2467 replies to this topic

[dspdrew]

Yup. I'll let everyone know when and where we are going on this thread, so anyone is free to join.

[Vendayn]

I'd go if I could drive. Just give me a month head start so I can start walking to meet you guys...

[Anhzor]

Do you have an exact location and date for that?

 

 

Scratch that it was on April 18 not march.  I went through my field trip photo haha

Edited by Anhzor, June 1 2015 - 7:37 PM.

[dspdrew]

I'd go if I could drive. Just give me a month head start so I can start walking to meet you guys...

 

No can do. The weather forecast isn't that good.

[Foogoo]

I don't recall anyone in Socal making any mention of Pheidole or Crematogaster flights or queens yet. Has their time not come or are they just being elusive?

[dspdrew]

I found a few already (http://www.formicult...ated-5-27-2015/). I think I mentioned them in the Mating Chart thread. Most Pheidole around here start flying around June and go all through the summer. Most Crematogaster fly later in the summer and into the fall.

[Foogoo]

I found a few already (http://www.formicult...ated-5-27-2015/). I think I mentioned them in the Mating Chart thread. Most Pheidole around here start flying around June and go all through the summer. Most Crematogaster fly later in the summer and into the fall.

That's right, and you found some in the desert IIRC. 

[dspdrew]

Night time temperatures are supposed to be pretty high the beginning of next week. I'll definitely be running a black light somewhere. I'm kind of thinking about going to San Gabriel River area Sunday.

[Forestflamboyant]

Howdy!

 

I don't know of any Camponotus that has nuptial flights at night. Being in the central Sierra's I have hit two huge nuptial flights of at least five different Camponotus species. They were Laevigatus, Modoc, Vicinus, Essigi, Semitestaceus, Quercicole in the morning around 9;00am. I bring a small butterfly net and nab them as they launch so I don't alert the nest. I have even caught Occidental with this group but believe they fly earlier in the evening and are attracted to light, All after their flight would be very active at night, possibly already had dropped their wings searching for good nest spots. I have over a 150 different queens at the moment laying eggs. I think it might be a little late down south Andrew. I wait a few days after a rain and a hot warm up to nail my nuptial flights. The season here because of the drought is a solid month early this year. What was normally June hit in May and I was ready for it!!  I just let out a big secret about camponotus if you didn't already know? Get out in the field about 8;00am and check out logs and stumps. You can see the queens peeking outside workers getting excited before it happens. They are just waiting for it to warm up a bit more.The the flights take off for over an hour depending on the size of the colony. Has anyone else had similar experience with this??

[dspdrew]

Howdy!

 

I don't know of any Camponotus that has nuptial flights at night. Being in the central Sierra's I have hit two huge nuptial flights of at least five different Camponotus species. They were Laevigatus, Modoc, Vicinus, Essigi, Semitestaceus, Quercicole in the morning around 9;00am. I bring a small butterfly net and nab them as they launch so I don't alert the nest. I have even caught Occidental with this group but believe they fly earlier in the evening and are attracted to light, All after their flight would be very active at night, possibly already had dropped their wings searching for good nest spots. I have over a 150 different queens at the moment laying eggs. I think it might be a little late down south Andrew. I wait a few days after a rain and a hot warm up to nail my nuptial flights. The season here because of the drought is a solid month early this year. What was normally June hit in May and I was ready for it!!  I just let out a big secret about camponotus if you didn't already know? Get out in the field about 8;00am and check out logs and stumps. You can see the queens peeking outside workers getting excited before it happens. They are just waiting for it to warm up a bit more.The the flights take off for over an hour depending on the size of the colony. Has anyone else had similar experience with this??

 

Wow, very interesting information. I think you have just answered some questions I've been having lately.

 

I'll start by saying I am pretty good at getting the days of nuptial rights right, it's just the times I am never sure about. Also, you probably don't not know me, but I too have a LOT of queen/colonies. I had over 400 at one point last year.

