105 replies to this topic

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.7.16

Okay stopped to get some photos.

 

C. sansabeanus 2 "salsabean": This year's crop, with nanitics. (C. sansabeanus 1, by the way, was still freaking out about the donated brood. I hemmed her in with cotton in her tube today.)

 

 

C. quercicola "cola": Wow, she is huge. Definitely giving the salsabeans a run for their size money.

 

 

C. semitestaceus "semi": Looks kinda like a smaller C. sansabeanus. Unfortunately definitely looking like a dud. She freaked out earlier and ran around the tub for a while. Her eggs are totally ignored.

 

 

C. vicinus higher altitude bicolor (dead): SO BUMMED about this one arriving dead. She was SO pretty. That light colored thorax is amazing. The worker is more freaked out today and seems to have abandoned the brood.

 

 

C. vicinus lower elevation (but northern latitude). More "cola" colored than the cola. These guys are doing okay so far.

 

 

 

[RushmoreAnts]

Just had to add this funny anecdote.

I checked on Salsa2 and found the nanitic with her head buried in the drop of nectar again. She just sat there unmoving and I suddenly got worried she was drowning.

I grabbed the tweezers and moved the straw piece with the drop, and the nanitic FREAKED and ran back into the tube to her mother.

Like "MOM I JUST GOT SO SCARED THE GROUND MOVED OMG MOMMMYYYYY!!!!" 

Camponotus queens, however, are the exact opposite. They're the Come-any-closer-and-I'll-shred-you-to-a-million-pieces type.

[OhNoNotAgain]

 

Just had to add this funny anecdote.

I checked on Salsa2 and found the nanitic with her head buried in the drop of nectar again. She just sat there unmoving and I suddenly got worried she was drowning.

I grabbed the tweezers and moved the straw piece with the drop, and the nanitic FREAKED and ran back into the tube to her mother.

Like "MOM I JUST GOT SO SCARED THE GROUND MOVED OMG MOMMMYYYYY!!!!" 

Camponotus queens, however, are the exact opposite. They're the Come-any-closer-and-I'll-shred-you-to-a-million-pieces type.

 

 

Ah, I wish more of these queens were like Salsa1, the Mean Queen. Boy, I just love her "Stand aside, girls, I'm killing it for you!" attitude. None of these except maybe the cola (?) seem to have quite the same self-confident belligerent outlook. Which, by the way, is one reason I found it so strange that she freaked so badly about the donated brood. She ran out of the tube and now I have to keep her imprisoned in the tube, hoping she acclimates to the scent and takes care of her own larvae or maybe the donated brood, but it seems unlikely at this point. (I also got to see her throw up fluid all over the place during that freak out. I knew she vomited but I'd never seen it happen before. Just kind of squirts out of the mouth and sprays all over the ground.)

[RushmoreAnts]

All my Camponotus act that way. But maybe it’s more of a Camponotus (Camponotus) thing. You have mostly Camponotus (Tanaemyrmex).

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.7.14

Aww, poor little orphan C. vicinus bicolor managed to somehow escape her bin ... apparently she was sooooo desperate she found a way over the Fluon. I tried giving brood to low elevation vicinus (got sprayed, sigh) and dumped the others in with the dud semi, who seems nonplussed.

 

EDIT: The larva with the adoptive vicinus is actually sitting in the brood pile now.

The semi-dud may or may not be taking care of the donated brood. She is standing correct way around with the brood under her head. Not sure if she's doing anything for them or not.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, July 17 2020 - 11:31 AM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.8.12

C. vicinus with the bad luck has had more bad luck. She managed to get two nanitics enclosed, but today I found one of them had died and been dumped in the outworld. So she’s down to one worker and a very small brood pile.

C. vicinus from same flight is doing well. Nanitics doing fine. She has some orphan larvae still (I think) and I hope they eclose into the beautiful big bicolor vicinus (which might be c. Mac Kooki apparently, so I call them “macKookinus”...).

C. semi dud: She did adopt the two orphan macKookinus larvae, but today I discovered one had mysteriously disappeared. Losing hopes for having her be a mom to a wholly adopted mishmash worker colony. None of her own brood is around.

C. quercicola is doing fine. So big. Nanitics okay.

C. sansabeanus (old) not doing great. Refuses ant nectar. Hates all food except for dead houseflies. Down to one donated sansa larva.....

C sansabeanus (new) is doing well. Lots of brood and nanitics are okay. But watched the queen carry out a fresh mealworm and dump it in the trash. I guess salsas are picky and the queens like to do things themselves....

