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ANTdrew's Pheidole bicarinata Journal - The Phatheads

Started By ANTdrew , Jun 24 2020 11:17 AM
pheidole bicarinata

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#181 Offline ANTdrew - Posted May 11 2021 - 4:35 AM

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Update 5-11-2021

 

Though this colony is doing quite well and growing like crazy, I'm not really happy with their setup right now. The tiny THA outworld is totally overwhelmed, so I can't clean it. The ants are basically living on top of a big pile of frass and trash. They were scaling the fluon, so I couldn't open the lid either. I ordered a new lid from THA with a removable vent, so I can at least drop in food now. I will need to bit the bullet soon and totally evict them from this setup and move them into one of my Antpartments with a much larger outworld.

 

 

IMG 9784

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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#182 Offline TacticalHandleGaming - Posted May 11 2021 - 4:57 AM

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That's a lot of ants!


Currently kept species

L. neoniger, P. occidentalis, C. modoc, C. novaeboracensis, C. vicinus, T. immigrans, A. occidentalis, S. molesta, P. imparis, M. kennedyi, M semirufus, F. pacifica, P. californica, M. ergatogyna.

 

Previously kept species

T. rugatulus, B. depilis.

 

Looking for

Myrmecocystus pyramicus, Myrmecocystus testaceus

Pheidole creightoni, Pheidole inquilina, Crematogaster coarctata, Crematogaster mutans

My youtube channel.  My ant Etsy store - Millennium Ants

#183 Offline ANTdrew - Posted May 11 2021 - 5:00 AM

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Yup. The nest part is totally full, then there is a totally full mini-hearth connected to the Fortress.


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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#184 Offline Antcatcherpro3 - Posted May 11 2021 - 8:16 AM

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wow.. Do you even try to find where the queen is..


Edited by Antcatcherpro3, May 11 2021 - 8:17 AM.

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#185 Offline Chickalo - Posted May 11 2021 - 8:44 AM

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Woah...  Nice Pheidole!  Stupid Massachusetts climate, we only have one species, Pheidole pilifera...  Someone found a colony on iNat around 10 miles away (biking distance : D), however the northern species probably aren't as cool as yours B)


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シグナチャーです。예.

 

#186 Offline ANTdrew - Posted May 11 2021 - 9:19 AM

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wow.. Do you even try to find where the queen is..

It's actually relatively easy to find the queen in the Fallen Fortress.


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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#187 Offline Antcatcherpro3 - Posted May 11 2021 - 1:12 PM

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oh


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#188 Offline Antkeeper014 - Posted May 11 2021 - 1:29 PM

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How much are you feeding these gals? And are they starting to slow down in growth or are they still going strong in population expansion? I thought bicarinata were known to cap at a few thousand max, your queen must have some very good genetics.
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#189 Offline ANTdrew - Posted May 11 2021 - 1:44 PM

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I feed them every day. A typical feeding looks like two mealworms, two crickets, or one medium dubia roach. I frequently give them meat from my dinner as a pre-feeding. I haven’t noticed any downturn in Alfhild’s brood production.

Edited by ANTdrew, May 11 2021 - 1:45 PM.

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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#190 Offline Lillyrose - Posted May 11 2021 - 3:17 PM

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Omg wow

I love the name the phatheads lol ... makes me think of that show the big heads on Rocco modern life.

Anyway... that is a massive colony! How will you refill the sunburst if they're going over the Fluon?
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#191 Offline ANTdrew - Posted May 11 2021 - 4:38 PM

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Refilling their feeders is an annoying task involving a feather and ant-keeper ninja skills.
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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#192 Offline ANTdrew - Posted May 19 2021 - 4:31 AM

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Update 5-19-2021

 

I finally got to clean the foraging area of the Phatheads' Fallen Fortress. What happened was that my house got really hot, but I didn't unplug their heat cable, so a lot of the ants left the warmer Fortress for the old mini-hearth. I took advantage to vacuum out as much frass and old insect shells as I could. A lot of workers got vacuumed up, but I put these in a separate fluon lined container and tried to separate as many as I could to return back to the colony. These still need a way bigger foraging area to match with their frenetic behavior pattern, though. My goal is to attach one of the old-school AntsCanada 1.0 outworlds I have for this purpose.