 

One thing about Camponotus though, is every time we would think there was a mating flight going on, we NEVER would see anything flying, and never found anything on our black lights, yet about an hour after it gets dark, they would just start appearing out of nowhere. Every time we turned around, we would see another queen. I know I hear people from the Northeast talking all the time about Camponotus flying in the morning, but I just assumed the species here might have been different. Even though we did actually see C. sansabeanus having a mating flight at night, as for C. vicinus and C. laevigatus, I kept thinking that maybe these are just hiding under debris or in downed trees (in the case of C. laevigatus), and are coming out searching for a better nesting spot after it gets dark. Since you are actually seeing them fly, then that answers my question; that's exactly what they're doing. C. semitestaceus I did see flying in the morning around 11:00 am once, but those aren't any of the ones we were collecting after dark up in the mountains.

 

I also noticed many different species' mating flights took place a month early this year. I know its a bit late for Camponotus now, but I usually run the black light whenever the temps get up above 70 F after dark, and I catch Pheidole, Temnothorax, and whatever other nocturnal fliers there are around the foot hills.

 

I do have one question. If you are snatching the alates as they come out of the nest, aren't they infertile, or are they mating before taking off? Have any of these Camponotus queens you catch with your net produced workers?

[Forestflamboyant]

Howdy!

 

Do you like to go by Drew or Andrew? I just want to get it right! I'm the GAN farmer for Sonora and I live in the center of ant kingdom. I have about ten different ant species living in my backyard. I have many decades of ant watching, field exploring since I was very very young. Wow! back at you!! 400 queens....really?? mine are kicking my butt on the weekends when I feed them once a week. I don't use test tubes with water. I use specimen jars because it's so much easier to keep them clean and to feed. All my queens are exploding right now and will be offering lots of different species for the GAN project. I will try to post some pictures to this topic.

 

To answer your question on fertile queens. I have found at least with the camponotus species almost 80% if not more happens in the colony. Many times the males are released first without any queens. Later there would be just queens released with no males present. This is not always the case but maybe more with secondary flights not first. All the queens I have caught about 90% produced eggs for me. Some as little as two days after there flight. When camponotus queens leave the nest they are already searching for nest sites, not getting jumped by males. As you also know most of our mountain camponotus is nocturnal. So on those very warm spring days it's also warmer at night. Good for queen hunting.

 

 So here's another secret. Since most of my queens I catch still have there wings how do you get them to drop?? Well, some just do that as soon as you put them in a vial. Others are very stubborn!! or they need to be free longer and burn up some of that energy they have. Those queens go into a out world critter cage. With lots of chewed up or pre-drilled holes in pine wood and saw dust to get them very excited. They stay outside day and night in there for a couples days and then I pick the ones out that dropped their wings and they are ready for laying. I spray the rest with water to give them a drink and make things damp and exciting again. Keep repeating the process until they all have dropped their wings.

 

By the way, here is a heads up to anyone collecting Liometopum occidental queens. I don't want anyone to make the mistake I did and putting them into groups. They are very aggressive and do not tolerant their our species. They will kill each other when meeting but tolerant different species. Lost half of my stock because of that, but now I know as you do! I believe that this species fly's in the evening but I haven't seen it. I always find them attracted to lights and their nuptial flights happen the same time camponotus does. Has anyone witnessed a nuptial flight of occidental??

 

Good Luck on your hunting trip today!!

 

Regards

Bill 

[dspdrew]

Drew or Andrew is just fine; I'm a GAN farmer too, for Southern California.

 

So wow that's pretty cool. Are you saying 80% of the queens you catch just as they're exiting the nest have already mated and are fertile? Just want to get that completely straight, because that is surprising to me. I know that infertile queens lay eggs all the time, but they don't develop into anything. Clearly you have lots of fertile queens, but I don't know how many of your queens you caught this way.

 

That's very interesting how you get them to drop their wings. I have never been that concerned about a queen that still had its wings, but I guess if the majority of yours do, I could see how you might want to come up with some way of getting them removed; they do pose a problem sometimes.

