78 replies to this topic

[Foogoo]

I'm not talking about experimenting or learning things the hard way, I'm talking straight up "I shouldn't have done that..." - pouring bleach in your colored wash, seeing how far you can walk with your eyes closed, pushing the red button that says "Do not push"...

 

I think mine was tonight. I had a Dorymyrmex insanus escapee the other day, still haven't figured out how (lid was probably not on tight). During the day I start thinking, what if there's some other gap and more get out? I come home and crap! They're all over the table! I start trapping each and every one, wondering how they got out. After a few minutes of inspection, I realize those are just the annual Linepithema humile invasion. Forget those turds and break out the poison. After feeding time, I see two that are not L. humile wandering about. Uh oh. I catch them and dump them in the Dorymyrmex nest. Mission accomplished.

 

About 10 minutes later, while watching the Crematogasters, I think, wow, they sure look like the escapees. Oh crap... Yes, I dumped two stray Crematogasters into the wrong nest. Thankfully they seemed to know they were out of their element and weren't hard to relocate. And the Dorymyrmex were too busy moving brood from under the feeding dish I just removed to realize they had invaders. It helps to #1 keep lids on tight and #2 identify before dumping!

 

If you claim to not have made a mistake, you're either lying or not immersed in the hobby

[Alza]

I lost an argentine ant queen in my house, then opened the original test tube with the rest of the colony thinking they would find it e-e....

[Gregory2455]

A lot of things...

[dspdrew]

I just finished making a really cool aspirator and decided it was time to give it a whirl. I headed over to one of my largest nests of Pogonomyrmex californicus and sucked up a few workers. That was when I realized I hadn't added the screen yet. luckily I was able to spit them all out before any of them stung me.

[drtrmiller]

You could have just used grains of rice...

[Foogoo]

A lot of things...

 

Your best one?

[dean_k]

I once gave a live mealworm to my Myrmica colony. They had a big fight and the mealworm chopped a worker's antenna off.

 

Long story short, I chop it off now before giving it to colonies.

[AntsTexas]

buying a lot of stuff 2 put them in, before doing research on the ants i was trying/wanting 2 get

[LAnt]

Once had a dirt nest of L. humile and my dad knocked it over. That was the last of the dirt nests in the house. Not exactly my fault but worth putting here.

[Vendayn]

I used sticks to connect ant farms (with my very first colony of ants, Solenopsis invicta) instead of tubes.

 

It worked well actually...until they got over 100,000 ants (in 6 months) and were dropping off the sticks like rain. That, and also, they had so many ants...they were stuck in eternal ant "circles" inside the ant farm because of lack of space. You know, like the ones you see army ants do in videos.

Not a good first ant, because they grew SO fast I had no idea what to do.

[Michaelofvancouver]

Putting a live Lasius queen into my Camponotus modoc nest. The nanitics just scampered away instead of attacking her. Good thing the Camponotus queen snapped the Lasius queen in half before she could kill any nanitics.

[Crystals]

buying a lot of stuff 2 put them in, before doing research on the ants i was trying/wanting 2 get

I can relate to this.  I bought a lot of outworld containers for foraging areas and simply to put test tubes into.  I now have about 100 fancy 5x7x5" acrylic containers taking up a ton of room and only 3 are in use because they are so wide and I need to use heat cables due to low house temperature.

 

A couple of dumb mistakes?

Some of my Lasius had been escaping lately (300+ colony), although only wandered around on the dresser.  Then I found several Lasius workers in the bathroom and dumped them into the nest. While feeding an hour later I noticed that they had been killed.  Whoops, turns out they weren't from my colony after all.

 

Trying to dump 60+ Formica workers into a new test tube.  They gassed themselves out and I lost about 15% of them.  Considering the test tube was open and I had never had any issues with them and their formic acid I was quite surprised.

 

Forgetting to put the lid on my Flightless fruti fly colony....  Luckily I noticed my mistake about 2 min later and collected them all.

 

Dumping Formica aserva out of an extremely dirty test tube into a foragaing area that was (supposedly) connected to a new clean test tube.  Only to realize that the tubing was not connected.  Luckily I was trying to dig a stubborn worker out of the old tube when I noticed the first 2 workers who wandered out of the unconnected port.  I quickly re-connected the tubing and dumped the 2 workers back into the outworld.

[Gregory2455]

I used sticks to connect ant farms (with my very first colony of ants, Solenopsis invicta) instead of tubes.
 
It worked well actually...until they got over 100,000 ants (in 6 months) and were dropping off the sticks like rain. That, and also, they had so many ants...they were stuck in eternal ant "circles" inside the ant farm because of lack of space. You know, like the ones you see army ants do in videos.
Not a good first ant, because they grew SO fast I had no idea what to do.

I actually want to try this, with ansmaller growing species.

[Mathiacus]

I tried to feed a live centipede to a M.brevinoda colony.. that boo boo cost me about 35 ants, about 1/4 of my total colony.
 

Edited by dspdrew, February 26 2015 - 8:13 PM.
Removed duplicate content.

[dspdrew]

 

I used sticks to connect ant farms (with my very first colony of ants, Solenopsis invicta) instead of tubes.
 
It worked well actually...until they got over 100,000 ants (in 6 months) and were dropping off the sticks like rain. That, and also, they had so many ants...they were stuck in eternal ant "circles" inside the ant farm because of lack of space. You know, like the ones you see army ants do in videos.
Not a good first ant, because they grew SO fast I had no idea what to do.

I actually want to try this, with ansmaller growing species.

 

 

I learned that lesson. I always make sure to never have anything ants can climb on hanging over the edge of anything they are kept in.

[Chromerust]

I was moving a honeypot queen but it wouldn't come out of the test tube. So I flicked the tube a little harder and she disappeared into thin air. I never saw it again.

[Gregory2455]

I was moving a honeypot queen but it wouldn't come out of the test tube. So I flicked the tube a little harder and she disappeared into thin air. I never saw it again.

Wow... I do not feel so bad about my test tube-queen failures anymore... thank you.

[antmaniac]

Here are some pictures showing the making of my new formicarium, a work of art after hours of careful design, test and carve has finally come to fruition.

Front view with nest entrance.

Side view, look at that perfectly carved interconnecting tunnel and holes just fit for the clippers. 

Back view, another set of nest. By the way, keep on reading before you yell this is wrong topic to post on.

A water tank, perfect for the water source.

Combined and fitted nicely.

 

Well, lets put it this way. It was a bit windy that day and I had to answer a phone call...

At least now I know why there are so much fuss over the terracotta army. 

Edited by antmaniac, February 28 2015 - 4:40 PM.

[Foogoo]

Well, lets put it this way. It was a bit windy that day and I had to answer a phone call...

At least now I know why there are so much fuss over the terracotta army. 

Were you able to at least salvage the pieces and make smaller nests? That's an interesting concept though, how were you planning on keeping the ants in the nest?

[ToeNhi]

I've made a lot of dumb mistakes, but to sum the majority of them up, I would say I was impatient.