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.8.13

 

Noooooo I found C. sansa (old) has mites, too!!!! (see my entry about Prenolepis - yesterday I spent over an hour moving them out of mite-infested tubes into a new tube)

I HATE THESE THINGS!!!!

 

I wonder where they are coming from? The new mealworms I got?

?? ??

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, August 13 2020 - 11:14 AM.

[ANTdrew]

Damn, man. Sorry. I’m going to start flash boiling any insects I feed my colonies.
I think freezing is not enough to kill these damn things. Plus I need to keep my outworlds WAY cleaner. I’m still trying the predatory mites and may order another assortment. The problem isn’t solved, but at least it’s not getting worse.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Damn, man. Sorry. I’m going to start flash boiling any insects I feed my colonies.
I think freezing is not enough to kill these damn things. Plus I need to keep my outworlds WAY cleaner. I’m still trying the predatory mites and may order another assortment. The problem isn’t solved, but at least it’s not getting worse.

 

Yeah I was going to check on your predatory mite experiment. Do you have a write-up somewhere? Really curious how it looks, how it's been working, what's going on, etc.

 

I did try boiling some once-frozen BSF larvae, but they got so tough and the protein inside hardened like egg yolk, and the ants weren't interested. Not sure what to do.

I take it freezing didn't kill mites (or maybe mite eggs) for you?

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.8.27

 

Fast note that

(1) I have a new vicinus. Not sure if it's low or high elevation. She looks a lot like the other two low elevation vicinus I have, maybe a bit bigger.

(2) Speaking of vicinus, the "bad luck" vicinus still has her one worker and brood. Glad this worker didn't die. I think the larvae are slowly growing, which is good. Thinking of trading her because I now have too many ants and her sister is doing well with her brood.

(3) Oh the semi "dud" - she lost her last donated larva. But oddly she now has a tiny brood pile of three teeeeeeny little larvae, in a neat pile. They must be her own. Which is REALLY weird as she showed zero interest in taking care of her own eggs before, leaving them lying around and uncared-for, even after she got the donor larvae. Very weird.

(4) Salsabean1 - the old Mean Queen who lost all her workers from last year - still clinging to her one little donor salsa larva. I don't know what's going on with her. Wish she would show enthusiasm for food.

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.8.28

 

"Bad luck" Comeback Queen Vicinus with the solo worker ... well, I was giving her (and other Camponotus with tubes running out of water) a spare tube when I discovered the old tube not only was low on water, but HAS MITES.

 

I HATE MITES.

 

So while the solo worker was out drinking nectar, I kicked the queen out into the bin with a wooden skewer (so helpful when they bite/attack/spray skewers), then picked out the brood. Poor queen was sitting confused in a corner, holding a pupa, while I swapped out the test tubes. Meanwhile, her defender and champion and only surviving nanitic was cluelessly drinking nectar with her head stuck in the feeder, not knowing anything strange was going on. If ants could talk the queen would've been all, "HEY, YOU, SOMETHING STRANGE IS GOING ON SO GO DEAL WITH IT." But since they can't talk, nanitic didn't figure out anything was wrong until her queen walked past carrying a pupa.

 

I got the new tube situated (moved it where the old tube had been), stuck the old one and its mites in the freezer, and watched as the queen and her nanitic tried to figure out what was going on. The new tube's smell freaked out the queen at first, but I'd stuck a pupa in it along with the eggs/tiny larvae. I'd left the pupa sitting in a puddle (the new tube wasn't dry yet although I'd gone after it with a paper towel) and she rescued it and stuck it to the side of the tube. It was interesting watching them work at cross purposes, with nanitic rescuing little brood from the tube, then taking them back out to the bin, dropping them near or on the other little brood, while the queen was sort of guarding the two big pupae inside the tube. If this sounds a little confusing it's because the ants were confused as to where to put everyone.

 

Checking on them now, I see the queen has the two pupae still in the tube, while nanitic has all the little babies out in the bin where it's drier. Hopefully as the new tube dries to safe levels everyone will move back in safely without drowning.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, August 28 2020 - 9:43 PM.

[TheAntGuy]

Dang that sucks that you have so many issues with mites. To my knowledge I've never even had one mite outbreak in my ants.

[Antkid12]

Dang that sucks that you have so many issues with mites. To my knowledge I've never even had one mite outbreak in my ants.

same.

[OhNoNotAgain]

I'm pretty sure it's from the mealworms I bought from a particular company. I only had one incident before. 

