23 replies to this topic

[ColAnt735]

Hello everyone! Welcome to my new journal on my one and only Crematogaster cerasi colony this is probably my favourite ant colony as they are just stunning and are never shy but never aggressive. Without further ado allow me, ColAnt735 to introduce you to my colony of these amazing ants,Enjoy!

I caught this queen on September 14th 2021 from a spider's web outside of my classroom window. She enjoyed a luxurious stay in a quality broken plastic bag until I got home from school where I extracted her from the plastic bag and put in a test tube setup. Within a few hours of being placed into the test tube she decided that it wasn't half bad for founding a colony and stopped trying to kill the cotton plugging the entrance of the test tube and settled in conserving energy so that she could found her colony and take over the world also known as my home. On November 1st 2021 I put the queen as well as many other of my ants into my parents fridge next to the salsa and hot sauce. As you can tell my parents enjoyed having to constantly fear knocking over the ants. On the bright side they could now boast that they "had ants in their fridge." (Don't worry I'm getting myself a mini fridge). On February 5th I woke this queen up from diapause so she could start creating her army of cute but deadly Crematogaster workers. Sure enough on the 11th of February 2022 this queen laid eggs around twenty eggs which I got very excited about as raising this species is one of my top priorities. After the first eggs were laid the brood just kept developing as on the 7th of March 2022 this queen had larvae and on the 5th of April she got workers. That brings us to today where she has a very respectable thirty three workers. I hope all who are reading enjoy this journal and I'll see you all in the next update!

Photos:
January 30th 2022:

February 5th 2022:

April 10th 2022:

May 20th 2022:

May 26th 2022:

Edited by ColAnt735, January 22 2023 - 6:11 AM.

[lazyant]

Followed! More journals to read!

[ANTdrew]

Nice work! Remember what I’ve taught you…

[ColAnt735]

Thank you sensei.

[That_one_ant_guy]

Nice! maybe somebody can finally match with the o'great one...

[Polyacanthus]

That's a really good first batch.

[ColAnt735]

That's a really good first batch.

I know right? Her first batch is larger than my Tetramorium immigrans first batch.

[ColAnt735]

Some photos and a GIF I took:

Brood:

The small trash pile they made in the nest:

GIF:

https://imgur.com/a/bsJBsg4

I've noticed these ants REALLY like to hold things:

Chubby larvae:

Feast upon this mealworm my minions:

Edited by ColAnt735, May 28 2022 - 9:21 AM.

[FloridaAnts]

Nice! I caught a Crematogaster queen last night! Looking forward to the colonies future…

[ColAnt735]

Does anyone have any ideas for a name for this queen? I'm thinking about naming her Eostre the Germanic Goddess of dawn and spring.

Edited by ColAnt735, May 30 2022 - 8:16 AM.

[FloridaAnts]

Is that a buckeye myrmecology nest?

[ColAnt735]

Is that a buckeye myrmecology nest?

Yes it is. The stick nest to be exact.

[ANTdrew]

Does anyone have any ideas for a name for this queen? I'm thinking about naming her Eostre the Germanic God of dawn and spring.

That’s it!

[ColAnt735]

 

Does anyone have any ideas for a name for this queen? I'm thinking about naming her Eostre the Germanic Goddess of dawn and spring.

That’s it!

 

I don't think any of us will argue with ANTdrew. Eostre it is then!

[ANTdrew]

You can collectively call the colony the Easters, a nod to the other epic Crematogaster colony on here, the Valentines.

[ColAnt735]

Update 8/6/22

 

I swear Eostre and her Easters are playing tricks on me. One day I woke up to see not a single ant in the nest, this really panicked me as what would I tell my mother and father? That I had an ant colony escape? I was panicking until I saw that I had accidentally moved the heat cable under the outworld and these *ahem* weirdos moved the ENTIRE colony into the outworld, The Easters sure love the heat. Other than this colony's very annoying desire to scare me to death Eostre has been pumping out eggs. I've counted between seventy five to one hundred eggs recently and there seem to be more everyday. This colony's worker count has been increasing as well with around forty eight workers now. The second generation seems to be enclosing at the moment and the hill of pupae and mature larvae gets smaller and smaller everyday and the callow worker count gets larger every day. I have created a devious plan to keep these ants contained and I will be sure to update you all on the progress of this amazing species. Goodbye for now and happy anting!

 

pictures coming soon....I swear I'll take them don't get mad at me..........

Edited by ColAnt735, June 22 2022 - 6:38 AM.

[antgallery]

The amount of times I've had a scare with them moving the entire colony just for a little heat is ridiculous, eventually though I got used to it.

[ColAnt735]

The photos I promised to post:

Eostre and her babies:

The eating of a mealworm:

Their brood pile:

Some of their tiny larvae:

\

A GIF I took:

https://imgur.com/a/Z1WjHhq

[ColAnt735]

It's me, I exist on Formiculture again, I guess time for an update.

 

Update  24/7/22

 

Holy cow this ant colony got big. Eostre has not stopped egg laying in my absence at the moment this colony numbers at least one hundred twenty ants with piles of brood developing away (the colony's growth is the product of my grandmothers diligence and care for my ants while I was gone) . These ants have an extremely annoying habit of what I can only describe as 'Dog piling' the brood and queen. This allows for some extremely bad photos to be taken due to the fact the camera isn't focusing on what I want it to. They got so big I had to move them into an Ants Australia Founding Nest. Rather annoyingly Eostre pretty much only hangs out in the connection between the nest and vinyl tubing so wasn't able to get any photos of her. As the colony has gotten larger their appetite has as well, with around a forty worker feeding response.

 

Some photos I took like three seconds ago:

Crematogaster callows are cute:

Tending to the brood:

Brood pile:

Random ants in the outworld:

 

[ColAnt735]

Update 21/8/22

 

This colony just keeps growing. Since the last update every single one of those pupae has enclosed and the colony numbers at around one hundred fifty workers. Lately I haven't seen much brood which was alarming until one day they moved just a bit and saw that they were hiding a MASSIVE egg pile underneath the workers and queen. Eostre is also  getting way harder to spot as she conceals herself in the workers  quite well. The colony has been eating very well and it does not seem they will slow down in food consumption anytime at the moment. I've given them a large outworld and its very interesting watching the ants run around.

Photos:

Some ground up food.

Bad photo.

A mound of ants.

I recently caught another Crematogaster cerasi queen and she has laid a few eggs.