high maintenance pets and for the first months just applying a drop of sugar water and a few fruit flies every 2-3 days is literally everything you have to do. It takes months for an ant colony to grow to a size where you can observe a decent outside activity and years until it's like the huge sprawling ant cities you can see outside.

It's best to treat them just as a side hobby for the first year because not too much will happen anyway, the interesting part usually begins in year 2-3 when they actually start growing a lot faster. Also remember than ant colonies grow more or less exponentially - the more ants you have the faster they grow and while it may seemingly take forever for them to take off later their growth can become a serious issue when they grow by a few thousand ants every month (or 50.000 ants per month if they're fire ants).

Edited by Serafine, April 4 2019 - 11:30 AM.

[Rstheant]

Hightlyze, do you see the pattern? You make a topic, hoping to get answers, and when people give you advice, and constructive criticism, you get really angry. We’re trying to help. You’re making it very hard on us.

Edited by Rstheant, April 4 2019 - 2:45 PM.

[Leo]

 

Listen, antkeeping takes a lot of patience. If you seriously want to have a big colony immediately i would reccomend either buying one or finding a queen and her workers under rocks

i was just asking how long it will take. I never said  I wanted it to lay an egg right now... -_- *sigh*

 

sure sounds like it...

its been so long since i got my queens (different species) prob more than 1 week

 

 

 

 

[Guy_Fieri]

Sorry about that.

Edited by Guy_Fieri, April 4 2019 - 11:45 PM.

[Leo]

I'm sure it only takes a queen ant a few seconds to lay an egg. 

Technically yes. The time for a queen to get an egg out of her abdomen only takes a few seconds...b

[Hightlyze]

I'm sure it only takes a queen ant a few seconds to lay an egg. 

-_-

[Zeiss]

Whatever the case, Hightlyze, you need to grow up and stop getting upset at everything you disagree with or random people messing with you on the internet.  Bwiset ka.

 

Everyone else that tries to get him more upset, Leo and Guy_Fieri, you guys are a part of the problem as well.  Stop trying to purposefully upset someone off even more, it doesn't add anything to this forum.

Edited by Zeiss, April 4 2019 - 8:40 PM.