23 replies to this topic

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

Yes some tend to be darker in coloration mostly the queen.

[Yusteponant]

Can't wait. I bought a colony of these girls from JenC and once I get home I can open them up and see how they're doing. Hope they are alive!

[Izzy]

A bit late on this update but better late than never.

 

I'm happy to announce that the two large cocoons from the Left Colony did indeed turn out to be majors! They eclosed a little over a month ago.

 

I wasn't sure if the first major was going to make it, as it took them about 4-5 days to fully remove all the cocoon that was wrapped around her legs. Meanwhile she just sat around unable to move. During that time they seemed to be ignoring her. I thought for sure she would die, but eventually I woke up to find that they had unbound her and she seemed to be doing well.

 

Unfortunately the second major did not make it. I'm not sure if there was an issue with eclosing or what, but I woke up to find her ripped into two pieces in the outworld.

 

Here is a picture of the sole major between the two colonies.

 

The larger colony (the Right Colony) has yet to produce any majors, but this colony has outgrown the other by leaps and bounds and they have several medians at this point.

 

I bought and built my first home and I specifically requested extra lighting to be installed in all of the rooms since I just really like light, but I'm hoping it'll help provide some better pictures and viewing experience going forward. Both colonies did great during the move and it didn't seem to stress them out too much.

 

This will probably be the last update for these colonies until next year. I'm not anticipating a lot of growth in the next few weeks. The new ant room in my house is a bit cooler than the previous one (sits around 68-70 where as the other was 76-78 degrees) so its served as a nice way to start slowly cooling them down before they move into the garage in a few weeks.

 

I'm really excited they were able to produce a major during their second year. That was one of my goals for these colonies and I wasn't sure if it was going to happen till year three. Looking forward to their explosive growth next year.

 

Also here is a bonus picture of my current ant room setup. I probably need another desk at this point. I'm looking forward to doing some more interesting things now that I don't have to worry about landlords and moving.

 

[Izzy]

Time for a post-diapause update for these colonies.

 

They both seemed to have handled the diapause like champs. Very few dead, obviously more for the bigger colony and fewer for the smaller colony, but percent-wise the large colony faired better than the smaller colony.

 

The small colony. I'm glad to see the lone major made it through diapause. Hopefully she'll be joined by some others this season. This colony actually spent diapause in the vinyl tubing seen in the picture where some of the ants are still hanging out. The queen sat in tube where it connects to the nest where there is the most darkness, but as soon as I moved them inside she moved back into the nest again.

 

Here are the dead of the small colony. I want to say about 6-8 dead? Picture is a little fuzzy.

 

The large colony, still a lot in there and I see some brood as well they overwintered with.

 

The dead of the large colony (RIP). Around 9-11 dead I would say.

 

The large colony has a few workers who insist on being outside the nest. I'm not sure what their purpose is. The nest is still far from full. Perhaps they're guarding the door or are just confused where the nest ends and begins since there isn't much airflow? As far as I can tell its the same median and I'm not sure about the workers since they're more numerous and harder to tell apart. They just stand motionless.

 

I unfortunately broke my Pixel 5a phone, which fortunately allowed me to upgrade to the Pixel 9 Pro, which has macro (not too impressed with the macro so far), and up to 5x optical zoom (this has been awesome). Seems like the pictures of the smaller colony weren't as good as I was still messing with the settings, but the large colony pictures seem an improvement over my previous phone shots. Still not as clear as the macro from a real camera, but a nice quick and easy option and will be nice for taking pictures in the field.