187 replies to this topic

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

I think this might be the last apple slice I put in the small outworld.
It’s not really outworld to them, it’s more nest main chamber, where they hang out and do most of the ant business.
And with the inside getting dirty enough I can’t open it up without a few getting out/up on the edge.

This last time I wound up killing one putting the lid back on as I wasn’t fast enough.
I’ll maybe move to doing blueberries that I can lower through the extra lidded vent hole on top without opening it all the way up. They can cut up and move the old blueberries out to the trash pile themselves.
Probably start doing smaller apple slices in the large outworld. Larger slices let off enough humidity to start fogging up the plexi in places. That leads to dirt and easier to climb walls for them.

I can see i'll be ading fluon/climb barrier of some kind to the setup eventually.

I’m still over splurging on gardening seeds for them. There’s so much more variety to get than the food seeds we eat. Lots of different flowers, carrots, basil, and so on. I also ordered a large bag of dandelion from THA as they always like those for sure. And I notice  if i put in a food they really like, that will be fed ot the larve immeditly even though they got a larder of seeds already piled up.
Last night it was Tiny Tim seeds and this morning all the larvea at the apple larva party had Tiny Tim seeds hooked up to them.

One of the neat things they do in the main chamber is group seed cracking.
Some of the ants will gather the seeds, but now instead of taking them to the nest seed piles they just drop them right inside the main chamber(small outworld) coming from the large outworld.
And then a whole bunch of other ants will gather around in the main chamber, all in the same hunched over seed cracking position.

As seen in the images below while they were gathering some basil seeds.

 

 

 

And this brood party is from yesterday afternoon when I got home from work. This is maybe the most brood i've seen out here at once. The only ones left in the nest proper are on the water tower where the eggs and younger brood, as well as eclosing callows are kept.

 

 

 

I’ve been leaving the heat cable unplugged when the weather turns warmer. I notice when temperatures are all the same they keep the brood where it seems most humid. When there are warmer but drier areas to be had they tend to put the later stage brood where it’s hotter for most of the time. And from time to time they move them to more humid areas for a little while.
Which is why i think the main chamber with apple is so popular, but only for a while.
Sometimes I’ll see them move a pile out to the main camber in the middle of the day for an hour or two and then back into the nest proper again.

In the nest there's only one main water tower chamber, and then one wiht justa  tiny bit of exposed watertower.

The main brood pile is consistantly moved back and forth between the hottest areas and this one.

 

[ANTdrew]

Definitely get some fluon. It doesn’t look that bad.

[Locness]

I like your photos, they have a still life quality about them.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

I like your photos, they have a still life quality about them.

Thanks.

Supprisingly i get these with my phone, a 2020 nokia 3.4. Cropped and reduced in shop but no touch ups.
It has 2x zoom lense built in, and i use a clip on 15x macro for the real closeups.
All the ones in my last post are just 1x and 2x zoom, no macro lens shots.
 

[ANTdrew]

I’ll hopefully be joining team Pogonomyrmex soon. What are your top three tips for success?

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

I’ll hopefully be joining team Pogonomyrmex soon. What are your top three tips for success?

From what all i've read and experienced so far, they are easy peasy to care for.

1: temps

They seem to take a wide temp swing range as normal. I notice their activity seems about the same anywhere from 68f/70f up to 90 (not seen it hotter in here than that yet).
I understand they diapause on conditions rather than schedule.  "Make hay while the suns shines" as it were, so as long as conditions are right they just keep on keeping on.

Our place has no climate control and the thermal properties of a tent.
I heat cable the nest 84f-86f on a thermostat, and use a low watt overhead heat bulb during the winter on the outworld space. LED lamps overhead during the summer, and i leave the heat cable unplugged as long as the temp range is not dropping much below 70 overnight.
My only temp concerns are that it might get a bit hot in the summer sometimes.

 

 

2: space

They also seem to be ok with a bit of extra nest space. I'd say they could likely be given more room than other species to grow into. They keep it tidy rather than filling it up with refuse. And as i've said before, the more outworld i give them, the more interesting their behavior has been.

 

 

3: food and water

As i understood it these ants don't do much if any trophallaxis (i've not observed any, though they clean each other a lot). So I keep a bit of apple/blueberry/fruit out for them all the time. I give them seeds/fish flakes in small amounts a couple times a week.

