159 replies to this topic

[dspdrew]

Update 6-2-2014
 
Yesterday the first worker eclosed, and as of this morning there are already about 15 or so.
 

 

[dermy]

wow these colonies grow fast.

[123LordOfAnts123]

How's this queen doing?

[dspdrew]

How's this queen doing?

I knew there was a journal I forgot to update haha.

[dspdrew]

Update 7-3-2014
 
Two weeks ago almost all of the workers in this colony suddenly died off for no apparent reason. Now there are only three workers left. The queen has recently laid a few more eggs though.

[Mathiacus]

This species seems to be quite fond of just up and dying. Maybe liometopum deathcultis would be a good name for them? ;-)

[dspdrew]

I had an L. occidentale colony last year with about 50 workers, and one day they just decided to die.

[123LordOfAnts123]

You'd think (with a first brood that big) that this species would be incredibly hardy and prolific.

[dermy]

That must have sucked to have a good colony starting to grow and then wake up one day to find them dead for no reason .

[dspdrew]

Yeah, it's strange. They have a nice pile of eggs again now, so they should have more workers again soon.

[Chromerust]

That's what happened to mine we caught. They were fine for two weeks, then out of nowhere croaked at the same time except for 4. I still have those 4 along with a bunch of new ones eclosing daily now

[Gregory2455]

How large is the queen?

[dspdrew]

10mm or so.

[dspdrew]

Update 7-23-2014
 
Well I'm pretty excited. I realized that these are definitely L. occidentale and not L. luctuosum, so I have merged this journal with my original L. occidentale journal that was discontinued after the entire colony died last year for no apparent reason.

 

Here's the only clear picture I got of one of the remaining three workers of this new colony, and you can clearly see how red the thorax is, so this is obviously L. occidentale. You can also see the new brood developing; not as many as the first batch, but a decent amount.

 

[dspdrew]

Update 8-14-2014
 
Just like the original queen, this one has now died too.

[dspdrew]

Update 3-27-2015
 
I found another one of these queens last night on my black light while out in Trabuco Canyon, CA. When I checked her this morning, she no longer had her wings, so it's looking good. I seem to get one try with these each year. Hopefully this one will work out better than the previous two.

[Gregory2455]

Jealous...

[antmaniac]

Good luck with this one.

[dspdrew]

Update 4-5-2015
 
So far so good. The new queen has a pretty big pile of eggs now.
 

 

[Ants4fun]

How is the queen?