113 replies to this topic

[ANTdrew]

I love this! I may copy you with elderberry twigs this summer.

Amur Honeysuckle have nice hollow branches, and my T. curvispinosus love it.

I guess that’a the only good thing about that ghastly invader.

[NickAnter]

Here is a very short video on the first colony to get into a twig. Both colonies have 7 workers, so no more escapees. Their larvae are growing, however, they are not accepting the frozen termites anymore, so I will have to try a new food for them. Maybe they will start accepting mealworms again.

 

[Antkeeper01]

amazing!

Edited by Antkeeper01, February 17 2021 - 2:09 PM.

[NickAnter]

Thank you! Its a bit difficult to hold it still while holding a flashlight.

[Antkeeper01]

i use this:https://www.walmart....lerId=101019293and it works pretty well

[NickAnter]

So, Colony 1 is down to six workers, whereas Colony 2(original twig colony) is back to the eight workers they had while moving them. So Colony 1 is escaping somehow(and not doing great overall, queen is very skinny, and their brood isn't developing), and Colony 2 is extremely good at hiding workers.

 

Here is another video of colony 2:

 

Edited by NickAnter, February 19 2021 - 4:29 PM.

[antsandmore]

nevermind 

Edited by antsandmore, February 20 2021 - 8:59 AM.

[NickAnter]

Long time no update! I think these attempted to do a sort of hibernation, and they only got back to producing about 2 months ago. Now, Colony 1 has 6 workers, and colony 2, as referenced in the video, has 7. They also have still several pupae to go. Colony one, as seen in the video below, has even more brood still.

 

 

All in all, finally recovering. I was a tad worried for a while that they might not recover; colony 2 got down to 3 workers

[NickAnter]

Colony 1: 12 workers, over 30 brood!! That queen is doing incredibly well

 

Colony 2: 9 workers, about 9 brood as well.

 

All in all, these are doing great! I'm definitely going to hibernate these if possible this year.

[NickAnter]

I decided to put this here for the record:

Their favorite food, by far, are clothes moths. I haven't been able to try other moths, but it is the only food now that Colony 2 will accept readily. Colony one also enjoys mealworms, but the moths seem to be their favorite.

There is no great change in the brood counts of either colony. I did help them with some nest modification, though. The twig had separated some from the glass, and it was looking rather unsightly, and pror attempted to re-glue it just led to the glue slipped off the wood. I instead opted to dump some wood chavings off of a smaller piece of the same wood. This worked great, and once the nest was watered, it sealed the gap properly. As some spilled off the twig, the ants fashioned themselves and even better nest entrance with it. These really are some of the better builders in terms of ants that I have, they can do quite a bit with some small pieces of wood. Pictures will come soon.

[NickAnter]

Here are some pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by NickAnter, June 6 2021 - 3:39 PM.

[NickAnter]

Colony 1: 17 workers, at least 27 brood. I broke their twig formicarium on accident due to clumsiness, and had to transfer them to a test tube. I think it ended up for the best, as it was getting rather annoying having to deal with watering the nest.

 

Colony 2: 9 workers, about 10 brood. This colony's queen does not seem to be as productive.

[NickAnter]

Colony 1: 20 workers with 36 brood, mostly medium larvae. They are doing absolutely fantastic!

 

Colony 2: No change, except for the fact they have some pupae now.

 

Pictures of colony one will hopefully come later today.

[NickAnter]

20 worker colony has an outworld now, and they still have a massive pile of brood.

 

Video:

[Kaelwizard]

I need to find some Temnothorax here or my life will be pointless.

[NickAnter]

They are extremely common, and fly for most of the summer to my knowledge in the foothills. I will probably find a bunch more of this particular species in two weeks as well. Might or might not keep any to sell.

Edited by NickAnter, July 28 2021 - 1:05 PM.

[AntBoi3030]

I love temnothorax so much. They are probably my best behaved ants

[NickAnter]

Long time no update!

They have around 30 workers now, and 27 brood. Their larvae didn't develop for a few months, hence the slow change. However, over the last couple days, workers have been eclosing left and right, and they have gotten their new biggest worker. I love that they have such polymorphism and color variation, truly my favorite colony in terms of color. They do have the annoying habit of only consistently eating moths, but I suppose those aren't too hard for me to procure.

Here is a video of the colony:

[NickAnter]

This colony has been thriving!

 

They have at least 47 workers, and two absolutely massive ones as well. They still have 13 brood left, 2 of which are very large pupae. They also have an egg, and I'm not sure if the queen is going to lay yet again. Still not entirely sure if they need hibernation.

 

As I have stated before, they are truly a beautiful colony. Now, they also have quite the polymorphism as well, you can see that in this image:

The worker on the middle right is over twice as big as the little worker next to it. It is 75% of the queen's length as well, which is quite impressive. I'm not sure that they will get any larger workers. The one shown above is larger even than the ones I found in the wild. I'm hoping that they don't all end up black and red, as that is what the majority of the recently eclosed ones have been. I hope to get some larger orange workers, to really showcase the fantastic diversity in this colony.

 

They have also been readily accepting baby mealworms.

[ANTdrew]

This inspires me to keep Temnothorax this season.