148 replies to this topic

[OhNoNotAgain]

1. Lios aren’t doing well for some reason. Almost no brood.

2. Moving the last two Preno queens to test tube and putting them in a drawer seems to have worked. After over a month delay they now have 3-4 nanitics. I gave them dead fruit flies and put them away again.

3. M. Mexicans are doing okay though they don’t have much brood. I may be having heating problems with my equipment.

[OhNoNotAgain]

These M. mexicanus are doing okay but I’m… hope they aren’t leaking.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, July 19 2021 - 12:32 PM.

[SleepyAsianAnter]

Kinda looks like condensation 

[OhNoNotAgain]

Today I checked on the Prenos and true to form, they had ignored the dead fruit flies, which molded over. I removed them, gave them one new dead fruit fly, then gave them some Sunburst. Here is a pic of them, contrasting the size of giant CA02 workers compared to Preno queen and nanitics,

Argh uploading rotates the photos. 😖

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, July 24 2021 - 5:19 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

2021/8/26

Received new M. mexicanus today. They are apparently from 2020. A few workers and I accidentally killed one, doh. Only two eggs. They are sitting in a new mini-hearth looking stunned.

Totals:
Good mexicanus colony, lots of brood and repletes, 2020, xlarge mini-hearth
Ragtag mexicanus colony, tiny brood, few workers, 2020, mini-hearth
New mexicanus colony arrived today, from 2020, mini-hearth
Prenolepis duo, 2021, brood and workers, test tube in dark drawer
Liometopum, 2020(?), queen and workers but no new brood in a while

[TestSubjectOne]

Liometopum, 2020(?), queen and workers but no new brood in a while

 

 

Have you tried giving them lots of food? That's what worked for me when my Lios stopped producing. They always eat more than they seem like they need.

[OhNoNotAgain]

 

Liometopum, 2020(?), queen and workers but no new brood in a while

 

 

Have you tried giving them lots of food? That's what worked for me when my Lios stopped producing. They always eat more than they seem like they need.

 

 

I've been feeding them fairly regularly with fairly big chunks of bug, and the queen (last I saw her - hard to see/find covered in workers) looked as physogastric as a termite, but nada so far.... 

I tried ordering new Lios as a backup but they sadly were DOA. Hopefully she will produce again soon though!!

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, August 26 2021 - 8:13 PM.

[TestSubjectOne]

Good luck! Mine had no brood for a month before I decided to just start throwing tons of crickets at them, and now they have literal mountains of brood. Heat also helps if you aren't using it already.

[OhNoNotAgain]

So I'd been tracking the Liometopum queen. She was extremely physogastric, and I think I could see round white things inside the gaster even. I was getting worried.

Today I checked and the queen is gone. I saw queen parts. I guess she got egg-bound (it's a thing with birds and I guess it happens with ants) and died.

 

I'm VERY bummed that she died. I wasn't expecting to like Lios, but they are a very cute ant, bigger than Tetramorium, and they develop some extra large workers. They eat most foods without complaint and survive in areas overflowing with Argentine ants. I am going to try to get another Lio colony (the last ones I ordered arrived DoA).

 

 

 

Okay so here's status on M. mexicanus:

 

Good colony: Doing okay, but lost 2 pupae to me. I think they have 1-2 pupae still.

Ragtag: Has like 2 larvae but the workers keep rejecting all the protein I give them.

New: Down to 2 workers and zero brood. I stole 2 pupae from Good and dropped them in. I think these guys are also picky and not accepting most protein.

I hate when ants are picky.

 

Prenolepis:

Their tube cotton is seriously yellow. Yuck.

Maybe 20 workers. Both queens are no longer plump. However, the workers have cute little filled gasters - no repletes yet, though.

The workers seem to have accepted a bit of cooked mealworm without the carapace on, which is better than usual as last few times I had to remove moldy fruit flies.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, September 16 2021 - 1:23 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

M. mexicanus mini update:

 

Good colony: Doing well. New brood. I need to ramp down the heat soon but not while they have pupae.

Ragtag ("Stricky's queen"): Not doing well, but still has 2 larvae and 2 workers who hate protein.

New: only 1 adopted worker and she keeps acting really oddly, like her legs aren't working. Not good. If the worker dies, I will kidnap workers from the Good colony to help this clueless queen.

 

Prenos: Last I checked, they had stopped producing any brood (remember they got a late start).

 

OH I didn't mention I got new Lios?

I have new Lios. I put their tube in a big outworld (I kicked the CA02 out of it) and they have a mountain of brood.

