41 replies to this topic

[Ants_Dakota]

 

look at the size of those gasters! they look super healthy! i have a small colony of c. novaeboracensis with 16 workers. your colony is exploding, so i wonder if you have any tips for me? thanks!

Those look neat! The colors remind me of my C. ligniperda ants (still in founding stage)

Can't think of any tips sorry, I don't really know if I'm doing something right haha. Just feeding them daily & making sure they always have access to fresh sugars seems to work. You could try feeding urea to your Camponotus urea (Update #1) as well, though I couldn't say for sure if this colony owes their success to that

 

c. novaeboracensis do look awesome, but not as cool as yours. i love that pale color.

[dayglowfroggy]

Hi Thanks for the reply .

 

I have had a close look and can only see one egg and one worker in my turkestanus tube they are on the same windowsill in cool rather than full hibernation though she is not moving around or doing anything the worker moves about a bit its 17.5 in there at the moment .

 

At the weekend I will attach one of those little founding cubes I got it on ebay very cheap, the tube looks to be a perfect fit .

[Wegmier]

Update 9: Back-up colony rescue update + Main colony (December 21 2020)

 

Seven days ago I gave my failing back-up fedtschenkoi queen 9 pupae from the main colony. None of them have been opened properly so far.

Two of the pupae were partially opened with the workers' heads and legs sticking out (see the bottom left pupa in the image below). The workers were alive and twitching stuck in their cocoons. But without the queen opening them, they'll die

I returned 4 of the pupae to the main colony. Lets hope the queen actually opens any of the last five.

Anways

Here is some short footage of my main colony. Sorry for the shaky camera, recorded these with my phone

Media worker and regular workers at the outworld entrance:



Major worker:

https://www.youtube....h?v=RGiuY9BSit4

The full nest:



Two workers engaging in trophallaxis:

Edited by Wegmier, December 21 2020 - 1:12 PM.

[Wegmier]

Update 10: New nest progress (December 28 2020)

 

The old nest is filling up nicely. It's getting a bit crowded so I started carving a new nest

I'm not really satisfied with it though. I added a plaster layer (last pic) to make the new nest look smoother, but it's become incredibly dusty with very fine gypsum particles that I can't seem to get rid of. I can't imagine the ants liking that



The new nest I made, compared to the old:



After adding the plaster layer. Doesn't look as clean as I hoped:



 

[Wegmier]

Update 11: Prospects (February 10 2021)
 

First update of the year.

Secondary Colony:

The struggling lone queen (Update#9) refused to open any of the cocoons that I gave her. Most pupae died so I gave the few remaining ones back to the main colony.

Running out of options, I stole two freshly emerged callow workers from the main colony and gave them to the struggling queen. She adopted these two! I also gave them 4 pupae, 3 of which died but 1 was succesfully eclosed. 

She now has 3 workers and a healthy batch of ~13 eggs. I hope they succesfully raise a new generation of workers, but I've learned not to get my hopes up too much for this colony.

The queen with her 3 adopted workers and eggs:
 


A new outworld and a fresh test tube:
 


Main Colony:
 

I still haven't attached the new nest because I keep procrastinating it. Thankfully ants don't mind crammed spaces!

They must have around 300-400 workers now

Progress of the colony over the last half year:
 


Sadly the tubing I use is cloudy. But any time there is a disturbance, about 50 media workers & majors will rush through the tube to guard the outworld entrance! 
 

 

Edited by Wegmier, March 4 2021 - 12:06 PM.

[Wegmier]

Update 12: New Nest (March 4 2021)
 

Secondary Colony:

Not much progress. It seems that some of the eggs have developed into small larvae now

 

They haven't moved into the fresh test tube that I offered them. Their current tube is getting pretty mouldy. I will try moving them manually

Main Colony:

 

The new nest has finally been attached. Workers started exploring it right away. After 20 minutes they began moving their brood to it

The next day, most of the brood had been moved to the new nest

My first attempt at a timelapse. Towards the end, you can see a few pupae being placed in the top right chamber:
https://imgur.com/NRGJUz7

The new & old nest
February 12:

After moving out, the old nest was almost completely abandoned. A few weeks later and the old nest is starting to get occupied again

In a few months they will have probably outgrown their new nest. I should have made a bigger one. Oh well!
 

March 2:

 

 

The queen moves around a lot. Today she was back in the old nest:



One of the biggest majors:



Some fat larvae in the middle. More majors soon!:
 

[Wegmier]

Update 13: Steady growth (March 19 2021)
 

The colony is growing into the new nest nicely. There should be over 400 workers now

I'll start carving a new nest soon



The workers are forming some neat little rows along the walls:
 

 

Enjoying some dubia roach guts. It's always the smallest workers of this colony that forage in the outworld:


 

Workers tending to larvae of various sizes:

 

 

Lots of tiny ones:

 

[Kaelwizard]

Such a nice looking colony and formicarium. Can’t wait to see what amazing nest they move into next.

