147 replies to this topic

[AntsCali098]

You could feed the Tetramorium stuff like fish food soaked in water, wet cat food, and seeds like chopped sesame and hemp hearts. Getting a mealworm farm going is quite easy, but it takes a few months to get rolling.

I feed my tera immigrans crickets and crushed seeds. They like both, but they seem to love crushed seeds. I don't know if its just my colony, but you could try feeding crushed seeds.

Edited by AntsCali098, March 7 2022 - 7:13 PM.

[ColAnt735]

 

You could feed the Tetramorium stuff like fish food soaked in water, wet cat food, and seeds like chopped sesame and hemp hearts. Getting a mealworm farm going is quite easy, but it takes a few months to get rolling.

I feed my tera immigrans crickets and crushed seeds. They like both, but they seem to love crushed seeds. I don't know if its just my colony, but you could try feeding crushed seeds.

 

Funny you said this I just fed them lots of crushed up seeds just prior to reading this post.

[AntsCali098]

 

 

You could feed the Tetramorium stuff like fish food soaked in water, wet cat food, and seeds like chopped sesame and hemp hearts. Getting a mealworm farm going is quite easy, but it takes a few months to get rolling.

I feed my tera immigrans crickets and crushed seeds. They like both, but they seem to love crushed seeds. I don't know if its just my colony, but you could try feeding crushed seeds.

 

Funny you said this I just fed them lots of crushed up seeds just prior to reading this post.

 

 

[ColAnt735]

 

 

 

You could feed the Tetramorium stuff like fish food soaked in water, wet cat food, and seeds like chopped sesame and hemp hearts. Getting a mealworm farm going is quite easy, but it takes a few months to get rolling.

I feed my tera immigrans crickets and crushed seeds. They like both, but they seem to love crushed seeds. I don't know if its just my colony, but you could try feeding crushed seeds.

 

Funny you said this I just fed them lots of crushed up seeds just prior to reading this post.

 

 

 

Lol.

[AntsCali098]

How did they like the crushed seeds?

[ColAnt735]

How did they like the crushed seeds?

They devoured them the next day they were gone without a trace you weren't kidding when you said that your Tetramorium immigrans colony liked crushed seeds.

[AntsCali098]

 

How did they like the crushed seeds?

They devoured them the next day they were gone without a trace you weren't kidding when you said that your Tetramorium immigrans colony liked crushed seeds.

 

Nice 

[ColAnt735]

Update 10/3/22

 

Tetramorium immigrans- After so much trial and error I have found a sugar that they love drum roll please: it's root beer! They love this stuff and I filled up the largest size of byFormica liquid feeder I have and they drank all of it within two days. Other than this these ants continue to eat well and grow at a quick pace.  

Solenopsis molesta- Nothing new.  

Pogonomyrmex occidentalis- The queen laid new eggs.  

Temnothorax curvispinosus- Nothing new.  

Formica incerta- I found the first cocoon of 2022! I can't wait for this colony to get larger.  

Prenolepis imparis- Nothing new.  

Lasius brevicornis- Nothing new other than new eggs have been laid .  

[AntsCali098]

Update 10/3/22

 

Tetramorium immigrans- After so much trial and error I have found a sugar that they love drum roll please: it's root beer! They love this stuff and I filled up the largest size of byFormica liquid feeder I have and they drank all of it within two days. Other than this these ants continue to eat well and grow at a quick pace.  

Solenopsis molesta- Nothing new.  

Pogonomyrmex occidentalis- The queen laid new eggs.  

Temnothorax curvispinosus- Nothing new.  

Formica incerta- I found the first cocoon of 2022! I can't wait for this colony to get larger.  

Prenolepis imparis- Nothing new.  

Lasius brevicornis- Nothing new other than new eggs have been laid .  

 

Geez maybe I'll try root beer for my ants 

[ColAnt735]

 

Update 10/3/22

 

Tetramorium immigrans- After so much trial and error I have found a sugar that they love drum roll please: it's root beer! They love this stuff and I filled up the largest size of byFormica liquid feeder I have and they drank all of it within two days. Other than this these ants continue to eat well and grow at a quick pace.  

