32 replies to this topic

[Flu1d]

Their name on Discord is "dolphin", I'm not sure if they use Formiculture or not though.

[Flu1d]

12/20/2022

I caught a fruit fly and boiled it for 5 seconds and then I fed it to my single queen.

12/21/2022

The queen has ripped chunks of the fruit fly up and is feeding it to her larvae. Video below shows this. (I apologize for the bad embed link, I am unfamiliar with how to do videos. I used an embed link on Vimeo. The link itself works when clicked.)

<iframe title="vimeo-player" src="https://player.vimeo...2?h=e6332a12c2" width="640" height="1137" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Edited by Flu1d, December 21 2022 - 8:06 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Just keep in mind that you don’t need to feed fully claustral queens. The stress caused can do more harm than good.

[Flu1d]

Just keep in mind that you don’t need to feed fully claustral queens. The stress caused can do more harm than good.

Understood! I just wanted to try something

[Flu1d]

Well, my space heater malfunctioned about 10 minutes ago and I smelled burning plastic and found my thermometer and red plastic tube cover melting. It was about 160 degrees. Cooked all of my queens.

Guess I will start over when it warms back up.

[Flu1d]

It says 103 on the thermometer but I took it after I tried to salvage the situation, which I could not.

Edited by Flu1d, December 22 2022 - 2:17 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Damn! Sorry, man. At least it was RIFA. RIP RIFA

[Flu1d]

Damn! Sorry, man. At least it was RIFA. RIP RIFA

That's what I said.. RIFA is EASILY replaceable and not a loss at all when they die.. However I have to take the blame for this. A good person sent me a heating cable a few days ago and I just was too lazy to switch to the cable from the heater. Granted, the heater should NOT have done that, but it was still avoidable.

RIP RIFA. Was excited to see how well I could make these girls grow.

This, however, set me up to be BETTER prepared for round two. I will be smarter, more careful and this will allow me time to get set up with slightly better equipment and things since I was actually pretty ill-prepared to take on a 4 RIFA colony job.. However I was totally willing to do it.

I will take this time to acquire some better nests, better outworlds and just more equipment in general.

Each mistake, a lesson.

Edited by Flu1d, December 22 2022 - 5:56 PM.

[Flu1d]

I think next time I am going to just do 2 invicta colonies.. A single queen and a five queen, total of 6 queens. I know that the 5 queen colony would definitely produce more and faster, however I am curious to see by how much. There are a couple of other things that I want to try with them as well. If I do end up journaling about invicta queens in the future, do I just start a new journal?

[Ant-nig321]

I think next time I am going to just do 2 invicta colonies.. A single queen and a five queen, total of 6 queens. I know that the 5 queen colony would definitely produce more and faster, however I am curious to see by how much. There are a couple of other things that I want to try with them as well. If I do end up journaling about invicta queens in the future, do I just start a new journal?

Sorry man! you've tried to keep them going,but unfortunately they died.but you need to get ready for the next generation of queen ants to try up your second chance in the hobby.Also,make a new journal,the blood flood's are gone and no other ant can be as special as them to you since they are your first queen ants that made progress to their current state before they died.

[T.C.]

Sorry to hear they got cooked. If you are curious on how similar founding occurs with this species, check out my old journal on them.  

 

https://www.formicul...fa-experiments/

[Flu1d]

Sorry to hear they got cooked. If you are curious on how similar founding occurs with this species, check out my old journal on them.

https://www.formicul...fa-experiments/

Very interesting read! Thank you for sharing that. That was kind of my plan, see how fast I could boom them and if they became uncontainable, do the deed.. If not, have a massive colony 😌

I plan on trying again once it heats up, these girls fly so often down here that even during the middle of winter you will see queens walking as long as its around 68°F or hotter.

It is very good that I have an extremely hardy, easily obtainable and extremely invasive species to practice on as to not kill a bunch of really special, native ants.

[Flu1d]

I think next time I am going to just do 2 invicta colonies.. A single queen and a five queen, total of 6 queens. I know that the 5 queen colony would definitely produce more and faster, however I am curious to see by how much. There are a couple of other things that I want to try with them as well. If I do end up journaling about invicta queens in the future, do I just start a new journal?

Sorry man! you've tried to keep them going,but unfortunately they died.but you need to get ready for the next generation of queen ants to try up your second chance in the hobby.Also,make a new journal,the blood flood's are gone and no other ant can be as special as them to you since they are your first queen ants that made progress to their current state before they died.

Thank you for motivating me to attempt a journal, I know next time to use only a heating cable and leave the space heater to heating rooms. Although.. I do need a new space heater now. Amazon brand cheapo space heater for the lose 😭

I will be back with another attempt as soon as I am able. I may end up catching more than 6 queens, who knows. Until then, thanks for tuning in everybody and I am sorry for the bad news.