130 replies to this topic

[ANTdrew]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo

[PetsNotPests]

Oh no! sorry to hear that! 

[OhNoNotAgain]

Look how robust the Novomessors are. How much brood. The big strong workers. JUST NO QUEEN ANYMORE. /cry

 

 

[OhNoNotAgain]

Just a quick note, but I gave a huge heating mat to my Veros and C. fragilis today. The Veros (both pergandei and andrei) have not been producing well without heat.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Quick update on Novomessors: Today I spotted 3-4 winged male alates in the mini-hearth. Definitely no queen. Meanwhile, two ants are faithfully holding a big sticky mass of eggs. I guess they are worker-laid eggs. I'm in process of trying to order a new colony of Novos.

 

VP1: Finally have a brood pile. Heat is absolutely vital for them in their new location.

VP3: Condensation blocking my view.

 

VA: Yay, brood! Heat seems to have done it.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Oh no! VP3 has dead queens!!! Down to one survivor!! Ughhhhhh.

But VP1 brood pile looking so much better. Some pics from today:

Dead queen and last queen:

VA brood:

VP1 brood:

Novos raising worker sons:

[ANTdrew]

It’s either you or Kael that has the worst luck as ant-keepers.
Really sorry.

Edited by ANTdrew, August 21 2021 - 5:36 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

It’s either you or Kael that has the worst luck as ant-keepers.
Really sorry.

Uh oh! Worst luck usually = doing stuff wrong. Which I may well be doing lol

I wonder what the average lifespan of a queen in captivity is?

I also wonder if rates are somewhat worse for polygynous colonies. All my poly colonies are down to 1 queen, except for new polies that were started this year.

Or maybe it's just me. lol

[OhNoNotAgain]

Sooo today I saw my new Novomessor (arrived in mail yesterdayish) has just one nanitic, and that one is acting very weird. Like it should have eclosed but it appears to be splayed out and almost dead. And no more pupae!

So I took my queenless colony and flooded them until they brought brood to the outworld, and kidnapped some pupae. Unfortunately at least one of them is a worker son, not a worker, but mayyyybe one of the others is a last, late worker of the dead queen? I now have two white pupae in the new Novo’s test tube. I hope they are the last daughters of the previous queen. I hope that if so, they will be adopted and not rebel. Oh well we will see.

I also stuck one worker into a test tube and will try introducing her to the new queen in a week maybe if they both are alive then.

Oh and I should note it is GROSS to have book lice falling out of a formicarium when you open it. YUCKKKKK

Pic of male pupa (note wings) and pic of new queen and her two new packages.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, August 24 2021 - 10:08 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Screw it. The queenless Novos had all their brood in the outworld, so I kidnapped most of them and gave to the new solo queen. Her first worker is pretty dead-looking.

Some have larger eye dots and some have smaller. I assume smaller is more likely to be a worker, but the larger eye dot ones also seem to have bigger heads. Basically I’m just going to have to let them eclose and hope they aren’t ALL males.

 

P.S. Queen is acting totally confused at suddenly having someone else's pupae littering her nest.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, August 25 2021 - 2:14 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Summary of this journal:

VP1: Veromessor pergandei 1, 1 queen, from 2019, still going, Labyrinth
VP3: 1 queen left out of 6, from 2020, Fallen Fortress
VA: Andrei colony from 2020, fortress, still going apparently. Can’t find queen but they have new brood.
Novos: New solo queen given pupae from previous colony. Will see how it goes.

[OhNoNotAgain]

A lot of the pupae died, but one worker eclosed so now the new queen has at least one worker.
Today I tried putting the two isolated orphan Novo workers near the new queen, separated by a double layer of plastic screen.
There is much excitement and the workers are trying to bite the screen. So it’s unlikely to work.
Will leave them a bit and check later, but I’m worried the orphans will chomp the queen’s antennae because she’s trying to get at them too.

[OhNoNotAgain]

So new queen has 1 worker now and 2 male pupae ….
Speaking of which though, the old Novo colony mysteriously has no males any more. I guess maybe they culled them?

