7 replies to this topic

[ElisAnts]

I have both founding queens of placops variant 01 and 02. I received the 01 variant from stateside ants and caught the 02 variant on south mountain on 2/22/24.

Just based off first glance the texas-based 01 variant is much larger than the arizona caught 02.

Placodops 01


Placodops 02


Both Queens have around 5 eggs. I will try to only look at them once a week and update this thread around the same.

[antsriondel]

Cool! I need to find some honeypots this year!

[BleepingBleepers]

Lucky. I mentioned in my CA02 journal that I was going to get some but sadly, things fell apart and I couldn't.

 

Will be admiring it from afar through reading your journals.

 

Good luck!

[ElisAnts]

Update: 4/3/2024

I received more placo queens. I now have three 01 variants and one 02 variant.

The first 01 variant I have had since the beginning is going strong, she has around 5 larvae that are close to pupating as well as a bunch of eggs. (Pictures aren’t great, but the queen also blocked portion of top with dirt.



As for the other two 01 variants and the single 02 variant, they had been struggling with laying eggs. I decided to remove heat at night and only heat during day. This seemed to help as the remaining 01 variants now have clusters around 15 eggs (still no larvae)




However my single 02 Placodops queen still would not lay eggs. This was super frustrating because I have had her the longest out of the other queens. I decided to change her test tube and substrate and give her a “new” start. Luckily this worked and she has caught up to the other queens with her own egg cluster of 15-20 eggs.

Will try to update in 2 weeks! As for now, heating at 85 degrees constantly during the day, with heat off during the night (temp ranges from 68-78 when heat off)

[Ernteameise]

Yay, look at her go!

Looking great!

[ElisAnts]

4/10/2024
PUPAE


The pictures will be better once they are out of the test tube. (Pupae are under queen)
All other queens have larvae and should have pupae by end of month!

[ElisAnts]

I am down to one placodops colony. Unfortunately my dog knocked over a flower vase next to my ant box and it flooded all of my pot colonies. I was able to save the remaining placodops colony from texas. All of the workers died (8) and the queen had to restart founding. I had absolutely zero hope as Myrmecocystus are already difficult to found as is. Somehow this colony bounced back and is just now starting to explode. They are up to 5 workers and around 9 pupae and 7 larvae. The queen is still being used as a replete, but they also just got their first mini replete. I hope this colony will make it, I haven’t seen a placodops 01 variant journal make it that far so i hope this colony can be the first.

[kiedeerk]

Sorry you had to start over. Honeypots can be tricky. I also keep M placadops 01 variant. One larger colony of 500+ workers and a smaller one of about 100 workers. I have documented their progress from single queen to now in my journal. Hopefully I can help you or answer some questions and get you to succeed as well. Honeypots are hit and miss some queens are just not good.

I find that if the queen is acting like a replete she is not in egg laying stage. As you get more workers the queen will stop acting like a replete then egg will really pick up.

Edited by kiedeerk, August 10 2024 - 1:18 PM.