Update 8-28-2018
A pretty decent storm went through the area near Desert Center, California, August 16th. I couldn't drive out the next morning because of work, but I went Friday night expecting to find Acromyrmex queens, I just didn't know whether they would still be carrying their fungus or not. I ended up collecting a whole bunch of them, but not until the next morning, so I was pretty sure they weren't carrying their fungus any longer.
Luckily my friend Chad W still had some fungus left from a colony I sold him a couple years ago. I think this might be the only fungus left from all the colonies I originally started, so hopefully one of us gets a successful colony out of it.
I put a bunch of the queens in the starter formicariums I had ready for them, and a bunch in test tubes. I didn't have enough test tubes for all the rest, so I left them in their collection containers over night. The next day, after washing enough test tubes for all the rest, I discovered that half of them were dead. This seems to happen a lot to people and everybody always has their theories, but if I remember right, I think they needed a lot of moisture which they did not have. I won't make that mistake again.
I decided to drive back out Friday to grab some more queens to make up for what I lost, and also to collect a bunch of workers from a wild colony to see if I could use them to grow more fungus. (For those who don't know, these queens will come out and forage from around 10:00 pm until it gets light, probably for up to a month and a half, when they usually start getting workers) Well it was a quick and efficient trip. I managed to grab a bunch more queens and tons of workers before it got light.
Once I got home, I took 4 pea to grape sized pieces of fungus and gave them each a few large and really small workers. Two of the groups seemed pretty interested in the fungus, while the other two didn't at all. This time I made sure to hydrate the collection containers that the queens were in really well.
By this time, most all the queens in test tube containers pretty much destroyed their fungus, while some of the ones in the formicariums seemed to mostly be taking care of theirs. All the queens collected the second time that were still being kept in collection containers, were alive and well this time, so I'm quite confident it was desiccation that killed all those others.
Tonight I noticed that most of the queens actually DO seem to be taking care of their fungus now, they just have very small pieces. There are a few queens in the formicariums that still have the full-sized pieces I originally gave them. As for the four groups of workers I gave the larger pieces too, they have pretty much just let their fungus die. I'm not sure if they just ate too much of it or what, but it's just all turning brown and looks the same way the fungus always looks as it dies. I removed the workers, and put a queen in with each of those fungus pieces instead to see if they might revive them.
At this point, I have about 30 queens in test tubes inside containers, and 30 in formicariums.
Aren't all of yours dead too?