 

About Liometopum, I have quite a few of them this year. I always thought they flew just after dark, but a lady on the Ants California Facebook group said she watched them all take off and fly around 8:00 in the morning, just as the sun hit the nest. i on the other hand, caught about 12 of them on my black light around 9:00 at night, so I don't really know when their exact mating flight time usually is. It kind of seems like it can be morning or night.

[Vendayn]

Thunderstorms are very likely to start on Tuesday. I imagine Acromyrmex will be flying too very soon too, if the storms happen.

 

Drew, do you think Acromyrmex are worth getting if my family has plans to move next year (out of state)? They seem like a species that needs a more permanent housing condition. I guess I could give them or sell them, but that doesn't seem very ideal to me. What is your opinion on it?

 

In any case, since it seems thunderstorms are early this year...might be a good time to start anting next week. I plan to get Forelius pruinosus/mccooki, maybe a Formica colony if I am brave enough to dig into a mound for queen(s) or get lucky and find one.

[PTAntFan]

I went for an overnight up to Frazier Park area and stayed at Marian Campground.  Great place, a bit dusty but there's an amazing view from up there down into the Bakersfield flats. Anywho, I found a few different ants up there, formica for sure and I think bicolor Camponotus and on the morning I returned I found a massive all black Camponotus queen astride a downed tree.  Sadly she didn't survive the trip home. I had her and a worker in a tube, which I am thinking was a colossal mistake as I think she just drank her dry so to speak.

 

But that area may warrant further exploration.  It's just 90m from me and camping is first come first serve, we stayed Friday night and most of Saturday without seeing another soul.

[dspdrew]

Went to Trabuco Canyon last night and ran the black light. The whole area was buzzing with flying creatures. I found Pheidole, Solenopsis molesta, S. xyloni, S. amblychila, S. invicta (I think), Crematogaster, and Nylanderia. Took home a few Pheidole, Crematogaster, and Solenopsis amblychila queens.

 

One thing I noticed, is there are never very many S. xyloni queens actually on my black light, and instead all over the ground all around my truck where the black light is. It's clearly attracting them, but they just like to land on the ground and not on the light itself.

 

I'll be going again Tuesday night, as it should be even warmer.

[Jonathan21700]

Can you make a photo of a Solenopsis amblychila queen?

Thanks!

Edited by Jonathan21700, June 8 2015 - 12:44 PM.

[dspdrew]

Can you make a photo of a Solenopsis amblychila queen?

Thanks!

 

 

Here is a picture of the last one I had with her adopted S. xyloni workers.

 

[dspdrew]

We are having some tropical weather today, and the temps are way up again like yesterday. Night time temps and humidity should be even higher tonight. I'll definitely be running my black light tonight in Trabuco Canyon. Hopefully I can get some more S. amblychila. I don't think any of the alates I got the other night are fertile.

[dspdrew]

Tuesday turned out great. When I first showed up, the sun had just set, and it was still 80 degrees. It was a little humid, and dead still. I started setting up the black light, and before even turning on, there were already Pheidole Temnothorax queens landing on the sheet. Every one of them had a male attached to them. I sucked up tons of them with my aspirator and put them all in one container.
 
As soon as it got dark, the wind started blowing and it started sprinkling. It sprinkled almost continuously for the next hour, making things a little difficult and annoying. Liometopum occidentale started flying around 9:30 again, and I collected 10 more of them. I saw a few Solenopsis xyloni and S. amblychila queens and as usual, tons of S. molesta. I collected as many S. amblychila as I could, and ended up with four. Two species of Crematogaster were flying, including the parasitic-looking ones I've seen the last few times I was out there. I collected a bunch of them since they're kind of unique looking.

 

The best part of the night was when I found one of my favorites--Pheidole vistana. I've only found one of these before, back in 2013 and it failed. I've been looking for one ever since. It was a dealate just running along the dirt road, and I think it probably flew earlier some time, I just wish I knew exactly when.

 

Overall, it was a pretty good night.

Edited by dspdrew, May 25 2019 - 3:56 AM.

[PTAntFan]

Great job, Drew. Fortune favors the bold or in anting, fortune favors the consistent. I'll buy a pheidole off you if have any to sell.