I'm Barb and I live in the hills to the north of the San Gabriel Valley, north of Arcadia. If you ever see a photo of the Santa Anita Racetrack, I live in the picturesque mountains in the background. I have been trying to keep ants ever since I caught my first Camponotus vicinus queen about 15 years ago. Finally, this year, with the help of a THS growth chamber and a never ending supply of baby hissing cockroaches, I have a budding colony of over 20 workers. I am going to have to make a vented lid for one of the perlite/grout formicariums I made a couple of years ago. I glued the nest are on one wall of a one gallon glass aquarium and used the floor to make a small outworld/foraging area. The current colony will be connected to one of those formicariums once the lid is in place.
Currently, my ants and cockroaches inhabit the "bug shelf" in our hall closet. I am fortunate that my husband tolerates my nontraditional interests. I have hissing cockroaches, dubia cockroaches, a dampwood termite colony, a funnel web spider and some roly polies. I volunteer at Monrovia Canyon Park on weekends from about 1pm-4pm. This gives me a socially acceptable outlet for my bug interests. If you look at Facebook under the name, Barbara Hunt, you will see my 'birth of a roly poly' video, that is if you look soon after 5/3/15. I will have other bug pics, but birth of a roly poly is a good one.
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Franz
