26 replies to this topic

[OiledOlives]

I collected this queen at the base of a palm tree in early July with one pupae, two large larvae, and a small batch of eggs. She got her first workers in mid-July. After becoming a pain to feed, I put them in an AntLady 3 chamber nest until they were about 40 workers.
I fed this colony around 1-2 mealworms each one or two days. They are on heat the entire time.

October 29, 2021:

At the 40 worker point, I ordered a Fallen Fortress from THA, which contained them for several months. 

I added a liquid feeder from byFormica and upped the feeding to 2-4 mealworms per day.
November 17, 2021:

November 21, 2021:

December 2, 2021:

December 11, 2021:

January 6, 2022:

January 7, 2022: Queen lays an egg

January 11, 2022:

January 18-21, 2022: I move them to a 3-sided Casita from THA. On the 21st, I finally got bored of waiting and flushed them out. This didn't work so I took off the glass and aspirate them into the new nest. They were getting 8-10 mealworms every couple days.
3/20: I spilled hundreds of crickets on the floor and since my floridanus is the only one that can take a ton of food, I poured 200+ crickets into their outworld.

They remained in the Casita until 3/27, when I attached a piece of tubing to their Casita connecting to a Nucleus. 
Them today:

I have only fed them once since I attached them. I might begin feeding 10-20 mealworms a day.
I do not only feed them mealworms, but they are my main feeder because they're really easy to keep. I occasionally feed this colony crickets, dubias, and fruit flies.

Early July-Early August: Test tube till 8 workers
Early August-Mid-November: 3 chamber nest till 40 workers
Mid-November-Mid-January: Fallen Fortress till 100 workers

Mid-January-Late March: 3-sided Casita till 1.5k workers
Late March-Early April: Nucleus III

Edit: Changed to past tense

Edited by OiledOlives, May 19 2022 - 1:41 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Woah! So you got a permit to bring these in?

[OiledOlives]

I fully moved them into the Nucleus a little over a week ago by both aspirating them and knocking them in. They take up around 2/5 of the nest right now but they are very cramped in the portions they are in (probably due to the heat).

I dropped 10 cut up mealworms into their outworld after.

[OiledOlives]

They barely have any pupae left and it looks like they have a bunch of first instar larvae and eggs. Diapause time!

[OiledOlives]

 

Woah! So you got a permit to bring these in?

If he lives close to NC in VA, he may have found naturally.

 

Permit

[OiledOlives]

Picture of the nest right now:

Had lots of fun cleaning a little bit of their outworld (this is after I removed the big piece of wood in the middle:
 

[OiledOlives]

I've been feeding them a large dubia roach every day now. Here's a picture of them 12 hours after first giving them it.

Edited by OiledOlives, June 4 2022 - 6:27 AM.

[ANTdrew]

Awesome!

[OiledOlives]

They have been very crowded in their Nucleus. I am waiting for a friend to get his ultracal30 so I can rehouse this colony. They are getting upwards of 100 crickets per week.

[ANTdrew]

Go to Hobby Lobby and buy Perfect Cast. It’s cheaper and works just as well as Ultracal.

[OiledOlives]

I don't have enough spare money for DIY at the moment. I am making small setups for some colonies but I am not going to attempt making huge formicariums for my ants, as most formicaria that I've made has been low quality and I will need to spend far too much to get better, especially when I can buy a 12x12 nest with a 12x12 outworld for $100.

[FloridaAnts]

They have been very crowded in their Nucleus. I am waiting for a friend to get his ultracal30 so I can rehouse this colony. They are getting upwards of 100 crickets per week.

Maybe I should reconsider growing my colony to this size…

[OiledOlives]

They are about to have a couple hundred pupae eclose.

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[FloridaAnts]

They are about to have a couple hundred pupae eclose.
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You think wet fluon and baby powder combined would work? I am really trying to find a barrier that containers most workers.

[ANTdrew]

You need one of my CrematoProod outworlds, or try to copy the design.

[OiledOlives]

Lots of stuff has happened since the last update. I got the nest around a month ago and decided to put the formicarium inside of the tub since I didn't have any large outworlds to attach to the nest. I cut myself with one of the decor rocks while putting decorations in, which meant that I couldn't really fix any problems that occured while the plaster was setting. After the setup was done, I then put their entire setup inside the tub and began the process of dumping the ants out of the nest after two or three days of not moving. I have not been feeding a ton of proteins to limit their growth. They are being heated with a cable from underneath the tub which, unfortunately, causes a ton of condensation. It's pretty cool to watch the ants guard the small nest entrances and be able to look into their setup without 500 ants running out.

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Edited by OiledOlives, October 4 2022 - 4:20 AM.

[OiledOlives]

Some better pictures

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