27 replies to this topic

[Anthony]

This is the first egg cluster of the year. This colony will be a year old in july and is my oldest colony

[dspdrew]

Nice, I have one too that's the same age, not P. occidentalis, but from that group--P. subnitidus. How many workers does your colony have?

[Crystals]

Nice.  Do you have an overall nest or setup shot?

[Anthony]

She has somewhere between 40 to 60 I took them out of sleep in February . But they didn't wake up till yesterday

[Anthony]

[Anthony]

THA haven

[Anthony]

A few days ago I had a die off about 20 workers but they are doing ok now

[dspdrew]

Glad to hear that. My Myrmecocystus mexicanus colony did the same, except a lot of the dead were callow workers and pupae even. It seems the die off has stopped now for me as well.

[Anthony]

I've heard Myrmecocystus Mexicanus hard a hard species to raise

[Anthony]

Checked my nest again today and I lost another 9 workers really getting worried now

[dspdrew]

What sucks about stuff like this, is you immediately start trying to figure out what is killing them, and so you want to make changes to try to save them, but I think most of the time it's something that you will probably never know, and/or something that is completely out of your control. What happens then, is when the die off stops, whatever change you made, you then will forever think that that was what was killing the ants. Because of this, I try to wait as long as I can before making any changes to anything, in hopes that the die off will stop. I think if it continues to happen over a longer and longer period of time, it means more and more that it could be something you are doing. The decision you have to make is when to finally start making changes. Sure you could make lots of big changes, and maybe stop the die-off, but the problem then is you have no idea which specific change stopped it, leaving the possibility of running into the same problem again in the future. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just ask them what's wrong?

[Anthony]

Wish I could ask them make it alot Easyer

[Crystals]

I wonder how long the workers of this species usually live?

 

The nest is moist enough?

 

Maybe offer some fresh orange/lemon juice ?  If it is a fungus they may be able to use the acidic juice to get rid of it.

[Anthony]

6-ten months is what I have read snd I water it every 3 days like normal

[Anthony]

Lost 7 more today

[dspdrew]

Really?? Are you absolutely sure these are new deaths?

[Anthony]

Yup I clean out dead workers just lost another 4 this is my oldest colony of my favorite species . This is such a bummer can't describe it

[dspdrew]

That really sucks. Have you tried making any changes yet to see if it stops? I haven't tried making any changes with my honeypots yet, and it's been almost a week now without any new deaths.

[Anthony]

Talked to David from ants California he had me make a few changes see how it goes hoping for the best

[Anthony]

Moved them to a 5/7 framed formicarium from THA hope this works