August 18, 2023: A Return To Ant Keeping [9 workers, 2 pupae, 2 larvae]
After a year of inactivity and mostly caring for my one Camponotus fragilis colony and two Brachymyrmex patagonicus colonies, I had decided to start being more active with my ant keeping ventures. This was the first colony I ever received from an ant store, so I was very excited with keeping new species. This Tetramorium immigrans colony was from Buckeye Myrmecology, and I recorded their unboxing here. They're a species I've never found, solely due to their flights being in the morning, and I usually find queens at night.
August 19, 2024: One Year Later [20-30 workers]
Alright so one year passes and I barely fed them or tracked their progress at all. I forgot exactly what happened during this time, but I'm pretty sure I just went into another rut of ant keeping and didn't bother to check on them as much as they were left on my shelf. I knew this time enough was enough, and I wanted to actually grow this colony. All of my ants in fact. I couldn't let the fear of them escaping, me being unable to contain them, or my laziness stop me any longer.
With their test tube running out of water, I moved them into a custom made outworld from this
new ant keeping store I randomly found.
Look at that delicious water.
I began feeding them all types of seeds. Completely forgot they were one of only ants in my room that could eat this at the time. This is a sesame seed a worker found.
Enjoying an almond.
October 14, 2024: Explosion [100-200 workers]
Every type of seed I fed them. Sesame, chia, quinoa, almonds, peanuts, and dandelion seeds they enjoyed. I also gave them crickets, and recently, roaches. Fish food were also a favorite. As such, the colony grew exponentially.
I had to replace their cork stopper with a cotton ball because workers kept chewing through and escaping.
They have completely removed the cotton from the inside of their test tube to make use of the extra space.
Now there's this small trail between new test tubes I place for their water.
October 31, 2024: Brood Showcase [150-200 workers]
The way they take up all the space in the test tube makes it impossible to count them now. But I'm guessing they're starting to pass 150 workers now.
They've begun moving their pupae closest to the heat cable.
November 11, 2024: Warm and Cozy [300-370 workers]
And here they are now, still trying to completely fill of their test tube. It is jam packed in this test tube, but whenever I open the lid to feed them, they start swarming out; a hundred would be out in a matter of moments. Super cool to see. Thinking once their test tube is 3/4 full, I'll move them into a formicarium.
Thoughts:
The fact that these ants eat grains have been a huge help. Now I can leave out as much as I want and they can break it down over time. Out of all the seeds, they enjoy almonds and sesame seeds the most. Also didn't know they would grow so much so quickly. The queen is an egg laying machine. The swarm tactic they do as well is really cool to see. I remember when I first saw that and I was thinking "what is going on, I just gave them some dandelion seeds." Now that I have the food available, the additional heat, and of course the drive to finally grow this colony, I can easily see them reach 1k-5k next year.
Edited by Ender Ants, November 12 2024 - 12:11 PM.
