40 replies to this topic

[michiganantsinmyyard]

What amount of workers do you think you have in this setup?

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

This is my estimate 7900-12500 workers.

Edited by GOCAMPONOTUS, February 26 2024 - 3:43 PM.

[Kowal]

What amount of workers do you think you have in this setup?

No idea. I have no way of counting them. My guestimation is above 10k, but it's really hard to get even the order of magnitude right when the ants are densely packed in nests 4-5 times as deep as the ant is long (20 mm inside depth of all three nests), especially when two of them have structures which obstruct the view. 

[Idontexist]

How big is the ant farm? Like how big is the formicarium in size?

Edited by Idontexist, February 26 2024 - 4:13 PM.

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

Look at past post

[Kowal]

The setup has evolved a little, so this question is not fully answered by previous posts. I attached two small shelves to the Kallax unit and keep the nests more exposed to view now, also making space for a Cataglyphis setup (currently empty as they are in diapause, the outworld is waiting for decorating).

The ants above fuliginosus are my 5+ yo colony of Camponotus herculeanus. Below a bit of Polyrhachis illaudata can be seen. 

 

The outworld is 60x35x10 cm.

The nests are: 

Acrylic 20x20x2 cm 

Soil 30x20x2 cm

Rotten oak 30x30x2 cm

All nest dimensions are internal sizes.

 

Edited by Kowal, February 27 2024 - 1:10 AM.

[Kowal]

After last years small batch of males I expected this to happen. But this time it might be on a larger scale. Earlier today I could see just three males around this nest, in the evening it is already 20+. I already dread the moment they will attempt flying.

[Kowal]

Happy Easter! Feel free to grab an egg.

[AsdinAnts]

you’re like, “PLEASE” 😅
anyways, happy easter to you too

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

Happy easter

 

(pov) My man is so desperate he is shipping some eggs out to his mom

Mom: The h**l is this

[Ernteameise]

Oh wow, eggs galore!

Amazing colony.

[Kowal]

[Ernteameise]

I am totally amazed at the egg production of these girls. OMG.

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

90% of the pic is eggs, wow what a great colony.

Edited by GOCAMPONOTUS, April 8 2024 - 3:19 PM.

[Kowal]

Another dose of Lasius fuliginosus behaving strangely when starved for sugars. At night they start following light sources. Perhaps they're looking for moon sugar.

Edited by Kowal, April 15 2024 - 11:49 PM.

[Kowal]

Sooo... I did something experimental and it worked.
As every year, I've got some fresh, wild queens. Just after catching the first one I have detached the soil nest (it's the one in top right part of the setup in the overal picture) and attached it to a new outworld. I placed a special test tube in this outworld - it has a cap which has a tiny hole in it, large enough for most workers to move freely through it, but the queen was supposed to be incapable of passing through it. This way workers had a chance to get to know this queen before she was shred to pieces by nest guards - which this nest might not even have since it was connected to the outworld via long tubing shared with the oak nest. 
The new queen quickly gathered a lot of attention and was covered with workers. I have seen this in previous years, so I did not have my hopes high. Few days later the queen was gone. Poof. No sign of her in the tube, no dead body in the outworld, like I was finding in previous years when the queen managed to escape and met the nest guards - my colony didn't consume the dead queens, they left them in one piece as trash. I found a piece of chitin which could theoretically be a piece of gyne pronotum in the outworld. I assumed a failure and used same tube for another queen (a gift from a friend), which too quickly got covered with workers and was gone without a trace the next morning

Buuuut...

A day after offering the second queen* I have spotted a bunch of eggs in the nest. Of course, these could be worker laid eggs. Then I did not see any eggs in the nest for a while, but it doesn't mean they weren't there - the fuliginosus structures are hard to penetrate with eyesight, as they are narrow, twisted and full of constantly moving workers and brood. 
And then I saw her butt. Now I am a believer. 

 

I am very conflicted about what to do now. Keep this as a backup colony? Connect it asap, risking conflicts which could kill both queens, but could also result in first documented secondary polygynous captive colony**? I also have no idea which one of the two queens is it.

 

 

*there's a third one added at same time as second one, but she's still properly locked in her tiny prison, gathering very little attention. I even attempted a prisonless method of just throwing in a fourth one - but that one, predictably, was found dead soon after.

**if you've seen or heard of someone successfully adopting a new queen to his established colony while the original queen was still alive, please let me know. Unfortunately lots of information is now flowing in unsearchable places like Facebook groups. Support access to information, post your interesting results to forums like this one - they are accessible via search engines! 

Edited by Kowal, June 14 2024 - 2:53 AM.