[Wegmier]

Update 14: Thriving & secondary colony boost! (April 28 2021)

 

Main Colony:

 

The colony is doing great. Both nests are looking good:
 

 

The queen still prefers the old nest (left):


 

Secondary Colony:

Fantastic news!

For the 4th time now I boosted my second, struggling C. fedtschenkoi colony (update 11) with a bunch of pupae from the main colony



They are finally eclosing the cocoons properly! The back-up colony has 11 workers now

Even better is that they are raising their own brood again. Two growing larvae in the pic below

I will be boosting them with an additional 20 pupae and then they will hopefully explode this year

[Bobby_Hill]

Update?

[eea]

so many carpenter ants are black with orange gasters, also is this species one of those ants that use their faces to block entrances, they workers have stubby faces.

[Wegmier]

Update #15: Four Colonies (October 8 2021)

 

Didn't realize it had been so long since the last update!

 

The colonies are doing fine. I actually received two more colonies recently

 

This journal will now follow the progress of 4 different colonies of Camponotus fedtschenkoi
 

 
 

Colony A:

[ Population: ~2.000 ]

 

Colony A has been doing well. Development stagnated when I went on a 2 week vacation, but since then the broodpile has exploded again. I have no idea how many workers they have. 2,000 would be a rough guess

 

Hooked up a third small nest and a larger outworld. Will start looking for a bigger nest.

 

The colony went through a die-off when I fed them 2.5% Urea-water last week. About 300 small workers perished. All the larger workers seem to be doing fine.

 

I have no idea why the urea killed so many ants this time, but people say die-offs are common when feeding it. Maybe water evaporated and the % become too high? I might just hold off from feeding urea 

 

The queen seems to go physogastric occasionally:



There are 100 to 300 workers in the outworld constantly. The entrance is always well defended:



Death after urea feeding:



In their second nest, they chewed through the thinnest wall of the water reservoir... Had a few escapees before I could plug it. This nest can't be watered anymore. A valuable lesson, these girls will chew through Ytong if it's slightly scuffed:



Workers tending to brood:

 

Replete majors:



Bottom major performing trophollaxis:

 
The current set-up:

 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Colony B:

[ Population: ~80 ]

 

Colony B, the original "back-up" colony is doing great. I gave them another broodboost from the main colony.

 

In early September they were moved into a small Ytong nest. They are now producing an impressive amount of brood all of their own.

They have around 80 workers and over a hundred pupae & larvae in various stages

The colony right before moving into their new nest:



Attached the test tube straight to the nest so they wouldn't take days to move in. Exploring the new nest:



The colony likes to stick to the left side of the nest, that's where the heating cable is:
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Colony C:

[ Population: 10 ]

 

I purchased colony C thinking that this would finally be Camponotus turkestanus - another yellow-colored tanaemyrmex from the same region as C. fedtschenkoi that I really wanted to acquire. The two species get infamously mixed up with each other all the time. The queen was advertised as such: https://imgur.com/1sTQufj

 

This is the queen that was received: 

 

Shortly after they arrived, they escaped. I had forgotten to plug a hole in their small outworld.  Apparently the test tube wasn't good enough for them and wanderlust had them leave the set-up.

 

Thankfully they didn't vanish - instead they moved into the water reservoir of the nearby Lasius flavus nest!

 

I frequently saw workers of the escaped colony walking over the desk, foraging for food. I left sugarwater and fruitflies laying around which they occasionally accepted:

 

This past month I've been trying to get them out of this nest without any luck. I stopped watering the nest and placed a fresh, moist test tube nearby. But they refuse to leave. The nest itself has become so dry that even the Lasius flavus moved out - the fedtschenkois don't seem to care care. They even started rearing brood inside there. 

 

Today I finally decided to just detach the flavus nest from the outworld (all L. flavus have moved into test tubes in their outworld) and place it in a sealed container. No risk of them vanishing now. Hopefully they move out sometime soon...
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 

Colony D:

[ Population: 5 ]

I bought colony D off of another Dutch antkeeper.

 

This queen stands out from every other C. fedtschenkoi queen that I've seen. She has a brown-reddish head & thorax instead of the pitch-black head & thorax that queens of this species normally have.

 

The colony arrived on September 28 with five workers.

 

Despite the very different coloring, the hairs on her head and legs all indicate that she must C. fedtschenkoi. Maybe this is just a less common phenotype that occasionally pops up? No idea

 

I plan on brood-boosting this colony to the point where they start producing majors. It'll be interesting to see if the majors come out reddish like the queen as well
 

Picture by the previous owner:

 

 

Edited by Wegmier, October 8 2021 - 12:13 PM.

