148 replies to this topic

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.10.6 Warm pots.

 

A day or two ago, I decided to turn up the heat on the mini-hearths containing the pots. I had set the seedling mat thermostat to about 85, but when I touched the mini-hearths, they were still quite cool to the touch, as was the seedling mat, AND the queens still looked sluggish and meh. There was no obvious difference in temperature between the heated side and the non-heated side! So I turned the thermostat to just over 90 F, feeling pretty safe doing so because I've kept other ants at that temp with that set up before, and aside from one death by drowning, the ants had not roasted to death or anything.

 

I saw a comment by Mack on Facebook that his pots perked up after being moved to a warm room. So I went to check on the 5 pots, and lo and behold! all 5 were much more alert, grooming themselves, moving more quickly, and most had very neatly gathered up their tiny broods better than they had before. According to an infrared thermometer, half the nest is just over 90, and the other half is mid-80's.

 

I will turn the temp down a little bit, as the queens did move their broods to the cooler side, but let's just say there's NO doubt they like it warm.

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.10.7

 

Hmmm, two of the honeypots appear to be not feeling well. One was practically on her belly ... that is, not off the ground like a good ant should be. Another was on the "flats" of her feet ... i.e. the a tip segment of the legs (pre-tarsus?) were all flat on the ground and should not have been. The latter also had something moldy stuck to her water tube, so it could be fungal. I took out the water tube and washed off the moldy thing. The other three seemed to be doing okay. Yes, that includes the one with the bum front leg.

 

 

 

EDIT: Received a new pot, we'll call her Seven, in the mail. She apparently previously ate her brood and is considered something of a long shot.

So pots:

2 okay

1 okay but bum leg

2 acting ill

1 dead

1 bad mum

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, October 7 2020 - 6:25 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.10.8

 

Pots: Well, belly flop pot queen is pretty dead. There was some mold in it and if I left her in I'm pretty sure she'll be a mold statue very quickly. I just rinsed out the mini-hearth and will put in Seven (esp. since I forgot Seven's test tube has book lice in it - sorry, but I don't want book lice or mites or even springtails in with my ants at this point).

 

Also the other ill queen seems slightly better BUT I think she lost her brood. She's sticking to the ceiling and not coming down.

 

 

Lios: Well, they didn't like the fly pupae I gave them a few days ago (so much for not being picky) but they seem to be liking the slightly boiled mealworms I gave out today.

 

Prenolepis: Probably ignoring food as usual.

 

EDIT: Just found a bunch of escaped Tetramorium chewing on the dead honeypot queen that I'd left on the table.... See the Tetramorium journal for pics.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, October 8 2020 - 5:31 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.10.11

 

Pots: Another one bites the dust. The new dud queen is dead. So I have three left, all with brood.

 

Prenos: Being Prenos (not doing anything).

 

Lios: Haha okay, I found a Lio running around on the top of their open founding tub. Apparently she got over the Fluon. Bad. So I busted out one of the mini-hearths that had had a dead pot queen, which I had rinsed and let dry afterward, applied more Fluon... and picked up the Lio tube and I DUMPED as many as I could into the top of the mini-hearth. A bunch of brood were stuck to the tube and the tub still had Lios, so I put the tube back to let the remaining ants back in the tub do their thing and collect the brood together, etc.

 

Anyway, the Lio queen ran around panicking for a while, then suddenly stopped and lay still. I was worried she was injured or sick or had drunken wet Fluon or something. She just sat there with ants attending her, while her workers did stuff like accumulate brood and discover the nest and so on. Suddenly, after minutes lying there asleep  , she wakes up, jumps up, and starts moving around. The workers get her to the tube down, and after fumbling around looking for the entrance, she climbs in ... and promptly slips and falls into the nest  , thereby proving that although Lio workers are great at climbing, queens ... not so much  . Anyway there's a nice brood pile and hopefully everyone's settled in now. I'll try to add the workers stuck in the old bin soon.

 

I was thinking of moving Lios into one of the dead pot mini-hearths anyway (I want to use tough ants that are not related to honeypots), but the climbing genius Lio forced me to do it right away instead of waffling about it.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, October 11 2020 - 5:43 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Another follow-up. Once again I walk into the room and discover ants everywhere. Except this time it's not Tetramorium like it was a couple days ago, it's Lios.

There were Lios running around on the old bin. There were Lios running around the ant shelves near the mini-hearth. Lios have officially run amuck.

 

The Lios running around on the old bin were clearly upset and willing to climb past Fluon. I moved a bunch more to the mini-hearth. But the mini-hearth seemed to be leaking ants.

