211 replies to this topic

[Kaelwizard]

Well they all look nice and fat at least.

[DDD101DDD]

9/13/21

 

So, after about 2 months nothing has changed. The colony seems to stop huddling together on some days and go out for food a little, and return to their huddling positions. No pictures for now because I could use pictures from like, 5 updates ago and they would look identical. I'm probably going to update this one more time before the year ends, to indicate when they go into a real diapause. My Lasius neoniger colony has also stopped laying eggs and growing, so I feel like real diapause is coming soon. Also I've found sifters to be quite useful when cleaning sand outworlds.

Edited by DDD101DDD, September 13 2021 - 7:03 AM.

[Chickalo]

Wow, they're looking amazing!

 

You know, I really should stop reading people's Camponotus journals.  It just makes me extremely jealous that all of my Camponotus queens end up dying.

Edited by Chickalo, September 13 2021 - 7:40 AM.

[Crazycow]

When did you hibernate your camponotus at? I have Modoc and I’m not sure when to start prepping them for hibernation. They have around 35 workers and a decent pile of brood.

[DDD101DDD]

Wow, they're looking amazing!

 

You know, I really should stop reading people's Camponotus journals.  It just makes me extremely jealous that all of my Camponotus queens end up dying.

Thanks, I'm sure you'll get a decent colony some time.

 

 

When did you hibernate your camponotus at? I have Modoc and I’m not sure when to start prepping them for hibernation. They have around 35 workers and a decent pile of brood.

I don't really have a set time for hibernation, it's more like I wait until I'm sure that the colony has stopped growing and is ready to hibernate. Signs of this are

• No more larvae growth.
• All pupae have turned into workers
• All eggs have hatched
• Workers are bunched up together
• foraging becomes minimal
• activity in general slows

[Crazycow]

<p>

Wow, they're looking amazing!

You know, I really should stop reading people's Camponotus journals. It just makes me extremely jealous that all of my Camponotus queens end up dying.

Thanks, I'm sure you'll get a decent colony some time.

When did you hibernate your camponotus at? I have Modoc and I’m not sure when to start prepping them for hibernation. They have around 35 workers and a decent pile of brood.

I don't really have a set time for hibernation, it's more like I wait until I'm sure that the colony has stopped growing and is ready to hibernate. Signs of this are

• No more larvae growth.
• All pupae have turned into workers
• All eggs have hatched
• Workers are bunched up together
• foraging becomes minimal
• activity in general slows

Thanks for the help

[DDD101DDD]

2/24/22

 

It's been roughly 4 months since the last update, the only thing that happened over those months is that a bunch of them flipped over and looked dead for a while, but yesterday when I checked on them again they were all perfectly fine. Basically, nothing happened except they bunched up a bit and looked dead until yesterday. I haven't seen any workers come out in a very long time now.

 

[azzaaazzzz00]

Well I hope they'll be fine, wonder where the queen is (I'm guessing in that ball of workers)

[DDD101DDD]

3/29/22

 

2 weeks ago, something absolutely unprecedented happened

They went outside.

 

 

It was a complete shock, and naturally I was hopeful. Immediately I fed them a mealworm and some honey. The mealworm was taken, and I was hopeful. Perhaps they would finally do something, anything other than lay around like a lazy child who just got home after school. Obviously, nature could not accept such a thing. 2 weeks ago, it was quite warm, often reaching the 60's. Ever since the workers came out, it's been in the 30's and 40's on average, and I haven't seen any outside since then. It literally snowed for a bit last weekend. Looks like it'll be awhile before anything of substance happens, but they have spread out a bit more.

 

[ElisAnts]

heating cable?

[azzaaazzzz00]

Yea that's what I was thinking too, I havn't seen one in any of the pics. Or are you using something else that was out of the pictures?

[OiledOlives]

Congratulations on getting ant to actually do something!

[DDD101DDD]

heating cable?

 

No heating cable, there's not an outlet close enough.

[ANTdrew]

That’s your issue. Get an extension cord.

[Tai_pan1]

I love this journal!  I am new to ant keeping and my Camponotus Castaneus queen and Camponotus Discolor queen should be arriving tomorrow thanks to THA.  I read the entire journal and now have an idea of what I should expect.

 

I really appreciate that you showed the various formicariums in your pics and pointed out pros and cons.  I like to plan ahead, and am debating the type of formicarium I’ll use.  Your journal helped provide me with information.  Please continue to update us.

[azzaaazzzz00]

Camponotus Pennsylvanicus was the first species I've ever kept. I wanted to see how others took care of this species.

[DDD101DDD]

4/25/22

 

This colony has become way more active in the past few weeks, although that still doesn't mean much. The weather has been fairly inconsistent, and on the days that hit high 60s and low 70s far more happens. The queen now reacts to light, something she didn't do before. Workers actively go outside the nest now, and they drink from honey quite often. A group of larvae have been moved to their water tube, hopefully these are all signs of the colony preparing to grow this season.

 

That’s your issue. Get an extension cord.

To be honest, I feel like the extra heat from the cable early in the year might've screwed up their timing on hibernation. There's not an awful lot of information to go off of for these ants and the long term effects of heating cables. 

 

 

 

In one of the pictures you can see a grasshopper, that's a Flukers canned grasshopper and the Camponotus rejected it, but my Pogonomyrmex ate it pretty fast.

Edited by DDD101DDD, April 25 2022 - 10:47 AM.

[DDD101DDD]

5/23/22

 

Pretty much everything is back to normal, it seems. Lots of workers are going in and out of the nest, there's a ton of activity happening. They're still obsessed with that stick in the outworld, and I see around 20-30 workers sitting on it all the time. Finally, the larvae have started growing again. I was actually getting a little concerned about it, but it looks like everything is good for now. Hopefully this year will be better than the last. My mealworms also started breeding again, I can see little babies and stuff. My rice flour beetles are all dead, I'm assuming due to the winter, so if anyone gets them I'd recommend you keep them inside or something.

 

 

[ANTdrew]

Good to hear!

[DDD101DDD]

6/22/22

 

I guess I wasn't feeding this colony enough before, because now that I'm giving them about 3-5 mealworms every few days, they've calmed down a lot and more workers stay inside the nest. All their larvae have been growing pretty nicely, with about half of them being pupae as of now. The queen also laid a bunch more eggs, so we'll see how those develop in these coming months. Just like last year, the workers are biting some random big larva again. I also found some termites in my yard, so naturally I threw them and some pieces of what they were living in into the outworld. The workers had a field day, but I feel kind of bad about it so I probably won't do it again any time soon. A week or so after that I cleaned the water tray that the hybrid nest uses, the workers were really calm about the whole thing but the queen got really agitated and ran into the outworld. Also since my tweezers broke I've been using chopsticks to pick up mealworms, which works surprisingly well. Their nest isn't getting any cleaner though.