[Wegmier]

Colony A:
[ Population: ~2.000 ]

 

[That_one_ant_guy]

Wow! Awesome journal

[Wegmier]

Update #16: Eviction & Boosts (October 24 2021)

Colony C & D have been rehoused and broodboosted

Do you keep C. fedtschenkoi or C. turkestanus, or are you generally interested in these species?
A few of us fedtschenkoi keepers have set up a little discord where we try to gather information about this species & talk about their care: https://discord.gg/H6FaNeJjSm

Colony A:
[ Population: ~2.000 ]

I use my main colony to boost the others.

To steal pupae, I remove the heating cable from their nest and place it alongside their outworld instead.

 

Soon enough, the workers will start dumping pupae into the outworld. Easy stealing!

 

 

Pupa harvest.

I stole 40:


















 

Colony B:

[ Population: ~120 ]

Colony B is still growing nicely.

Lots of larva & pupae.

 
 












 

Colony C:

[ Population: 10 ]

Colony C, the one that escaped and moved into the water reservoir of a nearby nest, has been driven out and re-captured.

 

I ended up having to flood their room. The ants all rushed out and I scooped them up. A few of their larvae died, but there was no other option left.

 

Thankfully, the queen is contained and in good health!

 

To compensate for their loss of brood & rough start, they were given 20 pupae from the main colony.

Shortly after being dumped in the outworld, it took them hours to make their way into the test tube: 

 

 

Colony D:

[ Population: 6 ]

 

One worker eclosed since last update. This brood develops very slowly without a heat source.

Like colony C, I boosted this colony 20 pupae too.

Proudly sitting on her new pupa pile:



Love this queens' reddish coloration compared to the others:

[Wegmier]

Update #17: Exploding Through Winter (May 23 2022)

The colonies have been growing steadily the past 7 months

I did not hibernate any of the colonies

Colony A has grown to ~5.000 workers. Two more nests were added. The outworld has been replaced by a bigger one.

 

Colony B has really taken off and has around ~1.000 workers now. They received a second nest.

Colony C has about 45 workers. They received their first nest recently.
 

Colony D stagnated a bit despite the boost, but they are now producing brood again. They have ~15 workers.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Colony A:
[ Population: ~5.000 ]
 

In December the colony badly needed a new nest, but I couldn't be bothered carving one with the chilly temperature outside. I purchased an Ytong nest from a local ant shop instead.

I removed the lid and added loamsand, hoping the ants might use it:



They were eager to explore the nest...



... but they ejected all of the sand after a day!


 
The set-up now looked like this:


 
In April I carved and added a fifth nest.



As well as adding a new outworld:



The set-up now looks like this:

In February the colony produced a male reproductive, probably by mistake?



... He was eaten after a few days.   



They have hundreds, maybe thousands of larvae



The queen is getting very physogastric again:

Edited by Wegmier, May 23 2022 - 6:09 AM.

[Wegmier]

Update #18: Welcoming Summertime (July 17 2022)

 

Temperatures have been increasing and the ant room is warming up. I don't use a heating cable in July/August

 
I took pictures of all four queens for comparison. Love the subtle differences within this species

 

The lighting wasn't consistent in each picture, but you can still see the differences nicely! Queen A, B, C all have black morphs (like virtually all fedtschenkoi queens), while queen D has a (allegedly very rare) brown morph. Queen B does not have dark spots on her gaster like the other two black queens do. She also has a slightly reddish head. Meanwhile C has a bigger head than the other two black morphs. A's gaster appears to be bigger and brighter, but that's only due to her physogastry

 
There is also a fedtschenkoi morph out there with an almost completely black gaster. I'll be keeping an eye out for one of those
 
In other news, Lasius niger recently had their nuptial flight and I caught a few queens
 
And my fedtschenkoi colonies enjoyed them very much!
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Colony A:

[ Population: ~5.000+ ]

 

There's little to update about. The colony is still growing. A few dozen pupae were taken the last few weeks for broodboosts

They have plenty of brood to spare:
 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colony B:

[ Population: ~1.000+ ]

The colony is now spread over two nests. They'll be needing a third one soon.
 

 
The outworld is getting crowded and trashed and is in need of replacement too
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colony C:

[ Population: ~100 ]

The colony in their new nest

 

The queen scuddles into a dark spot as soon as the lights go on
 

 

A varied broodpile:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colony D:

[ Population: 100+ ]

Colony D was boosted with a few dozen pupae from colony A.

I wanted to kickstart their growth to see if she produces brown-headed majors or not! I wonder if her larger workers take after her unique morph

The boost:
  

 
The colony had around ~20 workers when they were given this boost^

A few weeks later:
 

 

 

Edited by Wegmier, July 17 2022 - 2:06 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Truly impressive colonies!

[Ants_Dakota]

your pictures are beautiful! it is amazing to see a camponotus colony reach maturity without dying suddenly(like all of mine) keep it up! 

[Wegmier]

A timelapse of the nest that I carved for colony D