Solenopsis molesta- Nothing new.  

Pogonomyrmex occidentalis- The queen laid new eggs.  

Temnothorax curvispinosus- Nothing new.  

Formica incerta- I found the first cocoon of 2022! I can't wait for this colony to get larger.  

Prenolepis imparis- Nothing new.  

Lasius brevicornis- Nothing new other than new eggs have been laid .  

 

Geez maybe I'll try root beer for my ants 

 

They had at least fifty ants on the liquid feeder at all times. They were so packed with ants trying to get a taste of the root beer that it looked like they were a black blob.

[ANTdrew]

They’ll do that for any sugars once the colony gets larger.

[ColAnt735]

Update 14/3/22

Tetramorium immigrans- This colony continues to grow, their pupa pile alone takes up 3 chambers of the nest. They are filling up this nest very quickly with many new callows appearing daily. These ants have decided to claim the vinyl tubing connecting them to their outworld as nesting space instead of the much more inhabitable nest. I also have been feeding them way to much but we don't talk about that. I spotted the queen today and she seems to be acting normal, this colony is always active on a scale that none of my other ant colonies come close to and because of this I spend the most time watching their every day activities so I can learn things about them like their behaviours.... That sounded wrong, but I have an explanation! I am INTJ-T which is my personality type and it means that I like to observe things or in other words I like to watch things if you want to learn about other personality types or find out your own visit AntsDakota's thread called Personality Types and no this wasn't supposed to advertise AntsDakota's thread but it happened anyway.......

Solenopsis molesta- This colony is starting to recover multiple pupa enclosed today which means this colony is at ten workers strong. I fed these ants 1 tiny drop of sugar water which they drank pretty quick considering only ten workers are present in this entire colony. I hope this colony returns to its former glory and takes its place as one of my largest colonies.

Pogonomyrmex occidentalis- This colony's brood pile has continued growing at a quick rate the queen of this colony laid a new batch of eggs the only down side that this colony has is that they have decided their best course of action to continue colony life is to escape! I say this because they have started to dig into the mini hearth in three separate locations.

Temnothorax curvispinosus- Nothing new.

Formica incerta- This queen won't stop as the first eggs she laid spin their cocoons she decided to lay a second batch of eggs this time bigger than the first two combined! They have been eating well and I might have to upgrade them from a test tube to a small formicarium.

Prenolepis imparis-Nothing new.

Laisus brevicornis- The queens finally moved into their new test tube and they laid new eggs.

Photos of everything but the founding queens and the Tetramorium immigrans colony.

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Edited by ColAnt735, March 14 2022 - 9:08 AM.

[ColAnt735]

Update 19/3/22

 

Tetramorium immigrans- These ants just grow and grow when I think the queen is taking a break I see new eggs and larvae and because of these new additions to the colony their appetite has increased tremendously I feed them 2 entire crickets, 2 and a half mealworms or 50 fruit flies everyday and they have been exploding in population because of it I believe these ants have at least 800 workers. I know that these ants grow fast and can quickly overwhelm an ant keeper but I have decided that I want to raise a very large Tetramorium colony and I look forward for their growth.

 

Solenopsis molesta- These ants have 16 workers now and are really shy they haven't come out of their Ants Australia Acrylic Nest in a while I am incredibly relieved that these ants have been recovering.

 

Pogonomyrmex occidentalis- Another worker enclosed today.   

 

Temnothorax curvispinosus- Nothing new.  

 

Prenolepis imparis- Nothing new.  

 

Formica incerta- Five more cocoons appeared today that puts the cocoon count to seven.

 

Lasius brevicornis- Well the dealate died for some reason but the next time I checked on them every queen but two shed their wings and became dealates. Also more eggs have been laid.

Edited by ColAnt735, March 22 2022 - 8:06 AM.

[ColAnt735]

Mini update: 

Crematogaster cerasi- This queen has multiple large larvae that look ready to pupate I can't wait for this queen to get her nanitics!

Lasius neoniger- Eggs eggs eggs and some small larvae is it normal for a queen of this species to have such a giant egg pile?

