38 replies to this topic

[EchoMeter4]

June 6
 
I captured 11 Atta mexicana queens when they flew in the morning and placed them in some plaster of paris setups I made a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

Edited by EchoMeter4, August 22 2019 - 11:46 AM.

[EchoMeter4]

June 7

Three of the Atta queens died overnight so I'm down to 8 but some have a little ball of something they're tending to. 

 

 

June 12

The first decent sized patches of fungus start to appear, specially in these two queens, still strong at 8 queens.

 

 

 

June 15

I decided I'm going to hydrate their setups every three days and I'll take some pics every now and then of certain queens.

The fungus continues to develop and still going strong at 8 queens.

 

 

 

 

This queen is somehow missing that patch on her back, really weird, she's fine but with no fungus visible.

 

 

June 18

Fungus is thriving in most queens, if I recall correctly there's only one queen missing fungus at this point, still 8 queens but 7 with fungus.

 

 

 

 

 

June 21

Fungus is doing nicely and you can see the first eggs turning into larvae, still going with the 8 queens. Also, the queen with the missing back is doing a comeback haha. Still going strong at 8 queens but now 8 with fungus, I gave about 3mm of fungus to the queen that had no fungus since she had made it this far without it and the other queens were doing amazing, I thought I had some pictures of that but I can't find them

 

 

 

 

 

June 24

We had a giant thunderstorm in Querétaro and atta mexicana flew again, so I caught 8 more so I now have 16 queens. That picture only shows 6 though.

 

 

 

June 26

One of the atta queens I caught on June 24 died so I'm down to 15.

The atta from June 6 have now good sized larvae.

 

 

 

 

July 2

The brood is deveolping greatly and the fungus is doing pretty good on the attas from June 6.

 

This one is the one that had no fungus for about two weeks and then got 3mm from another queen, she's doing amazingly.

 

 

The attas that were captured on June 24 had one more loss but this one was a queen with fungus and I sold another queen with fungus which puts me at 13 queens, I also transferred fungus to the two that didn't have fungus today so all those 14 atta have fungus but they're doing well.

 

 

July 5

First pupae start to appear, 13 queens still alive and doing well.

 

 

 

July 11

All 13 queens are doing well and you can see the eye of the pupae now!

 

 

Next update will be when they get nanitics.

Edited by EchoMeter4, July 11 2019 - 1:42 AM.

[Kaelwizard]

Good job!

[ANTdrew]

Best get your lottery ticket! You’re lucky, bro!

[Acutus]

Wow!!! Just awesome!! I love the shot with your hand to show how big these gals are!

[EchoMeter4]

Wow!!! Just awesome!! I love the shot with your hand to show how big these gals are!

Yeah, It's truly awesome watching them wander around the streets when they fly!

[EchoMeter4]

July 18

Two of the first batch of queens got nanitics! Some of the other ones have really orange pupae so looks like more nanitics are coming soon!

 

 

[FSTP]

I want to try eating some of the fungus, it looks so tasty.

[CatsnAnts]

I want to try eating some of the fungus, it looks so tasty.

Kinda looks like popcorn

[EchoMeter4]

July 24

One of the colonies finally accepted leaves! I really love how this colony looks as of right now and I hope they continue to do good . 7 queens have nanitics at this point.

 

 

Also, yeah. That's the queen that I thought was injured, in the end she wasn't. The workers are slowly cleaning up her mesosoma and you can see how she's completely fine but still has a little bit of the white stuff. 

Edited by EchoMeter4, July 24 2019 - 12:58 PM.

[EchoMeter4]

July 31

I think I may be doing weekly updates now, I can probably do update every three days if you guys want to but for now this is the update:
One of the founding queens was doing really bad and passed away so now I only have 12 queens from which 6 have nanitics. All 6 colonies have accepted leaves at these point and this is the progress of the two most advanced queens! 
 

 

You can see how they're starting to shape it, really cool!

[Acutus]

That's So cool!

[EchoMeter4]

August 7 

Weekly update! All the small colonies are THRIVING, maybe I show them all next week but here's the most advanced one for now.

[Acutus]

WOW!!! That is just toooooooooo cool!!       

[EchoMeter4]

August 7

Mini update without picture, I didn't feed the colonies last night and uhhh... Today I checked and they were raiding each other, the situation is ok now but there were some losses in the worker force of some colonies. Now let me explain how this happened... I had the containers with holes in the lids, those holes were big enough for workers to get out but on my experience they would only get out to dump their trash and would immediately run to their garden after I opened the closet they were in but this time it was different and they continued doing their stuff when I opened the closet. 
Well, I learned from this mistake and now the ventilation holes have stainless steel mesh. 

[Acutus]

Sounds like a good idea! Live and learn eh?

[EchoMeter4]

Sounds like a good idea! Live and learn eh?

Exactly! Haha

[EchoMeter4]

August 10

The Atta queens that I caught on June 24 are getting nanitics now. Only two queens don't have nanitics yet so I have 10 queens with workers.

[Silq]

No manches wey! Vives en Queretaro? I'm going to be visiting in November for my niece's quinceanera. Cool to see there are hobbyists there. My wife says the ants I have look like some of the ants that were in her hometown.

Sent from my LM-G710 using Tapatalk

[EchoMeter4]

Well, I forgot about this for a while but I'm going to update the journal today with some pictures from past dates and today's feeding. I'm uploading a video of the feeding overnight since it's 2 GB and my internet sucks. I'll post it here when it finishes and yeah... here are the updates:

August 19

First let's talk about this colony. They weren't really doing so hot, they had a huge pile of brood but the fungus was close to none so I decided to give them some from some other colonies but the queen died about an hour after giving her the fungus, I don't understand why she died but well... that's one down.

 

Now this one. This colony is doing amazing they are my most successful colony at the moment and you may not recognize that queen but she's the one that had a white spot on her back.

 

 

And these are all the colonies! well, after the feeding of that day... that picture is still showing the colony of which the queen died, they were ok at the time of that picture.

 

 

 

August 21 

Well, today I had to feed again since they all finished that ton of leaves I gave them. I recorded a video of the feeding today and I'll be uploading it overnight and posting it here once it goes up on youtube.

In the meanwhile this is a picture of them before I fed them that day. (Those kinda ugly looking ficus leaves were there since a week ago, I hadn't taken them out hehe, they ditched that remaining part of the leaves showing me that they don't really love their ficus)

 

 

This is the biggest colony, this picture was after feeding and since I had some leftover leaves I just thought "whatever" and tossed all the leftover in there with them (those leftover leaves are fresh regarless of me calling them leftover)

 

 

And this is all the colonies after feeding (missing a colony with 2 nanitics and the last queen I have without nanitics which will probably die (her brood doesn't develop)

 

Edited by EchoMeter4, August 21 2019 - 10:19 PM.