68 replies to this topic

[NickAnter]

Last night, in a superb blacklighting session, 3 of these queens ended up coming to the light! Sadly, they are just Chthonolasius, but I suppose that means they will probably be easier to raise. I have a group of two, which includes a queen I am pretty confident is infertile, and a queen that doesnt ruffle her wings up at a disturbance, and of course a single queen. I fed them all sugar-honey-water last night. Today,I will introduce some workers and brood to them. Hopefully they will drop their wings. Any advice here is welcome from Eastern antkeepers who have successfully kept this subgenus.
Pictures:

Edited by NickAnter, March 14 2022 - 9:13 PM.

[NickAnter]

Well, I sure am glad I collected a ton of pupae with workers on Sunday. Nanitics are hatching like every 20 minutes, and they show no agression whatsoever to the queens. Each tube has at least 15 pupae, and 10 workers. I'm aiming for 20 workers per tube, plus the pupae. This should allow the colony to collect a decent amount of resources, much more than if they had say, 15 workers. I don't want to jinx it, but things are going pretty smoothly so far.

[mantisgal]

*crosses everything for luck*
Best wishes to the colony!

[NickAnter]

Last night I collected an almost certainly fertile queen. I captured her, and put her in a vial with a male that I thought looked to be of the same species. They mated, and I put the queen in a test tube. She immediately took off her wings, the fastest I had ever had any queen do so. I put some sugar water in, and 11 pupae. This morning, I introduced an adult worker, which she accepted. I have since introduced two callows from a wild colony, while I am hoping that the Lasiu workers in a container with a bunch of pupae start doing their jobs and opening the pupae. Hopefully she won't die at random!

The other queens are doing seemingly ok, being completely accepted by their workers, and having plenty of them.

[NickAnter]

Okay, well, a lot to update!

First off, I found 5 what I'm pretty sure are Acanthomyops queens! All are dealates as well!

Yeah that means I have to collect a TON of workers tomorrow

The fertile Chthonolasius now has enough brood and workers so that they have made it across the 20 worker threshold that is recommended.

Back to the Acanthomyops...

I have 2 pairs of two, and one single. I separated the queens by color, I have 3 dark variant, and two light. The difference is slight, and not noticeable unless a light is shining on them. Nonetheless, I saw agression between two queens of different color variants, so I separated them to their same color. They look otherwise completely morphologically identical. I believe this is the same species that Drew found in Mt. Baldy, CA, the dark, shiny species. I have given a pair of queens 11 pupae, and I will give the oher pair what I can tomorrow. From there, I plan to catch a bunch of workers, refrigerate them, then, since I don't have vinegar, dunk each ant underwater, so they are completely wet. I will then dry them off, and put them back in the fridge for a bit, and then introduce them. I want no Acantho casualties...

I will post some pictures of them tomorrow.

[NickAnter]

They look so much like Lasius claviger, IMO. They were devilishly tricky to photograph, the darn things were refusing to sit still.

The pairs are cooperatinf very well, and I introduced the first workers to one pair. All tubes have at least 10 pupae.

And here is a Chthonolasius pic:

[NickAnter]

Also, I'm about 95% sure these Chthonolasius are aphidicola. Every other species with this coloration in Cali is quite hairy, which these are not.

[AntBoi3030]

Yeah I also got an aphidicola queen but I can’t find Lasius hosts

[Kaelwizard]

They look like the L. aphidicola I found in MI.

[11.11.00]

They look so much like Lasius claviger, IMO. They were devilishly tricky to photograph, the darn things were refusing to sit still.

The pairs are cooperatinf very well, and I introduced the first workers to one pair. All tubes have at least 10 pupae.

And here is a Chthonolasius pic:

Interesting! According to antweb claviger isn't found in California. May be a lookalike species. How are they doing at the moment.

[NickAnter]

Well they are doing OK. 2 aphidicola queens have been murdered.

All the claviger appear to be alive, but they are mangling some of the workers in the pupae, and opening them early. I don't have any more pupae, so it is slightly problematic.

[NickAnter]

Well we have good news!

 

Trophalaxis has been confirmed with most queens!!

 

A couple Acanthomyops are actually getting a bit bloated, which I will take as a good sign. I know they most likely will not lay eggs before hibernation, but at least they hopefully won't starve...

 

The two remaining aphidicola queens seem to be doing OK. The alate, which I thought was infertile, has settled down a bit, and was fed by the workers. Her wings were clipped as well, so the workers seem to like her. The other is quite fat, making her look closer to a normal claustral queen, but clearly their abdomen expands far more without showing any white in between. Anyway, I won't be able to get any more pictures like the ones above, as I just can't get the same lighting I could in the RV. Flashlight light works great for very small subjects, but not so on larger ones it would seem.

[NickAnter]

We have great news!!

 

The Chosen One, the for sure fertile aphidicola queen has laid 2 eggs! And they were being cared for by the workers to boot! Hopefully she lays more, and there can be little aphidicola workers running around before hibernation!

 

I'm not going to take pictures, as this queen has developed a rather sever aversion to any light, and her, and her workers run about like crazy if I uncover their test tube, much less put it in the light.

[NickAnter]

She has around 20 eggs now!

 

None of the other queens have eggs yet, but she is well ahead of the curve, laying eggs after only 13 days after capture.

[AntBoi3030]

18 eggs in 24 hours! Wow, looks like you lucked out!

[NickAnter]

Well, we have lots of great progress with the Chosen Chthonolasius!

 

 

As you can see, they have lots of eggs, and, by the gaster of the callow worker, you can just see a couple larvae! I'm super happy about the hopeful success of this queen. I'm thinking I'm going to put them in the same type of formicarium as my Solenopsis once they get workers.

 

In terms of the Acanthomyops, I'm highly tempted to put them all in hibernation today or tomorrow. I highly doubt they will lay eggs before hibernation since its been almost a month, and not much has changed in this time. They are all being fed by their workers, so I'm not worried about them starving in hibernation, and I will feed them again before hibernation ( fed them all yesterday too), and a couple times during hibernation if I notice they get skinny. Here is my new favorite Acanthomyops pic I've gotten so far:

[NickAnter]

She laid a bunch more eggs sometime yesterday... Around 70 now, which is pretty incredible. I hope that those all end up as workers.

[AntBoi3030]

Dude, you have no idea how jealous I am. I completely failed this spring with my parasites. They were some of the first ants I ever kept so it didn’t go to well…I'm going to give it another shot this spring though!

[AnthonyP163]

Well, I sure am glad I collected a ton of pupae with workers on Sunday. Nanitics are hatching like every 20 minutes, and they show no agression whatsoever to the queens. Each tube has at least 15 pupae, and 10 workers. I'm aiming for 20 workers per tube, plus the pupae. This should allow the colony to collect a decent amount of resources, much more than if they had say, 15 workers. I don't want to jinx it, but things are going pretty smoothly so far.

Make sure to give the queens as many hosts as you can! More hosts will always mean more biological workers and a healthier colony. Feed lots of fruit flies, and good luck! I'll be following up on this journal.

[NickAnter]

Well sadly a couple queens don't exactly have tons of workers, since they mangled a bunch of their pupae, the idiots. Also, I can't get any more pupae for now, so I'll probably have to wait for my Lasius americanus colony to get more pupae. I don't want to completely raid their first generation of the year though haha, so I won't be able to give the queens tons of pupae, I would need around 80 pupae to get them all over 30 workers, and that's a bit challenging for me to get, since living in suburban socal, there are no easy to find niger group Lasius for nearly 80 miles, haha.