Here i create this journal abaut all my curent ant colonys, lets start whith the smaler ones:
I caught 2 pheidole pallidula queens 2 weeks ago 1 has eggs and larvae the other nothing...
i have a solenopsis fugax queen in a test tube the queen has eggs but it does not seem like she will be able to found a colony because she has eaten her former batches of eggs and even larvae before...
I caught a lasius grandis queen 3 weeks ago and has a lot of larvae
i caught 2 tapinoma nigerium queens this year 1 2 months ago that has 20 or so workers and the second one 1 month ago...
I have a Camponotus vagus queen i caught 2 and a half weeks ago and has a lot of eggs,
I also have a Camponotus vagus colony which was caught july last year and has 15 workers- and about 30 larvae and 3-4 pupae...( actually something odd about this colony is that they had their first major pupae last week however they opened the pupae and noticed that it was a major and not a regular worker and they took it out early so it still was not developed so they just ate the major pupae, like realy savage cannibals... i guess they feed that larvae a little bit too mutch xD...)
I have a Camponotus Barbaricus colony that was caught june last year, they grew a lot in their first year reaching hibernation whith 16 or so workers however when i took them out their water suply dried and all the workers but 1 died earlier this year in april... Fortunately one more worker hatched two weeks ago and they have 2 more larvae however they don't accept protein of any kind and the queen refuses to lay... i have tried dried shrimp crickets fruit flys and even caught a spider for variety and they never touch it... i continue to offer protein every second day and they havent touched it in two weeks...
I have a lasius niger colony that was caught june two years ago they went into hybernation last year whith well over 500 workers, however the same thing happend whith them i forgot to replace their water sorce that had dried up ( totaly my fault for not realizing...) and all workers died exept 3 ( and like a 1000 eggs and larvae like crazy death ), on the week after 2 more workers died and the queen was left whith one worker only, thankfuly in the last month 5 more workers hatched with 3 more coming 20 larvae and 30 eggs...road to recovery!
I have a messor lusitanicus queen i caught last year in october and boy is she a survivor...
Let me explain, this queen was part of a realy cruel experience i did that I'm never going to do again...
October that year i caught 20 messor queens 16 messor barbarus and 4 messor lusitanicus, both species are known to be monogyne however i saw some videos on the internet where some people were able to join queens and make them cooperate, needless to say what happend i put the messor barbarus queens together in pairs folowing all vídeo instructions but none worked some seemed resly promising and queens were cooperative however they woud all eventualy start fighting...i lost 10 messor barbarus queens right of the bat... some of the surviving queens were deeply wounded so during hibernation only 4 messor barbarus queens survived and were keeped separate, 1 colony died a month ago after the queen had its first workers, the reason was probably a virus or a patogen of some sort, the other colonys i keeped one separate and placed 2 of the colonys in the same outworld, for my surprise the colonys joined forces and i got a 2 queened colony! Fast forward a week the queens started being aggressive to each other and they eventually kill themselves leaving 50 workers and a lot of brood whith no queens so what i did was offer the other colony the workers and brood, all was good and the workers were accepted however one week later i check on the colony and see that 2 workers turned on the queen and they were biting her and the other suposadly loyal workers did not give 2 [censored]... ( i was so stupid omg I'm cringing while writing this!), so all of the 16 messor barbarus queens ended up dead...
Now of the 4 messor lusitanicus queens i had, i placed them all toguether in a massive test tube the day i caught the 20 queens and this surviving queen brutally killed all of them and excaped unharmed, today she has her first nanitics 5 and a batch of 20 or so eggs...
I also have 2 messor colonys that are 1,5 years old, they are both at about 200-300 workers whith a lot of brood...
Finaly i have a tetramorium caespitum colony that is 1 year old and has about 50 workers 30 pupae and 100 eggs/larvae they are my fastest growing colony...
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This are all the colonys i own and will be uptating you on, i also want to try and catch a crematogaster scutelarys queen this year and if i do i will be sure to add her to this journal!
If you want footage of my colonys i can record them you just need to pint out wich one you want to see...
I will be real whith you i tend to forget things so this will probably only be uptated once a month!
Hopefully you will enjoy the updates to come!
Edited by Alexandrehb, July 16 2019 - 7:11 AM.
