5-26-2013

I caught this Camponotus anthrax queen May 26th 2013, under a small rock along side a fire road in the Cleveland
National Forest of Southern California.

She laid eggs a few days later.

My original journal was lost, so unfortunately I don't have records of when the first workers arrived.

This colony got up to about eight workers, and then a few died off. Near the end of July, the remaining four workers for some reason ate all of their brood one day. I actually watched them tear a cocoon open and eat the entire pupa inside. A few weeks later, they had a couple new larvae again.

Update 9-25-2013

Nothing has changed much with this colony, but by now all the brood, including the brood taken from the C. essigi colony has pupated. The one larva that was larger than the rest continued to grow bigger and bigger, and is now a cocoon about three times the size of all the other cocoons, not a whole lot smaller than the queen that produced it. It's suspected that the extra large brood the C. essigi queen produced might possibly be an alate.

Update 9-29-2013

Yesterday the large cocoon eclosed, and it was indeed an alate--a male. At first the workers spent a while (what looked like) trying to remove its wings. They successfully removed one wing, but the rest still remain.




So far they all seem to be getting along, and at one point, it looked like the queen was even feeding the male.

Update 3-18-2014
 
Over time this queen seemed to kill off her workers and the one male, or they just died off and she dismantled them or ate them... I don't know. Eventually she had no workers left at all. Now, after about a month and a half, she has five new larvae.

Update 7-21-2014
 
After about six months without workers, the queen just had another worker eclose, with another close behind. Let's hope she doesn't murder them all this time.

Update 10-27-2014
 
The last two workers from the first queen ended up dead soon after eclosing like most all the past workers have. Today, after a year and five months, this queen finally died. Maybe I'll find another one next year.

This was a 10-year-old journal I just re-posted.

I noticed the dates. Do you have an up to date list of what you’re keeping somewhere?

https://www.formicul...s-of-the-forum/

I'll update it right now.