1 reply to this topic

[Hiromilovesmealworms]

     A week ago, my friend and I caught a C.Vicinus queen under a piece of bark on the ground in the Yosemite area. This is weird since it is so late in the year, and since this is on a school trip, I quickly tubed up the queen without checking if there were any other ants. I don't recall seeing workers. However, a few days later, I found a colony (50+ workers) of 

Vicinus in a piece of wood. We broke the wood open and collected some workers, but couldn't find a queen. I decided to see what would happen when I introduced them to my queen in the test tube. Surprisingly, they accepted each other and began feeding via trophallaxis. NOW I HAVE FIVE ANTS IN TOTAL.Arriving at home, I connected the tube to an outworld with some honey water and a crushed silverfish, which they ate. The queen even came out to forage for honey! 

      The problem is, when should I hibernate them, since they are a small colony, and I live in SoCal, so there are no cold places except the fridge, which is 37 degrees Fahrenheit. 

How should I go along hibernating, and can anyone explain how I found the queen so late?

 

 

[CAantz]

The same thing happened to me where I found a Camponotus queen in October two years ago on a school trip near big bear. I think she might have had eggs and was a late flyer but, the log she was under rolled down a hill. If you found the ants in Yosemite valley you might just want to take them off of the heat over the winter because I’m pretty sure it doesn’t snow in the valley. However if you found them where it might snow, I think you can put them in the fridge. If that is a little too cold, it depends where in socal you are, but if it gets to around 40 during the night you might be good leaving them outside in a garage of something. I’ve never had any ants that need hibernation, so I don’t know too much.