 

Anyway after a lot of confusion I think I figured out how they were escaping. Looks like one of the nestmate holes in the plaster has a tiny chip out of one side. I would never have noticed it normally, esp. as most of my ants are medium or larger. Yes, this is why I don't like keeping small ants (I'm looking at you, Tetramorium and Lios). Monomorium? Solenopsis? Ughhhh no thanks.

 

EDIT/ADDENDUM: If you see little odd bits of trash buried deep in the cotton of a test tube, it might just be very timid nursemaid ants that have buried themselves in cotton. They'll come out later after you've decided the test tube is empty. Then you'll have to convince them to leave the test tube, which is hard because they won't even attack wooden skewers and they will run back to hide in the cotton.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, October 11 2020 - 8:52 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Put a ring of mounting putty around the nestmate to seal the gap. I do this with all my tiny species.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Put a ring of mounting putty around the nestmate to seal the gap. I do this with all my tiny species.

 

What brand do you use? I vaguely remember some controversy about one brand or other.

[KitsAntVa]

There is a Walmart brand I use and it’s just like 4 stacks of non hardening clay which I think is the same and I use that, it’s only about 4 or 5 dollars for so much of it. I’ll get a link in a minute but I’m pretty sure it’s the same that drew uses.

[KitsAntVa]

https://www.walmart....-Each/783536123This should be the same thing just a little more clay for a little more money.

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.10.18

 

Blah, another one bites the dust. Lost ANOTHER pot queen.

We are down to two, a normal queen and the lame queen (the one with the bum front leg).

I took the dead queen's brood (it was a big brood) and gave most of it to lame queen (in case something is wrong with it) and gave just 1 small larva to normal queen.

 

Given how emaciated they were looking, I gave up on protein and gave up on them finding nectar in the outworld, and instead put aluminum trays with a drop of Sunburst right NEXT to each of the queens, mere millimeters away, right on the water towers.

Within minutes both were drinking. Lame queen is having problems and keeps trying to clean herself, which is probably not working well without her front right leg. I think her right antenna has Sunburst on it and it's bothering her (and some of the new donated brood keeps sticking to it).

Meanwhile, normal queen keeps sticking her face into the drop and the drop is disappearing rapidly into her expanding gaster. I mean, it's amazing how fast the sugar water is disappearing given how slowly the Novomessor drank it (but then, she had to drink it through a metal mesh).

 

I also decided to give the Prenolepis some Sunburst ... with room service. I mean I have a feeder near the test tube, but the workers were clearly not doing anything (being winter ants, I guess they are waiting for winter...) so I have put some right up near the surviving queens and couple workers. One of the workers was seen drinking briefly.

 

Lios... they are Lios. They have a massive brood pile that looks like it would make a spoonful of escamol. They are fine so far. I really should move them to the Tetramorium journal because they are likewise small, likewise survivors in the face of adversity, and also like to escape.

[ANTdrew]

Put a ring of mounting putty around the nestmate to seal the gap. I do this with all my tiny species.

What brand do you use? I vaguely remember some controversy about one brand or other.

I use 3M brand.

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.10.18 (writing it up the next morning)

 

Prenos:

Oh boy. So the Tetramorium battle may have cost them more than I expected. They seem to be down to ONE ... just ONE ... worker. ARGH!  I am starting to ask around to see if anyone will be able to get me some wild Preno workers to add in, as they in theory will become friendly to the queens.

 

Anyway, when I put in the Sunburst, she got right down to work and started feeding the queens. There are clearly favored queens who get first dibs on the food. The only way I can see what's going on is watching through a camera macro lens.

 

Here's a pic of favored queen #1 getting fed.

 

 

But THEN LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND.

 

 

NOOOOOOOO I HATE MITES. HATE HATE HATE HATE. 

Looks like my forcible move was not enough to lose the mites. I'll have to move them again.

 

 

M. mexicanus / pots:

I mentioned the surviving queens were hungry. Well, this is the healthier of the two survivors, sucking down the Sunburst. She drank ALL of it, more than I thought she could... but who am I kidding? She's a honeypot. Then she licked the aluminum clean. Photo quality sucks because it's not museum glass and it was really late at night and the lighting was horrible.

 

 

Liometopum

 

Did I ever attach a pic of the escamol / escamole? That is, the big pile of brood that may or may not be edible and tasty?

 

 

Not the best pic of the brood... this is where it was scattered a bit. But it's massive compared to the number of workers. The V. pergandei have more brood in quantity, but the ratio of brood to workers is probably lower.

 

[Ants_Dakota]

those are probably good mites, let us hope.