 

Here is a mealworm feeding frenzy:

IMG 9854
IMG 9853

 


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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#193 Offline AntBoi3030 - Posted May 19 2021 - 9:12 AM

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So many, are you going to move them into a new nest soon?


My favorite queens/colony’s:
Pheidole Tysoni, Selonopis Molesta, Brachymyrmex Depilis, Tetramorium Immagrians, Prenolepis Imparis, Pheidole Bicirinata 

#194 Offline ANTdrew - Posted May 19 2021 - 10:34 AM

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Yes, I will bite the bullet soon. I think letting their old nest dry out will be a big motivator for this species since they always swarm water like it's 1999.


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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#195 Offline ANTdrew - Posted May 30 2021 - 5:45 PM

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F!!! Another huge jailbreak. I’m pretty much done with this colony now.
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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#196 Offline NickAnter - Posted May 30 2021 - 5:49 PM

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That's a bummer.  :(  How are they escaping exactly?


Edited by NickAnter, May 30 2021 - 5:49 PM.

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Hi there! I went on a 6 month or so hiatus, in part due, and in part cause of the death of my colonies. 

However, I went back to the Sierras, and restarted my collection, which is now as follows:

Aphaenogaster uinta, Camponotus vicinus, Camponotus modoc, Formica cf. aserva, Formica cf. micropthalma, Formica cf. manni, Formica subpolita, Formica cf. subaenescens, Lasius americanus, Manica invidia, Pogonomyrmex salinus, Pogonomyrmex sp. 1, Solenopsis validiuscula, & Solenopsis sp. 3 (new Sierra variant). 

#197 Offline Boog - Posted May 30 2021 - 6:06 PM

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I hope they're not freely scaling the outworld barrier by the hundreds...

 

My Pheidole are growing in numbers and I thought they've been well contained in Mini-hearths so far but will rethink their growth potential now.


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My Youtube channel: Ants Navajo               Keeping- Camponotus pennsylvanicus, Tapinoma sessile x 2, Pheidole sp x 2
 
"We may be witnesses to a Biblical prophecy come true - 'And there shall be destruction and darkness come upon creation and the beasts shall reign over the earth.'" - Dr. Harold Medford

#198 Offline ANTdrew - Posted May 31 2021 - 3:08 AM

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I hope they're not freely scaling the outworld barrier by the hundreds...

My Pheidole are growing in numbers and I thought they've been well contained in Mini-hearths so far but will rethink their growth potential now.

They escaped by gnawing through a bead of mounting putty I put where their Fortress attaches to a mini-hearth with tubing.
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"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov. 30:25
Keep ordinary ants in extraordinary ways.

#199 Offline TacticalHandleGaming - Posted May 31 2021 - 5:34 AM

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I hope they're not freely scaling the outworld barrier by the hundreds...

My Pheidole are growing in numbers and I thought they've been well contained in Mini-hearths so far but will rethink their growth potential now.

They escaped by gnawing through a bead of mounting putty I put where their Fortress attaches to a mini-hearth with tubing.

 

 

:o Oh wow!

 

Sounds like your going to have to move them to just a bigger formicarium without any other smaller attachments.


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Currently kept species

L. neoniger, P. occidentalis, C. modoc, C. novaeboracensis, C. vicinus, T. immigrans, A. occidentalis, S. molesta, P. imparis, M. kennedyi, M semirufus, F. pacifica, P. californica, M. ergatogyna.

 

Previously kept species

T. rugatulus, B. depilis.

 

Looking for

Myrmecocystus pyramicus, Myrmecocystus testaceus

Pheidole creightoni, Pheidole inquilina, Crematogaster coarctata, Crematogaster mutans

My youtube channel.  My ant Etsy store - Millennium Ants

#200 Offline Antkeeper01 - Posted June 3 2021 - 5:27 AM

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I recntly obatined a colony of these and since you are the best at coming up with names what should the colony and queens names be


1X Pogonomyrmex occidentalis 40-50 Workers

1X Solenopsis molesta 10 Workers (mono)

Ants I Want: Crematogaster sp, Camponotus Sp., Ponera Pennsylvanica, Mymercocystus sp.

 

My Youtube channel: https://www.youtube....kUjx-dPFMyVqOLw

 

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