[AntsCali098]

Mini update: 

Crematogaster cerasi- This queen has multiple large larvae that look ready to pupate I can't wait for this queen to get her nanitics!

Lasius neoniger- Eggs eggs eggs and some small larvae is it normal for a queen of this species to have such a giant egg pile?

Nice   I've wanted C.cerasi for a while. I wonder If I'll catch any this season.

[ColAnt735]

 

Mini update: 

Crematogaster cerasi- This queen has multiple large larvae that look ready to pupate I can't wait for this queen to get her nanitics!

Lasius neoniger- Eggs eggs eggs and some small larvae is it normal for a queen of this species to have such a giant egg pile?

Nice   I've wanted C.cerasi for a while. I wonder If I'll catch any this season.

Hope you catch some this year AntsCali098! I really want this queen to get workers as this is my first Crematogaster cerasi queen.I can't wait to raise a large colony of these amazing ants as quickly as possible and I can do this with the wise teaching of the CrematoMaster ANTdrew as he once said "Remember what I’ve taught you about these: heat, heat, heat, and more protein than a body builder." 

Edited by ColAnt735, March 22 2022 - 11:01 AM.

[ANTdrew]

You are on the right path, young disciple.

[ColAnt735]

You are on the right path, young disciple.

Thank you Sensei.

[ColAnt735]

Update 24/3/22

 

Tetramorium immigrans- I love this queen all she does is do her job. Although I never see her anymore because of the giant amount of workers that are packed in every chamber but one. This colony is making itself known within my ant colonies  as the ant colony that has no intention of slowing their growth which I am completely fine with but it is starting to drain my feeder supplies dry.

 

Solenopsis molesta- All the workers have perished once again the queens themselves are still alive but have relocated to the other side of their nest I'll try to raise these queens back to workers but their chances are slim.  I will catch some more queens this year and try and raise another colony of Solenopsis molesta this year this time with more than two queens.

 

Pogonomyrmex occidentalis- Lots of new pupa four to be exact I hope this colony will have a prosperous 2022!

 

Temnothorax curvispinosus- After like what feels like forever I have something to update with this colony the queen laid 2 new eggs!

 

Formica incerta- These are definitely my favorite Formicines they are so active and are growing at a relatively quick pace and are always hungry I can't wait for this colony to grow larger this year as they are a very fun species.

 

Prenolepis imparis- The queens continue to get physogastric. Other than this there is nothing new to report.

 

Lasius brevicornis-These queens ate all of the remaining larvae but they kept their cocoons so that's good I guess.

Edited by ColAnt735, March 24 2022 - 11:15 AM.

[ColAnt735]

Update 28/3/22

 

Tetramorium immigrans- This colony really really needs new space they've filled every chamber of the nest to the brim and have started making brood walls in the corner of their small outworld and towers on top of the nest entrance I have never seen this behavior in person although I am creating a new nest for them. I have spent the last four days designing a 3D printed ant nest that I plan to move them into once I print it out I hope it turns out fine because this is my first 3D printed ant nest that I have designed and it is pretty large 15 centimetres wide 4 centimetres thick and 8 centimetres long.  

 

Crematogaster cerasi- This queen got her first pupa, and its not a male!

 

Solenopsis molesta- I won't update these two queens anymore due to them not having any workers and that I don't think they will survive.

 

Pogonomyrmex occidentalis- Two of the four pupa look like they are about to enclose any day now. They have been eating well and the new eggs have become small larvae.  

 

Temnothorax curvispinosus- The queen laid two more eggs. 

 

Prenolepis imparis- My colony eldest colony's queen  (turning two years old in May) has a GIANT gaster to the point where she can barely walk and hang on the cotton. The other colony's queen has a physogastric gaster but not nearly on the level of the eldest queen.  

 

Formica incerta- The first callow of 2022 enclosed today! this means that this colony is up to seventeen workers now.

Lasius brevicornis- They ate their cocoons I won't update them again them until they have nanitics.  

Edited by ColAnt735, March 28 2022 - 7:25 AM.