37 replies to this topic

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Ok.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I went to remove the mealworms and put a new one in today, and the old ones were completely hollow ! An ant even crawled out of one, so now I have to spend ten minutes checking each piece of refuse before I throw it in the trash can. The population is rising quickly, with at least one ant having eclosed today. There are now consistently about 10 workers hanging around outside the enclosed sand-chamber they built (Luckily, newer Mini-Hearths don't have enough loose sand for that) where, a month ago,  there would only have been a couple.

Edited by Antennal_Scrobe, July 16 2019 - 1:32 PM.

[ANTdrew]

That sounds more like it!

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Yeah, I haven't seen a nasty mealworm stain in a while!

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I think another ant might have hatched today.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I put in a fresh mealworm. The old one was hollowed out and I made sure to thoroughly check for ants. Two crawled out. It is simply amazing to have a colony that "eats" mealworms rather than "eating from" them. I'm not actually sure what would happen to a piece of scrambled egg in this colony, maybe I would wake up and it would be gone. 

Edited by Antennal_Scrobe, July 18 2019 - 10:40 AM.

[Canadian anter]

I think because I live so far north, ants grow more slowly. A colony I saw under a rock in May had about the same amount of workers, and so does the one listed on the GAN project for my area.

I'm in Northern IL. Have family in Milwaukee. You could definitely of hit at least 200 workers in the first year. Often times I will find people are like "my ants are growing so slow hurr durr" and they're keeping them at room temp and feeding them once a week. If that's how you want to keep your ants, go for it my dude. It's not going to get good growth results. The Tetramorium immigrans I caught this year are being kept at 85F and their brood piles are growing quite quickly. I feed my ants daily, or every other day. Keep em warm, keep em fed. Don't stop feeding until they stop accepting food. Your growth in captivity should be wayyyy better than what wild colonies experience. Wild colonies are not living in "ideal conditions." Captive ants should have unlimited access to every resource they need.
 
I've never taken raising Tetramorium immigrans very seriously because they are so common. But I've for certain gotten well over 200 workers in the first year.

I have seen Tetramorium reach well over a thousand workers in the first year

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Now that I see how much they eat, I think I most likely did not feed them enough last year. But now I feed them a mealworm every two days, and I'm pretty sure they will be a few hundred strong at least by the end of the summer. 

[ANTdrew]

Mine only like the egg yolk. I think scrambled eggs are hard fir them to pull apart.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Mine drink the juice, mostly. Maybe you make scrambled eggs in a slightly different way than I do.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Within the next week there will be a large population boom. The nanitics, however, are dying off. As many have observed, it seems worker ants live a lot longer than most sources will tell you. The first batch of workers is dying off almost a year after they were born.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I scooped up a massive pile of about one hundred pupae from a wild Tetramorium nest (I saw them killing those poor Lasius workers, that's what they get!) and dumped it in my colony's outworld. The ants are starting to carry them into the nest.

Edited by Antennal_Scrobe, July 24 2019 - 3:05 PM.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I think they are going in the Hybrid Nest very soon.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Speaking of the Hybrid Nest, should I glue down the glass? I know AntsCanada himself does, but he has Solenopsis geminata and not Tetramorium immigrans.

[ANTdrew]

I would glue it down for sure.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I glued it down with aquarium silicone already.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I'm not dead! I was at Wisconsin Insect Fest, maybe the best event I ever attended. If anyone lives in the Midwest, I would highly recommend going, assuming of course that the University of Wisconsin is able to host the event again next year. Anyway, as expected, there has been a population boom while I was away, obviously a direct result of the brood boost. Today I caught a winged pavement ant queen, if she raises a colony, I will probably sell it.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

A queen I caught a while ago, while she still has her wings, has laid a few eggs.