[Stubyvast]

This colony is huge! Awesome that you could get another queen! I dunno, it might be ok to risk it...your current queen is getting a bit old now. I think that if one queen kills the other one, the workers may intervene and help one side or another, if I'm correct. This colony must not die!!

Wow though I love this colony...read this post, totally inspired! Might try this out with my Lasius niger and get a parasitic queen in there! 

Edited by Stubyvast, June 14 2024 - 8:01 AM.

[Kowal]

In case of Lasius fuliginosus it is actually the workers who are policing and deciding what to do with situation like "there's a new queen in the nest". Queens themselves are more of chemical warfare specialists than brutal martial arts masters. 
From my more general experience with ants, if a worker decides to bully another colony member, other workers might not recognize her as the threat. The victim herself might not even raise alarm since she doesn't sense an outsider endangering her! So I wouldn't expect any workers to intervene and help, it might take just one worker who's convinced that a queen next to her is an usurper.
When it comes to getting old... In Polish antkeeping community it's said that Lasius fuliginosus queens live shortly, for just up to 4 years. I would like to prove it wrong (especially that it's already been 4 years since I caught the OG queen). But since there is already one Italian keeper who had a queen live for at least 6 years (perhaps she's still going?), my temptation to try secondary polygyny is growing strong. 

[Kowal]

So, to make things more interesting, I have noticed two queens running inside the separated nest. It's probably the third added one. I still only found one full dead queen (out of four added), any deaths so far were guessed from tiny pieces which I identified as queens thorax pieces. I have lost confidence in that ID, so one queen is still considered missing, presumably dead.
The problem is... One of the queens is barely fatter than a freshly mated one and is running around the nest. There are some workers following it, I am fairly sure they aren't servants following a queen, but guards chasing an impostor away from the egg chamber, in which another queen (presumably the one from picture above) resides. Now here comes the bummer - this queen is less fat than the one on picture in previous posts. So there are two possible scenarios - either fight for domination between two queens is negatively impacting the first adopted one, or - very unlikely - the pic above is of a third queen which is hidden from my eyes for days. Even though the nest is very hard to penetrate with eyesight or cameras, I doubt I wouldn't see a chonker in there. 
The status for now is: separated nest is still separate, there are (for sure) two queens inside, there are signs of tension in the colony, which might end up with both being dead. 

[Kowal]

A lot of talking and not a lot of pictures again. 

I never saw the second adopted queen again. Maybe it was just a mirage? Unfortunately, the one I could find sometimes was less fat than she was in the picture in some post above. If there actually were two, I am afraid there was some internal stress going in the separated colony which destabilised the queens position in the colony. I needed to tidy up a little, and that separated nest was on my coffee table, so on 2024.06.27 I reconnected the nest with extra queen. I did test foragers from both outworlds and they had shown no aggression. 

At first it was calm. Workers from both sides of the reconnection were agitated, but were recognizing each other as nestmates, even though they were separated.

Few hours later some infighting started occuring. I've noticed some workers were holding other workers, very commonly by their mouth parts - like the victim thought it's going to be an act of trophallaxis, but it was an act of treachery. 
Then chaos begun. In the new queens chamber the workers started piling up in full alert mode, attacking each other. Looking at it was like looking at those "what a person with a stroke sees" pictures. You could see the familiar body parts, but you couldn't really tell ants apart, and it was constantly shifting, swimming around. The chaos didn't exactly cover the new queen. I saw her running around, followed by workers - couldn't tell whether they were trying to protect or harass her - while the chaos ball was moving nearby. It has spread to the large, flat part of the nest too, but other parts of the nest remained calm. Eggs of the new queen were quickly stolen to the main nest, placed in a pile with original queens eggs and quickly separated. Workers could tell apart them, apparently. Well, at least I presume that's why eggs were split into two piles - I can't tell them apart
It has lasted for two days. On 30.06 I've noticed the chaos started calming, and by the evening the colony was back to business as usual. Unfortunately, that's also when I have spotted a dead, headless queens body in the reattached nest:

 

The original queen remains alive.

That concludes the story of attempting to form a secondary polygynous Lasius fuliginosus colony. At least for now. Who knows, maybe they will cull the original queen too... they aren't very predictable. These ants are unlike any others I ever kept or observed in nature.  

 

 

To cheer the reader up I have prepared some photos which I believe I did not post yet to public forums. They were taken during 2023 spring. Time between these photos is just 9 days - that's how quickly Lasius fuliginosus queens ovaries can jump back to full activity! 

Edited by Kowal, July 2 2024 - 1:35 PM.