211 replies to this topic

[DDD101DDD]

7/17/22

 

Currently, a bunch of pupae are eclosing. Lots of new workers are going to come soon, so I've started feeding them crickets. This generation seems like it won't have too many majors, which might be due to their diet of mostly mealworms thus far. I got fruit flies and crickets again though, so hopefully the next generation will be better. As usual, they love fruit flies but I don't even know where the flies are going. Same with the crickets that I've fed to them recently. They've just disappeared without a trace. Some small larvae are now present, so hopefully I can get 2 generations this year. The trash problem has only gotten worse, I definitely should've put some ultracal or something in the nest. There's at least 200 workers right now.

^the mess

 

I haven't put anything about my Lasius here in a while, but they had a huge die off during winter, with about half the colony dying. However it looks like they'll be fine. The third picture below is another side of the nest.

 

 

I don't know if I showed my Prenolepis imparis, but here they are. Founded with 2 queens last year, one got killed by the workers early this year and currently they've stopped foraging, however they're still fairly active in the nest. I don't know how they keep growing their larvae, maybe it's because of the repletes. 

 

Pogonomyrmex occidentalis are actually doing pretty good now.

Edited by DDD101DDD, July 17 2022 - 4:34 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Glad to see these colonies doing well. Keep up the good work!

[DDD101DDD]

8/29/22

 

​Some pretty major changes happened, so this might be a little long. 

 

A few weeks ago, I finally cleaned the outworld. It took a few hours of picking out individual workers, but honestly it was worth it. They were climbing the fluon with ease; it was only a matter of time until they started escaping. I got some pictures that most closely show the colony's size, those are below, along with a picture of what their clean outworld looked like.

 

 

Key word being "used to", they trashed it pretty quickly. I got a cool new liquid feeder for them from Byformica, and they drained it three times in two days. At that point, I just gave them a tube of sugar water, which lasted about a week before I started to refill the liquid feeder again. I honestly didn't believe it was possible for them to drink that much sugar water, maybe that's why their growth was kind of weird. They also made some tunnels, which is something I don't understand.

 

Anyway, I thought everything was all fine, fluon seemed to be working for the first week or two, until they started climbing again. Maybe the fluon went bad or something, I'm not sure. Either way, they can still climb; however they're significantly worse, as flicking the plastic makes them fall off. They also started living in the other outworld I gave them, which you can see in the pictures below. The hybrid nest is trashed, only the queen, some pupae, and a small portion of the workers are hanging in there. I ordered a Tarheel Ants Nucleus for them, but I have no idea when that'll come. They also dug into their water tube.

 

My Lasius neoniger are still amazing, but some workers seem to be getting out and I have no idea how. However the queen is just an egg laying machine, she made a chain of 4 eggs, beating out her previous record of 3. 

 

The Prenolepis imparis have totally blocked off their entrance to the outside, which is pretty cool in my opinion. Repletes are noticeably smaller, hopefully they start foraging soon. 

 

 

Honestly, the Camponotous are just a pain right now. For those of you with smaller colonies, don't be impatient for growth, it's not as fun as you probably think. 

I'm pretty excited for it to get colder, to be honest. 

 

[ANTdrew]

Sounds like you may need one of my CrematoProof outworlds for them. Large colonies of any species are a lot of work.

[DDD101DDD]

Sounds like you may need one of my CrematoProof outworlds for them. Large colonies of any species are a lot of work.

Yeah, I didn't think they'd become so aggressive. It's a huge contrast with their behavior in previous years.

[ANTdrew]

You fed the gremlins after midnight.

[DDD101DDD]

10/3/22

This is probably the last update of the year.

In the past 2 or so weeks, the colony has doing nothing, just prepping for winter I guess. It's been hitting the 50s here, so it certainly seems like the right time for these actions. All of them are back in the nest, which is really nice, save for a few workers chilling out in the outworld. Pretty much the same goes for the Lasius. A bunch of workers decided to inhabit their (former) water tube, so it looks like I don't really have a way to give them water. I'm hoping they all clump together later, so I can remove the tube easily. I gave them a big glob of honey for their last meal of the year, so I'm hoping they fatten up a little more. 

