51 replies to this topic

[Locness]

Epic colony, great ending. What state are you headed to if you don't mind me asking.

[Flu1d]

I hate to hear that you're leaving Utah! I drove through it when I was moving back to Florida from Oregon and I was amazed at its beauty. I wish I could have stopped and seen more of it, but unfortunately I had a strict timeline I needed to follow.

Great journal, and I can't wait to see what ants you record in the future.

[B_rad0806]

Bummed to hear this is the end  Always felt extra motivated for growing my own colonies whenever I would read. 

[UtahAnts]

Epic colony, great ending. What state are you headed to if you don't mind me asking.

 

I'm not entirely sure yet, but I'll be leaving sometime this fall for a few years. I'll likely be coming back here afterwards. No promises, but In the meantime I'm thinking of making a few more dome nests.

[Izzy]

 

Epic colony, great ending. What state are you headed to if you don't mind me asking.

 

I'm not entirely sure yet, but I'll be leaving sometime this fall for a few years. I'll likely be coming back here afterwards. No promises, but In the meantime I'm thinking of making a few more dome nests.

 

 

Dang! You've done a lot for the community here in Utah. I bought my first ants from you, you built me some nice formicarium, and you always did a great job of posting species locations and nuptial flights that were a ton of help to me in my first year. Your research and thorough documentation has provided a great springboard for anyone getting into ant keeping in Utah. Your absence will definitely be felt. Best of luck to you in your new adventures though, and hope to see you back one day.

 

I would totally be interested in buying one of those dome formicarium if you get around to making them before you leave.

[UtahAnts]

Although my large colony is gone, I never was able to picture the founding stage of the queen. I thought it would be good to add a few pictures of queens from this season as they raise their brood stages to give the full story of colony development.

 

June 28

Early Myrmecocystus mexicanus flights. Most alates will fly in July, I was lucky enough to find some early flyers. Queens found at night and the next morning out in the desert. I tubed the majority of the queens, however I kept four in dirt founding containers - see this thread for details. These four will be featured here.

 

 

 

 

July 8

Eggs. All the queens are still alive each with a nice batch of yellow eggs. Enjoy the shaky gifs below - I was trying to be quick so as not to disturb the queens.

 

 

 

 

[UtahAnts]

July 21

Pupae. 16 out of 18 still alive, each with brood at various stages. Interestingly, all the dirt setup queens are still alive and growing much faster than the test tube queens. Seeing this, I moved 3 of the tube queens into suitable dirt setups. Average nanitic count right now seems to be eight.

 

 

 

[UtahAnts]

August 11

Workers eclose! 14 out of 18 still alive, the majority of which now have nanitics and a strong second generation coming.

 

 

 

 

 

[Ernteameise]

These ants are just so beautiful, their faces remind me of noble horses.

[UtahAnts]

September 1

All the colonies continue to grow. Out of the original 18, I believe only 4 queens died, and I sold several already leaving a few colonies left. 2 of the queens are still in the founding stage, while the largest colony now has nearly 30 workers. I moved the larger colonies into simple tiered cup formicariums (video here), and a dual view setup I made earlier in the season.

 

I'll focus on the largest colonies for the next few months, just to cover their growth in more detail than previously shown.

 

 

 

 

 

With a strong light, we can see what I can only assume is the queen's internal organs in her distended abdomen. I've never seen this before so the level of detail here was pretty fascinating.

 

 

 

[Ernteameise]

Oh wow, this "x-ray" picture is awesome, you see all the internal structures!

[UtahAnts]

September 10

The colonies continue to grow into their second and third generations. I have been dumping each colony into a cup formicarium once they are ready. This is usually when they have around 10+ workers, but I also like to take into account the amount of pupae they have.

 

A few of the colonies started exhibiting small hanging repletes at this point, however many of the larger colonies do not have any repletes yet. I have yet to see a queen die after workers arrive - all I've been doing is feeding sugars (hummingbird nectar from Walmart) every few days, with a bit of protien. On the topic of protein, these young colonies love fruit-flies! They will also take mealworms and crickets. They don't seem too interested in roaches yet, but this will change given a few months.

 

I keep these colonies in a dark closet where they experience diurnal heat cycles, at about 85-90 degrees during the afternoon, and 70 during the night. As fall comes, I plan to move these colonies to a heat mat to keep them growing through the fall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The cup setups are great, but sometimes they get messy real quick. Here you can see what looks like a lot of brood activity, but visibility is limited.

 

 

 

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The dual-view colony from September 1 update is still doing good. This is the only colony not in a cup formicarium.