44 replies to this topic

[Ernteameise]

Here is a picture of the colony today- the queen sits on the new egg pile, and further to the left, there is another pile.

 

 

I am amazed how resilient these girls are.

[Stubyvast]

Man this is awesome! I can't wait to see this colony growing more! It would be awesome to have a vivarium set-up or something like that. I have never tried parasitic ants yet but it sounds like a really cool idea. 

[Ernteameise]

And now we have even more eggs.

The eggs have a slight yellow color, but I have read in another thread on here that Camponotus appear to have yellowish eggs, probably due to the yolk content.

 

 

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

Camponotus eggs can have different colors some of mine have slight orange eggs.

[Ernteameise]

Just look at the HUGE pile of eggs they have produced now!

They are certainly doing some serious catching up after their disastrous arrival.

I might also overfeed my ants, by the looks of it.

 

[Ernteameise]

Some beautiful girls enjoying some yummy protein.

 

[Ernteameise]

Colony has grown a lot in the recent weeks.

Lots of brood and the brood develop nicely.

 

 

[Ernteameise]

So I keep talking about it, but have not shown photographic proof.

Here are some pictures of the cleanliness and trash behaviour of 3 of my species.

All species were fed one tiny locust yesterday afternoon, this is how it looks today:

 

Lasius niger is very tidy and arranges the trash in neat piles up top which are easy to clean.

 

 

Camponotus piceus is a cryptic species and they are like ninjas, they even cut their cocoon shells up into tiny pieces so they leave no trace. It looks pretty sterile.

 

 

And Camponotus lateralis are trash queens, they throw everything around willy-nilly, without rhyme nor reason and it is just a big mess:

 

[Stubyvast]

Wow amazing to see the differences here! I also have Lasius Niger and they do have a similar behaviour with dumping their trash in very specific areas. 

[Ernteameise]

Today I bought some large locusts at the pet store, and all of my girls got to share.

For my smaller colonies, I copped the locusts up to provide smaller pieces.

 

 

And some pictures of the colony, feature some pretty ant faces and tons of new brood

 

 

 

 

 

Tons of new eggs!

 

[ANTdrew]

These are some cute ants.

[Ernteameise]

Got a new delivery from Tarheel ants!

I had ordered another XXL Mini Hearth as an expansion for this colony.

I made sure to order a simple version that is easy to clean since these are my messiest ants.

The colony is right now living in an XL-Mini Hearth, and I will be able to magnetically attach the new nest to it to expand.

 

The colony today:

 

 

 

Her majesty:

 

And here is the new nest, which I will connect when the colony has filled up their current nest:

 

 

I like this new nest, it is simple but still nice looking.

Edited by Ernteameise, July 18 2024 - 2:48 AM.

[Ernteameise]

I had some nice colony growth and I think the colony is well and truly recovered.

Lots of brood.

They are also very hungry and very, VERY, messy. There is no organised waste disposal, they just trash the place as a whole.

 

 

 

[Ernteameise]

Oh yes!

Chicken is very popular.

On this picture you can also see very well that these ants are mimics of Crematogaster scutellaris.

Look at the colour and the shape of their abdomen!

 

[Ernteameise]

Food was very popular today

 

 

Edited by Ernteameise, September 4 2024 - 1:01 PM.

[Ernteameise]

The messy gang today.

They will be getting ready for slowing down during winter, since Camponotus are on an internal clock.

They do however still take some protein, I offered them a cricket today which they checked out.

They also still have some brood and seem to try to get these cocoons hatched (by holding them up to the heat cable).

 

 

[ANTdrew]

I checked my very similar Camponotus nearcticus last night, and they have no pupae left, which means they are ready for diapause. I will need to wait a while until it’s cold enough in the basement I keep them in, though.

[Ernteameise]

The colony has settled in for winter.

All the pupae have enclosed, and now the colony sits on a ton of arrested larvae waiting for Spring.

I am still amazed how well the colony recovered from the transport mishap.

It also looks as if I could connect the XXL mini hearth that I bought for this colony come Spring. If all of that brood hatches, they will need more space.

 

 

 

Their expansion / upgrade:

 

[Ernteameise]

And here I thought these girls were already in diapause...

They accepted some tubifex worms and also one of the (recycled) Messor princesses, for which they had a lot of excitement.

 

[OwlThatLikesAnts]

How do you “recycle” the MESSor queens from your other colony, like you just take all of the alates and preserves them until you are going to use them as food?

 

Also there is a giant gap in the journal, has the colony grown any bigger? Because comparing the two images they look like they are around the same size