3 replies to this topic

[PurdueEntomology]

If you are keeping T. septentrionalis share your culture experiences.  I currently have a strong healthy colony that has produced male alates and I am curious about others successes and failures with this fascinating species.

[CheetoLord02]

I am not currently, but I've kept the species in the past, and thoroughly enjoyed them. My colony was 2 queens (both productive and egg-laying, as is found in the northernmost populations of the species) and the colony reached around 1500 workers at peak, as well as several hundred female alates. I also had a smaller monogyne colony for a while, but they never surpassed around 250 workers and a few male alates. Over the winter I diapaused them in my garage, where temperatures floated between 45 and 55f (I think, either way it was cool enough to perform a successful diapause period). I started by feeding them roses and lettuce, but eventually transitioned to a diet of almost exclusively steel-cut oats. I believe eventually they died due to drying out while I was out of town; very unfortunate. I'm currently keeping most of Arizona's native Trachymyrmex species (T. arizonensis, pomonae, carinatus, and soon desertorum), and the care for those has been quite similar.

[Mettcollsuss]

I had a very similar experience with a four queen colony from the same population. When I bought them they were around 300 workers with a couple fungus pellets. Their first summer with me they only produced male alates that all died/were killed towards the end of the year. Their setup wasn't ideal and I gave them too much water before hibernation, which led to issues with flooding during hibernation and they unfortunately lost their fungus. After hibernation, I was able to keep them alive for a couple months off of just sugar water until I was able to secure them some Acromyrmex versicolor fungus. I don't know exactly how large they got, but at their peak they were certainly somewhere in the low thousands, with their fungus filling a 5x5.25x1 inch nest (~26 cubic inches in volume). That second summer they produced a ton of both male and female alates, and a large percentage of the female alates became worker queens. In preparation for their second hibernation, I was worried about repeating my previous mistake and watering them too much, and I ended up going too far in the opposite direction and they dried out and died. Food wise, their favorites were oats and flowers, especially things in the rose family. They did accept some leaves too, but they were much picker about leaves than they were about flowers. Some of the few leaves they accepted were clovers and woodsorrels. They also enjoyed fruits, though I didn't give them those as often.

 

https://www.formicul...ed-24-mar-2022/

[Kilro]

I'm keeping some again.   In my first colony years ago, I started with a number of new queens in a testtube setup (before I found out that was not recommended for fungus growers although they did well anyways until I transferred them) and had several close calls over time with humidity and them almost losing all of their fungus.

 

I designed some nests based on dspdrew's bottom hydration design and had better success after that for a while.  Unfortunately, I found out after I got back from vacation that my sponges had disintegrated after the springtails I had in the outworld moved into the nest and apparently got around the cracks into the base and ate at the sponge.  The entire colony dried out and died (that was last year so the colony was a few years old although still fairly small due to the close calls probably).

 

I designed some new nest boxes and caught some queens this year.  Unfortunately, they seemed to have issues starting the fungus in the container.  I'm still not 100% sure why but I think the ultracal was absorbing too much and getting too hydrated on the surface.  I kept catching more queens during nuptial flights and never was able to get them to successfully start the fungus.  Finally I tried raiding some wild nests.. each time I brought back some fungus, they'd accept it, and then it would die off days later.  I even tried a hydrocal petri dish setup this time (this design ) and still had issues... again possibly too much water even though it was applied to the ports on the side that would cause the water to be at the base of the plaster and rise up (the queens would cling to the side with the fungus and it seemed like anything placed on the plaster itself died).

 

I finally found a very strong nest outside that had several chambers of healthy fungus (the others I raided I had some issues finding their main chambers and so only got bits of fungus that may have already been drying out a bit) and ended up keeping the entire nest after finding the queen.  I moved my new queens into the nest box I used for my last colony and donated some healthy fungus which they took and started foraging and it looked very healthy.  The main colony I put in the nest box I had designed that these queens weren't working out well in along with a layer of dirt from their nest and they took right too it.  Fungus was healthy looking at they were foraging.  I also left another petri dish nest attached so that they could move into that should they desire too and added some fungus too it.  Eventually, the fungus was consolidated or left to die out and they tended the main garden.

 

Just in the last few days, the new queens have been letting most of their fungus die and have cut back on foraging it seems.  The main colony has decided to start migrating into the petri dish so they have two separate bunches of fungus now but they're also not foraging much, if at all.  Looking at my post history elsewhere when I was doing my first colony, it was about this time that I noticed similar behavior with my first colony so I suspect they may be starting to slack off to get ready for their diapause period.  I had workers by this time with my first founding colony and my new queen setup doesn't this time (again, they got a very late start due to fungus issues) so not sure if they'll make it.

 

The containers I use seem like they're not being stocked at The Container Store anymore so I may have to get the last of them just in case I want to take another crack at a nest setup (seriously, it's difficult finding crystal clear stackable boxes for some reason).  I'm really thinking about building a better display setup perhaps using something like these:

https://www.amazon.c...1&pd_rd_plhdr=t

My thought is to make something more closely resembling their natural nest structure but still use the bottom hydration method.  I'm also considering taking another crack at the petri dish nests.. perhaps with a smaller watering channel this time to reduce how much water it will accept at once and also give it a bit more plaster to absorb it.