(The old Lios are still hanging in within their mini Labyrinth. I have pics of all their lovely majors but what use are majors without a queen )

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, October 13 2021 - 10:42 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

1. Checked today and one Preno queen is dead. Noooooooo!!! Down to 1.

2. OOOPS. So I had 3 mexicanus. Good, ragtag, and new. New’s last worker died, again of weird weird leg problems and issues. Ragtag had two larvae, but both larvae have disappeared (grrrr). That leaves Good, which has repletes now beginning to fill in the left side of the XL mini-hearth, not just the right. In other words, they’ve been doing well. The workers don’t reject protein, unlike with the other two queens.

I figured I would slide the glass just a bit and let a couple workers come out, kidnap them, then in a week or two give them to New queen.

OOPS THE WHOLE GLASS PANEL CAME OFF.

Workers running around everywhere of course. Major mess!!!!! I got a handful into a new mini-hearth and got a lot back into the Good queen’s mini-hearth. Lost 2 at least to squishing. Ughhhhhhhhhhhh.
Now I’m hoping Good will stay healthy despite this mess up. I’m now debating which queen to boost. Both “bad” queens have had workers before, but neither of them seem to be doing too well. Since Ragtag queen had larvae recently, maybe that one? But how do I separate her from her two current workers, ughhhh.

Prenolepis lost a queen:


Good M. mexicanus had been filling in their Mini XL:

Queen moved to left side and new repletes were growing:

Hopefully they will survive the exposure to new germs!!

Meanwhile new Lios are doing fine so far. They got cricket today:

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, October 24 2021 - 1:46 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

2021.11.16

 

1. Prenos: Last queen still alive. Wondering whether to put the test tube out in the garage. ???

 

2. Good queen and colony is fine.

Ragtag + Stricky's queen ... allllll DEAD. Found the queen belly-up.

That left "new" queen, who also had no workers left and wasn't doing well. So I took her and dumped her into the mini-hearth containing the kidnapped workers from October (previous entry). The first worker to find her thought about attacking her, but then sniffed more and decided she might be a fertile queen after all. Within minutes the kidnapped worker group were milling around the new queen, checking her out.

 

3. Lios: I think someone said something about letting them keep going their first winter rather than putting them out for diapause? But I should probably put them in the garage anyway ... eventually.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, November 16 2021 - 7:24 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Hours of work with vacuuming Lios into my electric aspirator later….

Old queenless Lios are in a mini-hearth. (Where Stricky’s pot queen died.)
New Lios are in the old Lios mini-Labyrinth.



Putting new Lios in the garage because it’s warm out and I have nowhere to put them….

I am now going to wash the container that had the new Lios and put the Prenos into it so they can forage over the winter….

And pots are pots. The new queen is hanging out with her new workers doing nothing, and here are the “good” pots looking busy.



Edit: Prenolepis have their first ever outworld. Let’s see if the queen survives the shock.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, November 27 2021 - 6:09 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Quick recap.
Over the winter in January or February (forget which) I caught more Prenolepis. I even made a YouTube video. Includes footage of the established colony.



The new queens are from a different site.
One has died but the others are still alive last I looked.

Today I brought the established Prenolepis in from the garage and put them in a semi dark spot. They are really bothered by light I think.

I also brought in the new Lios. I forgot how much they love the warmth of late afternoon sunlight… they grabbed all their brood and moved them to the part of the nest getting hit by sunlight. Fed and watered them.

I fed and watered the two Myrmecocystus colonies with boiled fruit flies.

Pic of Lio brood.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, March 27 2022 - 9:54 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Quick update:

Yep I screwed up the Prenos. Old queen was alone with no workers. I might combine with one of the new queens. All three tubes of new queens are at last producing eggs.

Myrmeco: Bleh. The newer queen appears to be dead. The one “good” queen is down a bunch of repletes. She has some new larvae so there’s hope, at least.

Lios: big adventure with an escape hole they made. Over several days I located the hole and patched it with cotton and resin … hope it will hold! They are doing fine.

[OhNoNotAgain]

I got tired of not having museum glass and moved the Myrmecocystus mexicanus colony to a Fortress, the same one the fraggles used to be in. At last peek they were all clinging to the outworld sandy wall (the same ones the fraggles used to fly up and over). Because they'd lost all their large repletes, it was relatively easy to move them. The small repletes seem able to survive a drop of an inch or two.

[antsriondel]

nice colonies! really love those liometopum 

[United-Ants]

I love the liometopum as well one of my favorite ants

[OhNoNotAgain]

Quick update:
The Myrmecocystus mexicanus FINALLY moved into the nest, but not before losing about half their workers. Possibly from dehydration? I don’t know. Plenty of water in the nest…. I do see some larvae.

Thanks everyone for the pro-Lio comments. I’m including a pic of the queen and some brood:

[AntBoi3030]

Woah, that’s a lot of eggs.