10 replies to this topic

[UtahAnts]

I found a couple of Lasius cf. latipes queens this season and I'll be following their progress over the next few months. I don't expect workers before the end of the year, but I'm shooting for a good batch of larvae for each queen before I move away in November.

 

Timeline of events.

 

8/13 Queens flew with at least 5 other species of lasius:

 

Lasius americanus

Lasius neoniger

Lasius cf. murphyi (acanthomyops group)

Lasius latipes

Lasius cf. claviger

Small Lasius sp. in need of ID

 

8/14 Hosts introduced

 

8/16 Queens are accepted by the workers. I tubed each individually thereafter. Fed sugar water.

 

 

 

 

 

Following a series of heavy thunderstorms, I knew something would be flying. Sure enough, 6 species of Laius were flying in my yard, among other species. I found these queens in the evening, and let the parasites sit overnight with some water, planning to get hosts the next day. Indeed, the next day I hiked around the local mountains and found a good amount of host Lasius brood. I believe I mainly used L neoniger but I might have also got some L. americanus brood. I then used two methods to introduce the queens.

 

Method 1 

Worker/callow method. I added a few workers to each queen on the first day. Second day I added a dozen callows and pupae. I tried to add the workers one at a time to allow the queens to settle. I did this at room temperature, with minimal disturbance in a closed test tube in a larger container containing the majority of the host colony.

 

Method 2

This method worked much better than I thought it would. I knew the parasites were basically impervious to the host's attacks, so I dumped the remaining dozen latipes queens in a large container with hundreds of workers/brood of the same host colony. The queens were immediately attacked by dozens of workers, but they didn't seem to care, not even attacking the workers. I left them overnight, and the next afternoon, only one queen was dead. Those remaining queens were integrated with the hosts. I left them alone, still in the dark, for a bit longer. I then tubed each queen with their own workers and brood, ranging from 20 to 70 hosts. I plan to use this method in the future for this species. It seems to replicate natural conditions, and is much less time/energy consuming than other common founding methods.

 

 

Here is video playlist I'll update with videos as the colony develops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by UtahAnts, September 16 2024 - 2:15 PM.

[UtahAnts]

8/19

 

Quick update. Checked on the queens tonight and found one of the test tube queens dead, maybe from precipitation in the tube? Not sure, but the rest of the tubed queens were all fine, including the two-queen colony I set up. I fed each colony hummingbird nectar and a mix of crickets, mealworms, and fruit flies.

 

Conversely, I left a few queens in the original large container full of hundreds of workers and pupae thinking at least one of them would make it. All of them were dead. This container was kept around 70 degrees constantly (cooler than the tubed queens). I thought I saw these queens successfully integrate with the colony, even being groomed at times. But sometime over the next 72 hours they were killed off. Perhaps these parasites have difficulty successfully overtaking large colonies? Or maybe it was simply the large size of the container that did it? Nearly all of the tubed queens made it with under a hundred hosts so I'm not sure what happened to the container queens.

[RushmoreAnts]

Conversely, I left a few queens in the original large container full of hundreds of workers and pupae thinking at least one of them would make it. All of them were dead. This container was kept around 70 degrees constantly (cooler than the tubed queens). I thought I saw these queens successfully integrate with the colony, even being groomed at times. But sometime over the next 72 hours they were killed off. Perhaps these parasites have difficulty successfully overtaking large colonies? Or maybe it was simply the large size of the container that did it? Nearly all of the tubed queens made it with under a hundred hosts so I'm not sure what happened to the container queens.

Would it help to provide the queens with a safe space they can hide in like a test tube? I believe that was in Batspiderfish's Guide. Most queens do die in the wild anyways. If too many parasitic queens are successful they wouldn't have any hosts left.

[BDantsalberta]

I found a couple of Lasius cf. latipes queens this season and I'll be following their progress over the next few months. I don't expect workers before the end of the year, but I'm shooting for a good batch of larvae for each queen before I move away in November.

 

Timeline of events.

 

8/13 Queens flew with at least 5 other species of lasius:

 

Lasius americanus

Lasius neoniger

Lasius cf. murphyi (acanthomyops group)

Lasius latipes

Lasius cf. claviger

Small Lasius sp. in need of ID

 

8/14 Hosts introduced

 

8/16 Queens are accepted by the workers. I tubed each individually thereafter. Fed sugar water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following a series of heavy thunderstorms, I knew something would be flying. Sure enough, 6 species of Laius were flying in my yard, among other species. I found these queens in the evening, and let the parasites sit overnight with some water, planning to get hosts the next day. Indeed, the next day I hiked around the local mountains and found a good amount of host Lasius brood. I believe I mainly used L neoniger but I might have also got some L. americanus brood. I then used two methods to introduce the queens.

 

Method 1 

Worker/callow method. I added a few workers to each queen on the first day. Second day I added a dozen callows and pupae. I tried to add the workers one at a time to allow the queens to settle. I did this at room temperature, with minimal disturbance in a closed test tube in a larger container containing the majority of the host colony.