They get fussy about water. I'd not put a nestmate in the nest itself they likely plug it up or worse drain it. Maybe every 3rd/4th swap of their water dispenser they drain one. So i got to keep an eye on that and not let them go without too long if they were naughty.

 

 

 

And as i know you do a fair bit of DIY.

4th tip:

And they love to dig into whatever they can. The large outworld has about a dozen holes dug into its floor, and a large carve out that creates an overhang at least an inch deep and 2 inches wide. But they only managed a little bit of digging in the mini hearth and none in the fallen fortress. Both type-III material from THA. If you do any DYI stuff for them, make sure and use whatever is toughest.
 

 

 

 

 

They are so nonstop is a big part of what i love about them. They seem to operate 24/7/365 in on/off cycles every few hours. There is almost always something going on to watch.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

I am beginning to believe that as ants that will just go go go as long as weather permits, not doing diapause on a timely schedule. They appear to grow at a steady rate rather than rush to grow as fast as they can in their seasonal time.

 

This friday will be 30 weeks with me. They were about 27 of them when they arrived, i'd guess in the 150-200 range now.
I’m thinking the brood pile has reached its typical size and is unlikely to grow much larger than I see it now. Somewhere in the 175-200 larvae and pupae (not counting egg clutches) for some time now I think. It seems like they eclose at nearly the same rate the queen lays new eggs these days.

 
The queen has stopped coming to the outworld except when the nest is overly disturbed. Otherwise I notice that she stays in either of the two humid chambers with the brood. I suspect the smaller crowded in space is more to her liking as she is often hard to spot being covered in workers. But you always know where she is, as the extra dense clump of works is easy to spot.

 

I want to try and get a few good shots of the entire setup in one quick go of all the ants, so i can try to get a colony count. I'm just real curious to track their behavior changes relative to the colony size as it is an obvious influence on how they react to things.

 

 

Also recent find on food was dried chicken hearts. It's a pet treat, it is just dried chicken hearts.

They went nuts for it. Just giving them a tiny bit of one was a lot of food. They fed it to the brood and it was gone about as fast as they could tear up to bring back t the nest.

https://www.chewy.co...earts/dp/152708

 

 

 

 

And a few ant pics of course:

Apple time a few days ago

 

 

Apple time this morning

 

 

This ant is so big two other ants will clean her at the same time. I only see this with the larger ants, they normally do cleaning solo.

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, August 16 2023 - 11:32 AM.

[100lols]

Definitely trying out those chicken hearts. My dogs will love them too! Awesome update

[ChenZ]

Tried freeze dried chicken liver (cat treat) and my Pogonomyrmex loved it 

[Ernteameise]

Need to try those freeze dried chicken hearts....

might have a peek at the pet store to see if they have any.

[Locness]

"What kind of dog do you have?" "Uhhh"

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

Colony is doing great.
I'd estimate they number nearing 200 if not getting over it at this time. They must be averaging between 7-12 new workers a week from the looks of it.
 

I am believing that air/air flow will be a signifficant factor in how the ants "see" a space. I'm looking into creating a full screen top for the med outworld using a rubber U gasket seal that i afix some 200 mesh steel screen to. I believe the 200 mesh will be fine enough to keep out unwanted cooties(mites or whatever is floating arond), while opening up the outworld to being all fresh air exposed, instead of a sealed plastic lid wth just two small vent holes.

 

My concern on this is ti will also expose my room to the smell of the ant trash pile more, but i'm not sure it will b worse/bad.
It's not nasty, but has a near old barn smell of rotting hay/grass most commonly. I have imagined it will disapate the oder faster rather than conentrate it and slow leak it into the room, if i screen mesh the top of the med outworld.

 

I have also finnaly applied fluon to the walls. The med outworld is harder to do as the sunken lid lowers the line of where you can appply the fluon and that places it more in the viewing field. Which i dislike.
I have alos only applied the fluon to the back and side walls, leaving the front face view without fluon. As both outworlds have a raised section along the back and/or side walls, the ants had 50% less distance to climb. With so many of them i simpy could not keep them in on my own. But the front wall on both is the full distance ot climb, so it's still doable to simpy knock any climbers off if they get too close to the edge.