[KitsAntVa]

hopefully they are but it is a possibility they are bad but if they were wouldn't they be on the queen and worker immediately? maybe they are good ones.

[OhNoNotAgain]

I don't think they are parasitic, but every time I've found a colony with mites, it's always been a colony that isn't doing well. I don't know if there is any correlation/causation involved, but I don't like them and I hate having them crawling around everywhere.

 

I don't mind them in my isopod bins (which are crawling with stuff) but I do mind them in my ant enclosures (and if they are with my feeder fruit flies or mealworms... esp. as I don't want mites in the fridge YUCK).

I am honestly starting to think about getting predatory mites, esp. as the Prenolepis have zero brood right now so there would be no risk to eggs or larvae.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, October 19 2020 - 9:36 AM.

[ANTdrew]

I released thousands of predatory mites from five different species in my Crematogaster setup. There were zero adverse effects on their brood.

[OhNoNotAgain]

I released thousands of predatory mites from five different species in my Crematogaster setup. There were zero adverse effects on their brood.

 

Species/source?

I'd just have to be careful to not let them near my springtails.

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.10.22

 

Real pots aka M. mexicanus:

 

Lame queen: She was not doing well. Her own brood pile disappeared after I gave her the brood from the dead queen and also gave her Sunburst. I don't know why. Maybe the smell was just "off" enough that she decided to eat the brood? Or it got covered in Sunburst (because she was sticky and can't groom correctly without her front right leg) and the equivalent of chocolate-covered-ant-eggs are irresistible? And there was white fuzzy fungus growing near the water nestmate. This worried me because ALL the dead queens had had the clumpy, bumpy orange-or-green dead-insect-covering fungus somewhere in their nests before they died. But I checked today and she has ONE larva, surprisingly, and I didn't see any white fuzzy fungus.

 

Okay queen: She has two pupae now!

 

NEW queen: Seller had been kindly saving a spare queen for me in case my queens didn't do well. She and her nanitics (yes she has nanitics) arrived yesterday. I had cleaned out a mini-hearth XL for her. I got some nanitics and the brood into the nest, and got the queen and some other nanitics into the outworld. Yesterday she refused to go downstairs, but this morning she had moved into the nest, yay. I will say that, unlike my current crop of C. sansabeanus nanitics, these guys are gutsy. They attacked the paintbrush (I was trying to herd them with a paintbrush like I did with Prenos, below) and I had panicking pots running around on my hands and paintbrush and everything for a while.

 

 

Fake pots aka Prenos:

 

I couldn't stand the mites. When I found mites in an adjacent Camponotus tube yesterday, I went nuts and boiled some old test tubes and cleaned out bins and moved the Prenos (and Camponotus). This is my new strategy for avoiding transferring mites as much as possible:

I put down paper towel. I whack the tube to knock ants out. I pick up the ants and move them to the new bin. Hopefully any mites that fall out remain on the paper towel.

 

It is usually hard to whack ants out of test tubes.

IT IS NOT HARD TO WHACK PRENOS OUT OF TEST TUBES.

I nearly mashed queens when I whacked the tube because three out of four fell out IMMEDIATELY, first time, and I auto-tapped the tube again and nearly smashed some of them.

 

Anyway the normally lazy and immobile queens suddenly found themselves somewhere strange and started running for their lives. I eventually got all 4 and their one worker to the new bin, where I had to use clean painbrushes to forcibly herd them into a clean test tube. There, they sat and threw up and there they sit today, sitting in leftover vomit. Ah, winter ants.

 

Lios: 

 

I gave them a plastic bottle cap containing bloodworm soup. I thought they weren't very interested. But then I checked today and realized more than half was missing. Not dried out, not moved around ... just gone.

It's fun feeding Lios because they aren't picky, aside from not liking underbaked fly pupal soup.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, October 22 2020 - 11:55 AM.

[ANTdrew]

I ordered from Nature’sGoodGuys through Amazon. I started with Hypoaspis miles and did a knockout blow with their five species blend. I haven’t seen a mite of any kind in over a month.

[OhNoNotAgain]

I'm HOPING I've ditched the mites (since I only saw them in two test tubes) but ....

 

I ordered from Nature’sGoodGuys through Amazon. I started with Hypoaspis miles and did a knockout blow with their five species blend. I haven’t seen a mite of any kind in over a month.

 

Okay, how did you use the mites with test tubes / formicaria, so on? And I don't see a 5 species blend. Did it come with Hypoaspis/Stratiolaelaps too?

Do you think the Hypoaspis/Stratiolaelaps might have finished the job?

 

I was also referred to https://www.arbico-organics.com/in case anyone's looking.