67 replies to this topic

[Devi]

 

I'm really happy that you have some Pogonomyrmex now Spaz!  I hope they do better than mine, mine are kind of tanking right now. 

Heating cable could that help?

 

They have heat in the form of an UTH, so it should be good...

[Spazmops]

Hey all! My brief break has ended. I've had these updates archived on a google doc, so I'll upload them here now. 

 

Large Colony Update February 9th- I received an awesome nest from ANTDrew with one of his super mario outworlds, which looks hilarious to see ants in. I love it. The front port of the nest came cracked due to USPS treating the package like a football, but after 30 seconds in Tinkercad and 12 minutes of 3D printing I had a plate with the correct sized hole that I simply glued over the shattered portion. To move in the ants I unplugged the side holes of the minihearth, removed the nestmate and glass, and set the formicarium in the outworld. The next day they were properly moved in the nest with the queen, so I took out the minihearth and gave them a huge seed pile as a housewarming gift. 

 

Small Colony Update: February- I took this colony out of brumation on the 1st of February and put them on their heating mat. I had been hibernating them at room temperature, which seems to have worked very well. A few weeks later I noticed eggs, which quickly became larvae and then pupae. As of writing (Feb. 28), they have 4 workers, one of which is from this new generation. There should be a few more soon. I could only get a very bad picture, but I'll embed it here anyway. 

 

Large Colony Update March 1st- This colony continues to do very well. I thought I saw brood a week or two ago, but I'm not seeing any now. I gave them a honey water feeder because my small colony loves it, and that's held true for this colony as well. I like to give them a medium ByFormica feeder on a rare basis as a sort of treat, seeing as sugars aren't a large part of their natural diet. 

 

You should totally talk to ANTDrew about his custom nests and Super Mario outworlds, they work great and look just as good. The pricing beats a lot of better-known formicarium makers as well. Hope everyone's enjoyed this update. As always, thanks for reading. -Spazmops

[ANTdrew]

Looking good! Glad you like the setup!

[antsandmore]

Looking good! Glad you like the setup!

that's awesome! I'm imagining heart butt ants in a super mario outworld... super cute.

[Spazmops]

Update 3/15/2021

 

Well, I have some bad news. This colony had been doing great and had almost doubled in size, but that ground to a halt today when I noticed that queen Demeter had died. It would appear that she died along with her first generation of workers. I think it's because I let the water get too low, I have no idea how I missed it but the nestmate and water tower are both bone dry. There's still quite a bit of brood left which I'll try to use to brood boost my larger colony. 

 

I'm furious at myself for letting this happen, and I feel like I've failed at antkeeping. 

 

 

[Antkeeper01]

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[ANTdrew]

Ah, crap man. I hope it wasn’t an issue with the nest design.

[Spazmops]

Ah, crap man. I hope it wasn’t an issue with the nest design.

It was a minihearth, luckily it was the small colony's queen that died. The nest you made is still working great, and the huge water tower will hopefully make double sure that this never happens again.