 

Method 2

This method worked much better than I thought it would. I knew the parasites were basically impervious to the host's attacks, so I dumped the remaining dozen latipes queens in a large container with hundreds of workers/brood of the same host colony. The queens were immediately attacked by dozens of workers, but they didn't seem to care, not even attacking the workers. I left them overnight, and the next afternoon, only one queen was dead. Those remaining queens were integrated with the hosts. I left them alone, still in the dark, for a bit longer. I then tubed each queen with their own workers and brood, ranging from 20 to 70 hosts. I plan to use this method in the future for this species. It seems to replicate natural conditions, and is much less time/energy consuming than other common founding methods.

 

 

Here is video playlist I'll update with videos as the colony develops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I absolutely love this journal!!! Keep us updated!!! Hope they all survive and lay eggs!!

[UtahAnts]

I was feeding these colonies tonight and noticed eggs! I'll do a bigger update sometime soon with pictures. These ants have been taking a ridiculous amount of sugars along with a little protein on the side.

[UtahAnts]

8/31

 

As of yesterday all but one of the 7 colonies now have eggs! The host workers keep these eggs near the queens (or maybe it's the queens that are staying close to the eggs) in large clusters. In one of the clusters, I saw small first instar larvae!

 

A low resolution video of the new egg clusters.

 

Observations:

• These colonies are taking all the sugar they can get with small amounts of protein being accepted.
• I also noted that the amount of host workers doesn't seem to affect the number of eggs significantly. I see roughly the same size of egg cluster in a colony with 15 hosts as one with 70.
• The two-queen colony is still going strong. They were one of the first colonies to have eggs - curiously the workers are keeping each batch from each each queen separate, not sure why or how they know to do this.

Not much else to say other than the colonies will probably be staying in their tubes for the foreseeable future unless feeding becomes too difficult. In that case a standard formicarium will be used. For any utahns reading this, I will need to relocate these colonies to someone willing to care for them as I am leaving the state in November for a few years. Send me a PM if you are interested in adopting these colonies.

 

 

 

 

Edited by UtahAnts, September 1 2024 - 7:37 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Where are you moving to?

[UtahAnts]

Taiwan for an assignment with my church. I'm looking forward to seeing the crazy diversity over there, but I'll miss many of the species here.

 

On another note the latipes are starting to be reserved - only 4 colonies are now available. There's still time to shoot me a message!

[UtahAnts]

These colonies have all been distributed out to other ant keepers, so you may see these colonies in other journals down the road if all goes well! Which means this journal is now discontinued. I just wanted to go over the founding process I used one more time for posterity, I don't think I was very detailed in the first post.

 

The two founding method used are color coded to help distinguish each.

Green is the gradual worker introduction method.

Red is a 'dump and swarm' method. Simultaneous integration between a dozen queens and one host colony.

 

Day 1: Several species of Lasius queens were captured in the evening during their nuptial flight, I separated the parasitic from the non-parasitic queens within a few hours. I captured 100 hosts (Lasius cf. neoniger), and introduced 3-4 workers and pupae to two individual queens, sealing in a dark test tube with PVA sponge and substrate from the host colony. The remaining dozen queens were left without hosts together overnight with a damp paper towel.

Day 2: For the test tube queens, I opened the test tubes to the rest of the hosts from Day 1 in a closed holding container for each queen with substrate and pupae - left over night. ~300 more host workers and 300 more pupae were captured from one Lasius neoniger colony (I made sure to keep several ounces of substrate from the host colony in the container), and introduced the remaining dozen queens simultaneously via swarming - where queens were dropped near the bulk of the colony in the large holding container and left for 48 hours in the dark with occasional checkups/sugar feedings. 

Day 4: Queens from day one are sealed with ~30 hosts each in the original test tubes. Rest of the queens from swarming method were separated with 30-80 hosts each (including pupae) in test tubes with PVA sponge and host colony substrate. Two queens were seen dead outside the substrate in the holding container. At this point no aggression to the parasites was observed. To separate, I located a queen (always sitting on a pupae pile under the substrate) along with any brood/hosts near her and dumped them all together in a new test tube. One colony included two queens who seemed calm together. Stored in the dark at ~85 degrees during the day, and 75 at night.

Day 5: Fed hummingbird nectar.

Day 7: Fed Hummingbird nectar and first protein - small pieces of cricket. Cricket did not appear to be eaten.

Continued to feed small amounts of protein and lots of hummingbird nectar.

~Day 12: First egg batches observed.

 

 

9/10: When I sent the last colony off, the eggs batches were all developing. Hope these colonies make it through the winter!

 

 

[ANTdrew]

I’m amazed by how many ants you sell consistently.

[UtahAnts]

We've got a pretty good community up in northern Utah, with many new hobbyists and a handful of more experienced ant keepers. A local facebook group and marketplace - KSL, helps people know when colonies are being sold.