13 replies to this topic

[B_rad0806]

6-13-19

I found 15 of these just walking around my neighborhood yesterday. I'm going to be giving most of these away to Nurbs for a trade. I will be keeping like 2 of these. I might catch more of these later.

 

Edited by B_rad0806, September 15 2021 - 6:01 PM.

[B_rad0806]

All dead. 

[NickAnter]

Did they die before getting workers, or after?

[B_rad0806]

Did they die before getting workers, or after?

before

[Silq]

Did they die before getting workers, or after?

before

What happened. Did you trade any or they died before trade

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[B_rad0806]

Update 6-13-20

I found 13 of these the other day. I traded off 4 of them for some Camponotus Vicinus. This year i'm not going to be stupid and do what I did last year. Last year I literally checked them multiple times every day. Well i'm not doing something that stupid now. Some of the queens already have eggs. I hope i'm finally able to get workers from these guys this year.

[B_rad0806]

Update 6-22-20

I took a little peak at these guys and everything is going great. All of them have very large egg piles. Only one of the queens ended up being dead. I'll check on these guys once a week. I'll also be heating them in the morning. Larvae should be coming in the next week or 2.

[B_rad0806]

Update 8-9-20

These guys literally all died for no reason. I would only check once ever 1-2 weeks, they were in a dark box, their tubes had water and seeds in them, and I would heat them. I have came to the conclusion that Santa Clarita has the hardest Pogonomyrmex Californicus in all of CA. One these guys aren't poly/pleo so I can't put multiple queens in one tube, two they are super light sensitive, three they love to eat their eggs. These guys even looked super promising this year because they stared off with each laying a ton of eggs. The last queen that died had 4 larvae and died for no reason at all. I don't know how I'm going to be able to get a colony out of these in the future if this keeps up. I'll have to go somewhere else to catch them I guess. 

Edited by B_rad0806, August 9 2020 - 5:01 PM.

[Kaelwizard]

SQDS Sudden Queen Death Syndrome. Happens to the best of us.

[B_rad0806]

Update 6-13-21

Alright guys I SWEAR this journal will be interesting starting from here on out. I have learned from my mistakes and have more equipment and knowledge than before. But anyways... I found 6 of these queens on the 11th & 12th which is insanely low from how many I normally find around this time. I'm pretty sure their big flight hasn't happened yet which is pretty weird because the last 2 years they have flown on the 10th and 11th. Luckily (also not really lucky) it will hit 108 and 100+ degree temps within the next few days which should trigger a flight. For now I am stuck with 6 queens.

[Antkeeper01]

Update 6-13-21

Alright guys I SWEAR this journal will be interesting starting from here on out. I have learned from my mistakes and have more equipment and knowledge than before. But anyways... I found 6 of these queens on the 11th & 12th which is insanely low from how many I normally find around this time. I'm pretty sure their big flight hasn't happened yet which is pretty weird because the last 2 years they have flown on the 10th and 11th. Luckily (also not really lucky) it will hit 108 and 100+ degree temps within the next few days which should trigger a flight. For now I am stuck with 6 queens.

third times the charm

[B_rad0806]

Update 7-23-21

The queens I caught are all doing fine. They have some have pupae. I purchased 30 of these queens from Tyr_Ants after not being able to find any in my area. I put them all into groups of 2 and 3 and already they are doing very good. They all have massive egg piles. I am doing an experiment to see what heat source founds the best/fastest. I have this amazon box that I put a heating cable on the outside of. I used this box to found most of my ants within the last 11 months and works good. As for the other heat source, I constructed an incubator with the help of Cocdeshijie and SleepyAsianAnter. There is a heat lamp and a PC fan that blows the air around. Making the incubator warm. I set it to 86 degrees. So far in the last week that i've used it, it's been working amazingly. I put a camponotus semitestaceus in just to make sure it works with other species besides Pogonomyrmex. I wouldn't want to put a good species in and it dies because of the incubator. But so far it has been good. One of the colonies got to larvae the fastest in there. You can see 2 in one of the pictures.

Amazon box:

Incubator:

 

Edited by B_rad0806, July 23 2021 - 10:39 PM.

[B_rad0806]

Update 9-15-21

Not sure why I haven't updated but these are all doing awesome. My best colony has around 14 workers and a lot of brood. The other colonies are also doing amazing. Each have around 5-12 workers and very nice brood. Also these ended up shedding the other queens into pieces so now they are all single queen colonies. Doing great  

[eea]

Those workers are so cute!