[OhNoNotAgain]

Oh my gosh, I’m still figuring this out, but I walked into the back room and found a mass of escaped ants. THIS IS WHY I WANTED A SAFE SPECIES LIKE VEROMESSOR.

It’s also times like this that my electric aspirator is useful.

 

EDIT: Hours later, still finding escaped Veros. I'm not totally sure how they escaped. I suspect I didn't seat the outworld lid on well enough. I need to reapply the mineral oil barrier soon.

There are so many escapees, and there's such a pile of scavenged seeds next to their formicarium (though only transported a few inches from out of an open jar of seeds), they must have been running around for a day or two at least.

Possibly even from when I noticed the death of the Liometopum queen, or possibly from when I fed them some tiny bits of mealworm soon after.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, September 18 2021 - 10:10 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

So here's a brief update.

VP1: Still there. Gradually turning their heat down.

VP3: Still there with 1 queen. Gradually turning their heat down.

VA: I assume the queen is still alive but gosh, still hard to spot her. Turning their heat down.

 

Old orphan Novos: They seem to have stopped raising male brood. I just gave them some dead flies because ... why not. Last I checked the brood holders (two ants that hang upside down and hold clumps of eggs) were still holding a few eggs, but ... other than that, nada.

 

NEW Novos: Still 1 queen and 1 adopted worker, but the brood now shows at least 2 pupae, so YAY! I just gave them a small fly. Another interesting note: Old Novos never actually collected seeds (go figure). These guys seem to have collected a few bits of quinoa. I offered them the full seed mix and ALL the queen wanted was ... 3 quinoa seeds. Anyway the worker seems happy to be chewing up the fly, and the queen was panicking and moving quinoa seeds around for no apparent reason....

[OhNoNotAgain]

New Novo has her first surviving biological daughter!
Woohoo.
Welcome little 2nd nanitic. (The first nanitic died in transit and the big worker is among the last daughters of the previous queen.)

Great, the picture is getting flipped upside down. Oh well….

Attached Images

• 

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, November 27 2021 - 6:18 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Quick update on new Novos:
The adopted worker died a while ago, but the queen now has two of her own nanitics and some brood. The adopted worker perhaps could sense she wasn’t related to the queen and nanitics, as long before I found her dead, she was not staying in the test tube and seemed to be out by herself… not what I would expect of a young ant unless there is some weird Novomessor caste that matures to forager really fast (I doubt it given the old orphan colony still has survivors staying in their nest).

Anyway the adopted worker, possibly the last daughter of the old queen, pretty much saved the new queen.

But interesting how she seemed to know she didn’t belong.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, February 1 2022 - 7:36 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Also, I had difficulties with the Vero andrei.
One, a bunch got out of their formicarium because I had only used cotton and insufficient tape. I had just assumed it was the pergandei sneaking out from under their lid, but no. It was andrei….
Two, I have been using a nest mate to water them. It got really gross, and that may sicken the queen.
I put in a test water tower instead. But they put junk in it and drained it. Sigh.
So I cleaned the nestmate as best I could and put it back.
I hope the queen is okay… I can never seem to find her.
They also don’t seem to store whole seeds in piles unlike my pergandei, but they do have chunks of chewed seeds they carry around like prized larvae….

Meanwhile, the two pergandei colonies have some very tiny larvae.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, February 1 2022 - 8:02 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Has it been a year since I updated??
The two Veromessor pergandei are still around. This year I plan to give them heat sooner so they have time to build up numbers. Last year I think I didn’t give heat soon enough or high enough for them to do well.

Veromessor andrei… still can’t find the queen through the dingy glass, but I’ll assume she’s alive.

Novomessor I didn’t heat all winter, but they had some brood and even now have a reasonable brood pile. Queen is alive. I can’t believe how she was saved by the last surviving worker pupa from the previous queen.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, March 22 2023 - 1:33 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

More Veromessor pergandei, main colony from 2019, with their bigger brood this year (yay heat + insect protein).

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, June 1 2023 - 12:46 PM.