Yeah, they are super fun, but they can be a real pain. Unless you have a giant outworld, they are super hard to contain when over 500 workers. As soon as you open the outworld for literally 1 second to feed them, at least 10 workers escape. I highly recommend giving these a massive outworld, ideally one that has a gap/hole in center of the lid, which you can plug, and feed from the hole. They aren't great at climbing fluon lined, upside down acrylic thankfully.
The hundred worker mark is an exciting time for these. Before that they can be kind of boring, but afterwards, they will readily attack pretty much anything, despite being super small.
Update will come as soon as my phone is charged, and I can take pictures of the queen pupae.
Also, within the last two days I have noticed that the majority of the workforce is in the outworld, trying to escape, despite the fact that I have been feeding them huge amounts of food, and they don't even have many larvae. I wonder if they are checking conditions to see when they should attempt to release the over a hundred males they have.
Hi there! I went on a 6 month or so hiatus, in part due, and in part cause of the death of my colonies.
However, I went back to the Sierras, and restarted my collection, which is now as follows:
Aphaenogaster uinta, Camponotus vicinus, Camponotus modoc, Formica cf. aserva, Formica cf. micropthalma, Formica cf. manni, Formica subpolita, Formica cf. subaenescens, Lasius americanus, Manica invidia, Pogonomyrmex salinus, Pogonomyrmex sp. 1, Solenopsis validiuscula, & Solenopsis sp. 3 (new Sierra variant).