 

On the other hand, the Prenolepis are doing really well.

[AntsCali098]

Nice colonies

Edited by AntsCali098, October 3 2022 - 3:14 PM.

[DDD101DDD]

9/3/24

 

You guys probably all thought this was dead, but I've actually been meaning to update this for a long, long time. At first I was going to update it when the spring came. And then I was going to update it when the first batch of workers came. And then another year passed.

 

"Ok, I'll update it when they get alates"

 

Unfortunately that never happened. My P. imparis and P. occidentalis colonies got alates, but not this one (we don't talk about my Lasius).

 

So first off, the C. pennsylvanicus. Their numbers have pretty much stayed at net-zero growth, just they moved from that AC nest into a Tarheel Ants Nucleus. Really quickly I'd like to give my review of the AC hybrid nest 2.0: It sucks. Do not use it without any modifications. That is all. Poop and moisture just builds up with no absorption. The visibility is really nice though, so I can clearly see how much poop and trash has accumulated.

I think their numbers have stayed so constant because I haven't fed enough for them to change significantly, so if anyone was wondering if limiting food works to contain colony size, here's evidence that it does, I guess. Of course, I don't know if this has any long-term effects. Perhaps cycling periods of high and low food could work. I haven't seen the queen in quite some time, but new eggs do appear so I can only assume that she's fine.

 

Now in other, more exciting news: the P. occidentalis got female alates (strangely enough no males). This was back in May. I didn't know what to do with them, so I just closed all the lids on their outworlds as tightly as possible in the hopes that they wouldn't fly out. In (around) August, I saw some walking around with only one wing, so I'm guessing the workers took their wings off and forced them into labor. One of these is their outworld, and another picture is a top view of a cup of dirt that I gave them. The whole colony moved into the cup of dirt (at least a few hundred workers), but I assume they're doing fine. By the way, in terms of diet, they've been eating mostly dandelion and nyjer seeds. They prefer dandelion, but will take nyjer. Two years later and my opinion hasn't changed: These are still the best ants I've ever kept.

 

 

And now on to the P. imparis. This colony is honestly a mystery to me. I have barely fed them anything for these two years, yet they consistently have a massive pile of brood. Their active period is incredibly brief too, maybe for the second half of February and the first half of March they're active and then up until October or November they're completely dormant. They've been on a diet of almost solely mealworms and crickets. Also, they got male alates. Maybe that queen they used to have laid infertile eggs that developed into males? I guess I'll find out this spring. Circled in blue is a male.

 

Edited by DDD101DDD, September 2 2024 - 9:21 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Good to see you back!

[Ants_Dakota]

9/3/24

 

You guys probably all thought this was dead, but I've actually been meaning to update this for a long, long time. At first I was going to update it when the spring came. And then I was going to update it when the first batch of workers came. And then another year passed.

 

"Ok, I'll update it when they get alates"

 

Unfortunately that never happened. My P. imparis and P. occidentalis colonies got alates, but not this one (we don't talk about my Lasius).

 

So first off, the C. pennsylvanicus. Their numbers have pretty much stayed at net-zero growth, just they moved from that AC nest into a Tarheel Ants Nucleus. Really quickly I'd like to give my review of the AC hybrid nest 2.0: It sucks. Do not use it without any modifications. That is all. Poop and moisture just builds up with no absorption. The visibility is really nice though, so I can clearly see how much poop and trash has accumulated.

I think their numbers have stayed so constant because I haven't fed enough for them to change significantly, so if anyone was wondering if limiting food works to contain colony size, here's evidence that it does, I guess. Of course, I don't know if this has any long-term effects. Perhaps cycling periods of high and low food could work. I haven't seen the queen in quite some time, but new eggs do appear so I can only assume that she's fine.