This allows me to much more easily clean up and swap out fruit for them again, while keeping the less than astetically appealing look of fluon, from being right up in your face when observing them.

 

A few photos:

The Nest

 

Clustering up in the large outworld. They have taken to clustering up in these locaitons during the "daylight" time.

 

Small outworld/nest fresh apple slice


Small outworld/nest next morning. This is common, each night they bring out brood to be near the apple slice. The number of brood is reduced each day, as the apple dries out, until they only have a few or none out here.



Dealing in how swarmed the small outword is, i put an apple slcie in the large outworld instead one day. And they still swarmed it(there was no apple in the small outworld for a day prior to this)
front/back side

 

And then of course the next mornig after adding apple ot the large outworld, brood. They only had about 4 out here that I spotted, but there they were.

Attached Images

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Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, August 29 2023 - 9:25 AM.

[Ernteameise]

Great pictures.

I love your setup and I think these girls have a very nice attractive colour (or maybe it is just me who mainly keeps boring black ants).

I also find it fascinating that they love fruit so much.

My harvesters are not that much into fruit.

They lick it, and they take some, but they never swarm over it and they certainly do not think it is worth bringing the kids out for it.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

Great pictures.

I love your setup and I think these girls have a very nice attractive colour (or maybe it is just me who mainly keeps boring black ants).

I also find it fascinating that they love fruit so much.

My harvesters are not that much into fruit.

They lick it, and they take some, but they never swarm over it and they certainly do not think it is worth bringing the kids out for it.

Thanks you so much. I do enjoy their color and how it slowly changes over the course of about 4-6 weeks to the deep redish maroon. Going from near white/pale callows, to light yellow, lite orange, deep orange, lite red and finnaly the deep red. And they have a little bit of striping on the gaster that's hard to see without magnification. In fact i find none of my posted images really mange to capture it, so i got a photo project to get after now.

While I can't find it right off, I read somewhere that pogonomyrmex occidentalis do not practice trophallaxis. And i have not observed any. If they do not, then i think that might explain why they swarm the fruit in mass while other harvesters that do trophallaxis would not. Assuming some ants are just waiting to be fed rather than needing to see to it directly on their own all the time.

I also notice that apples are where it's at for them. I've not tried a whole wide range of fruit for sugar options, but of what i have, nothing is got after like the apple.

They tend ot just lick on it, but as it starts to dry out some of them will dig a hole in it and they continue to drink from where the moist parts are kept exposed.
They also like the apple more if it srtarts to go a bit mushy instad of drying out. Which is mostly a heat/humity thing for time of year around here.

They get honey crisp apples as that's what i buy for me.
Honey Crips Apples, THE BEST APPLES.

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, August 29 2023 - 11:38 AM.

[Ernteameise]

 

Great pictures.

I love your setup and I think these girls have a very nice attractive colour (or maybe it is just me who mainly keeps boring black ants).

I also find it fascinating that they love fruit so much.

My harvesters are not that much into fruit.

They lick it, and they take some, but they never swarm over it and they certainly do not think it is worth bringing the kids out for it.

Thanks you so much. I do enjoy their color and how it slowly changes over the course of about 4-6 weeks to the deep redish maroon. Going from near white/pale callows, to light yellow, lite orange, deep orange, lite red and finnaly the deep red. And they have a little bit of striping on the gaster that's hard to see without magnification. In fact i find none of my posted images really mange to capture it, so i got a photo project to get after now.

While I can't find it right off, I read somewhere that pogonomyrmex occidentalis do not practice trophallaxis. And i have not observed any. If they do not, then i think that might explain why they swarm the fruit in mass while other harvesters that do trophallaxis would not. Assuming some ants are just waiting to be fed rather than needing to see to it directly on their own all the time.

I also notice that apples are where it's at for them. I've not tried a whole wide range of fruit for sugar options, but of what i have, nothing is got after like the apple.

They tend ot just lick on it, but as it starts to dry out some of them will dig a hole in it and they continue to drink from where the moist parts are kept exposed.
They also like the apple more if it srtarts to go a bit mushy instad of drying out. Which is mostly a heat/humity thing for time of year around here.

