92 replies to this topic

[cooIboyJ]

I checked on my 13 queen colony again (this colony was mentioned in the beginning) and I still don’t see any eggs, I think they are on the cotton because the queens are. The cotton has turned a yellowish brown, and I’m pretty sure that it is from the feces of thirteen queens.

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

If there are no eggs by now they could be infertile.

[cooIboyJ]

I’m saying that I think the eggs are all on the cotton where all of the queens are.

[cooIboyJ]

The ants were in terrible shape; they had around 5 dead workers in the test tube that had drowned and very little brood so I moved them forcefully. The queen is still alive and she has four workers and some larvae and a pupae. The queen is kind of restarting now. They are now in a new test tube and I gave them a cricket leg and a cotton ball soaked in sugar water. I hope they do well from here on. The good thing is that now they do not need an outworld anymore and I can give it to my fire ants.

Edited by cooIboyJ, September 1 2024 - 2:28 PM.

[cooIboyJ]

I’ve looked at the thirteen queen colony and I don’t see any eggs so I’ve decided that they are infertile. Though, I have caught so many more brachymyrmex patagonicus queens and have run out of my 100 pack of test tubes I had to combine some of them, so I put ~30 queens in a 12 by 100 millimeter test tube . They have killed off ~8 queens (I think because those queens were infertile) and I’m now left with ~22 queens and a huge pile of just eggs . It was really quick for them to lay eggs, especially compared to my other colony which took around 3/4 of a month to lay its first egg. I’m excited for this colony and hope they do well! I’ll post some pics next time I check up on the colony.

Edited by cooIboyJ, September 3 2024 - 5:29 PM.

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

I’ve looked at the thirteen queen colony and I don’t see any eggs so I’ve decided that they are infertile. Though, I have caught so many more brachymyrmex patagonicus queens and have run out of my 100 pack of test tubes I had to combine some of them, so I put ~30 queens in a 12 by 100 millimeter test tube . They have killed off ~8 queens (I think because those queens were infertile) and I’m now left with ~22 queens and a huge pile of just eggs . It was really quick for them to lay eggs, especially compared to my other colony which took around 3/4 of a month to lay its first egg. I’m excited for this colony and hope they do well! I’ll post some pics next time I check up on the colony.

i would never kill queens when i think they are infertile. they just sometimes take a while to lay eggs.

[cooIboyJ]

The queens killed off other queens. Not me.

Edited by cooIboyJ, September 3 2024 - 6:01 PM.

[cooIboyJ]

I have checked on the ~22 queen colony and the egg pile has doubled in size and I think that there are some larvae.

[cooIboyJ]

The first colony of ants are doing well; they have a good sized brood pile and they have a pupae that is about to eclose.

[cooIboyJ]

The 20 queen colony has killed itself But my other newly caught queens are doing very well!

[cooIboyJ]

My best new single queen colony has ten larvae and no workers but the main one (the one that most of this journal has been about) is not doing very well; they only have one pupae, three larvae, and a couple of eggs.

[cooIboyJ]

My two single queen colonies have nanitics and I have already fed one of them some sugar water in soaked in a cotton ball. My six queen colony also has nanitics and my brother's ten queen colony has a lot of nanitics also.

[cooIboyJ]

The colony is doing great connected to a homemade outworld made from an unused vitamin gummy bottle. The only problem is that I cannot reach the bottom of the bottle, even with tweezers. So I cannot get the old mealworm out. I think I will unplug a cotton ball serving as an air source to get it out.