 

 

 

Now in other, more exciting news: the P. occidentalis got female alates (strangely enough no males). This was back in May. I didn't know what to do with them, so I just closed all the lids on their outworlds as tightly as possible in the hopes that they wouldn't fly out. In (around) August, I saw some walking around with only one wing, so I'm guessing the workers took their wings off and forced them into labor. One of these is their outworld, and another picture is a top view of a cup of dirt that I gave them. The whole colony moved into the cup of dirt (at least a few hundred workers), but I assume they're doing fine. By the way, in terms of diet, they've been eating mostly dandelion and nyjer seeds. They prefer dandelion, but will take nyjer. Two years later and my opinion hasn't changed: These are still the best ants I've ever kept.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now on to the P. imparis. This colony is honestly a mystery to me. I have barely fed them anything for these two years, yet they consistently have a massive pile of brood. Their active period is incredibly brief too, maybe for the second half of February and the first half of March they're active and then up until October or November they're completely dormant. They've been on a diet of almost solely mealworms and crickets. Also, they got male alates. Maybe that queen they used to have laid infertile eggs that developed into males? I guess I'll find out this spring. Circled in blue is a male.

 

Interestingly, on my trip to Union Grove I found prenolepis imparis actively foraging on the trails. I wonder if the region or temperature changes their behavior?

[DDD101DDD]

 

9/3/24

 

You guys probably all thought this was dead, but I've actually been meaning to update this for a long, long time. At first I was going to update it when the spring came. And then I was going to update it when the first batch of workers came. And then another year passed.

 

"Ok, I'll update it when they get alates"

 

Unfortunately that never happened. My P. imparis and P. occidentalis colonies got alates, but not this one (we don't talk about my Lasius).

 

So first off, the C. pennsylvanicus. Their numbers have pretty much stayed at net-zero growth, just they moved from that AC nest into a Tarheel Ants Nucleus. Really quickly I'd like to give my review of the AC hybrid nest 2.0: It sucks. Do not use it without any modifications. That is all. Poop and moisture just builds up with no absorption. The visibility is really nice though, so I can clearly see how much poop and trash has accumulated.

I think their numbers have stayed so constant because I haven't fed enough for them to change significantly, so if anyone was wondering if limiting food works to contain colony size, here's evidence that it does, I guess. Of course, I don't know if this has any long-term effects. Perhaps cycling periods of high and low food could work. I haven't seen the queen in quite some time, but new eggs do appear so I can only assume that she's fine.

 

 

 

Now in other, more exciting news: the P. occidentalis got female alates (strangely enough no males). This was back in May. I didn't know what to do with them, so I just closed all the lids on their outworlds as tightly as possible in the hopes that they wouldn't fly out. In (around) August, I saw some walking around with only one wing, so I'm guessing the workers took their wings off and forced them into labor. One of these is their outworld, and another picture is a top view of a cup of dirt that I gave them. The whole colony moved into the cup of dirt (at least a few hundred workers), but I assume they're doing fine. By the way, in terms of diet, they've been eating mostly dandelion and nyjer seeds. They prefer dandelion, but will take nyjer. Two years later and my opinion hasn't changed: These are still the best ants I've ever kept.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now on to the P. imparis. This colony is honestly a mystery to me. I have barely fed them anything for these two years, yet they consistently have a massive pile of brood. Their active period is incredibly brief too, maybe for the second half of February and the first half of March they're active and then up until October or November they're completely dormant. They've been on a diet of almost solely mealworms and crickets. Also, they got male alates. Maybe that queen they used to have laid infertile eggs that developed into males? I guess I'll find out this spring. Circled in blue is a male.

 

Interestingly, on my trip to Union Grove I found prenolepis imparis actively foraging on the trails. I wonder if the region or temperature changes their behavior?

 

Probably? I doubt they're hard wired to a universal schedule.