[ANTdrew]

When I was researching how to deal with grain mites, a majority of the hits that came up had to do with mite infestations in mealworm farms. I think mites are a notorious problem with mealworms and fruitflies. I’m personally never going to offer either without first dipping them in boiling water a few seconds.

[YsTheAnt]

Grain mites can't handle UV lights very well. You might have success trying sun on infected colony members or housing areas, just make sure it doesn't get too hot and bake the ants!

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.10.18 update (written next day). I've not updated this journal in a long time. (And remember C. fragilis journal is separate... not that I've updated that one in a while either....)

 

I am not heating any of these Camponotus, so I do think as temps drop toward autumn/winter, their productivity has as well. Come colder weather I will try to put them in the garage.

 

C. semi "dud" died ages ago, soon after my last entry. Not sure why. But she's gone and so are any hopes of a multi-species adoptive colony.

 

C. sansabeanus 1 "Mean Queen" ... hanging in there with 1 larva (not sure if it's hers or donated). Larva stays same size. Queen resolutely pushes out the dish I put protein on, every time. Tried giving her Sunburst in the tube yesterday and she poked the drop until its surface tension broke(!!) and we had a sticky mess in the tube. UGH. Someday I need to try giving her a donated pupa from sansa2.

 

C. sansabeanus 2... hanging in there with her nanitics. She's still incredibly nervous compared to sansa1. Which is weird as she seems to be doing so much better (we'll see how she does next year).

 

C. vicinus 1 ... If you read my Tetramorium journal, you know they escaped and invaded the Camponotus bins very recently. I thought this colony came out unscathed, but I found TWO dead workers. Possibly delayed effects of Tetramorium venom? Otherwise mostly healthy but their tube is drying out and they haven't moved to their fresher tube.

 

C. vicinus 2 ... "Bad Luck" queen. After the Tetramorium battle, I found one of the three surviving nanitics twitching and dying. So this queen has lost 2 out of 4 nanitics! She's continuing her streak of meh fortunes. She has a couple brood still.

 

C. vicinus dud ... (Did I even log when I got her? Came as a freebie.) No sign of any eggs or anything, but I fed her Sunburst yesterday. I occasionally give protein too. Her companion dud Novomessor actually turned out to not be a dud. I had been keeping their tubes side by side, but Novo queen gets upgrade to heated spot.

 

C. quercicola. If you missed the "Attack on Titan" account in the Tetramorium journal, here are a few photos from that skirmish (the rest are in the Tetramorium journal). NO cola casualties. I guess they are just SO big they have a distinct advantage if fighting only a couple Tetramorium at a time.

 

 

 

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, October 19 2020 - 9:33 AM.

[buglover123]

Awesome colonies. I have a few camponotus myself for the first time, do they need to be fed at all during diapause?

[OhNoNotAgain]

Awesome colonies. I have a few camponotus myself for the first time, do they need to be fed at all during diapause?

 

In California, the low elevation species likely never fully go to sleep because it doesn't get that cold, so I believe offering them water, sugar water and occasional protein is normal.

The California desert species continue to be active and will need their usual (just probably less protein).

However, ants that live in cold areas and which go to sleep... I don't know, but I doubt it.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, October 20 2020 - 8:05 AM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

2020.10.22

Sansabeanus sensationalistic seismic situations.

 

Old salsa 1: Ugh, so yesterday there was a disaster involving small human and collision and bin went flying. Queen was okay, but her ONE POOR LITTLE LARVA disappeared.

Queen seems to be confused without her one non-growing larva. I feel bad for her.

 

 

Salsa 2: So Salsa 2, queen and 9 nanitics, were living in a tube that was getting quite dry. In the same bin I had a new tube with water and cotton. Welllllll I found mites in the new tube, coincidentally the tube closest to the Preno bin, which had mites. So I went a bit nuts and went around boiling tubes and setting up new tubes and such. 

My new idea for moving ants and trying to ditch mites:

 

Empty tube onto paper towel. Individually transfer ants to new bin. Hopefully leave mites behind.

 

This is what I did, hitting the test tube on the paper towel to dislodge ants. Brood was the first thing to fall out.  Anyway after lots of drama I got them all into a freshly cleaned, different bin, and gave them a new test tube. As of last night the queen was huddled in a corner with workers, but this morning they had apparently discovered the new tube and moved in.

 

Debated giving a larva to Salsa 1, but decided not to.

 

Other Camponotus seem not to have mites. I hope.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, October 22 2020 - 12:05 PM.