They get honey crisp apples as that's what i buy for me.
Honey Crips Apples, THE BEST APPLES.

 

I offered them several different varieties from the organic orchard of my parents.

So far, none of them were a big hit.

 

I wonder if any of the harvester ants do trophallaxis?

My Messor also do not do it, and they will chop up food items in a special reserved room of the nest and then carry the bits over to the rooms with the larvae and feed the bits to the larvae directly.

But My ants have never carried the kids towards the food, only ever chopped the food into smaller and smaller bits and carried that home.

 

My Messor will also take fruit juice jellies (the ones for reptiles). This is why I always offer them some pieces.

They will also not swarm these, but a few of them will lick it.

[ANTdrew]

Super fine mesh still does not let in natural airflow, unfortunately.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

 

 

Great pictures.

I love your setup and I think these girls have a very nice attractive colour (or maybe it is just me who mainly keeps boring black ants).

I also find it fascinating that they love fruit so much.

My harvesters are not that much into fruit.

They lick it, and they take some, but they never swarm over it and they certainly do not think it is worth bringing the kids out for it.

Thanks you so much. I do enjoy their color and how it slowly changes over the course of about 4-6 weeks to the deep redish maroon. Going from near white/pale callows, to light yellow, lite orange, deep orange, lite red and finnaly the deep red. And they have a little bit of striping on the gaster that's hard to see without magnification. In fact i find none of my posted images really mange to capture it, so i got a photo project to get after now.

While I can't find it right off, I read somewhere that pogonomyrmex occidentalis do not practice trophallaxis. And i have not observed any. If they do not, then i think that might explain why they swarm the fruit in mass while other harvesters that do trophallaxis would not. Assuming some ants are just waiting to be fed rather than needing to see to it directly on their own all the time.

I also notice that apples are where it's at for them. I've not tried a whole wide range of fruit for sugar options, but of what i have, nothing is got after like the apple.

They tend ot just lick on it, but as it starts to dry out some of them will dig a hole in it and they continue to drink from where the moist parts are kept exposed.
They also like the apple more if it srtarts to go a bit mushy instad of drying out. Which is mostly a heat/humity thing for time of year around here.

They get honey crisp apples as that's what i buy for me.
Honey Crips Apples, THE BEST APPLES.

 

I offered them several different varieties from the organic orchard of my parents.

So far, none of them were a big hit.

 

I wonder if any of the harvester ants do trophallaxis?

My Messor also do not do it, and they will chop up food items in a special reserved room of the nest and then carry the bits over to the rooms with the larvae and feed the bits to the larvae directly.

But My ants have never carried the kids towards the food, only ever chopped the food into smaller and smaller bits and carried that home.

 

My Messor will also take fruit juice jellies (the ones for reptiles). This is why I always offer them some pieces.

They will also not swarm these, but a few of them will lick it.

 

 

From what i have seen the brood are not being fed the fruit. But brought out to be near it/placed on it, for the humidity/moisture of it.
Any bits they tear off are treated as trash and tossed out. Though the ants may carry around and lick on it for a bit, it won't be taken into the nest proper.

 

This is a slice of nectarine i put out a couple days ago. they been keeping brood out on it/near it most of the time. This one got a spot in a bit of dug out space.

 

Super fine mesh still does not let in natural airflow, unfortunately.

Thanks for the heads up, i'll see what else might work out as a barrier material that let's enough fresh air flow happen.


 

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, September 2 2023 - 9:14 AM.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

But now for the big news
 

 

OMG OMG OMG they got an alate.

 

The collony arrived on Jan 20th, 2023, as a 20+ from THA (they numbered 28 then) and here in their aug/sept season, just a little over eight months later, they have produced an alate.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the only one i've spotted. Saw them this morning. And i look in on them every day, but didn't spot this one coming up until it was moving around the nest today.

[AntsCali098]

Seems like they are a little too small to produce alates? I thought they have to be like 500+

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

Seems like they are a little too small to produce alates? I thought they have to be like 500+

I had not expected to see any this year. But they are doing well and growing fast. I estimate they add about 7-15 new workers a week. I also
I also suspect this may be the one and only alate they produce. As i've not spotted any in the brood pile, nor have anymore eclosed sense this one.
Might be a one off fluke this year.