58 replies to this topic

[James C. Trager]

Nice journal, Drew. 

It always amazes me that these ants fly on dry days right in the middle of the dry season!

[dspdrew]

Thanks. Any idea why a queen that had over a thousand workers would suddenly stop laying eggs? This queen stopped laying eggs a few months back, and has never laid a single egg since. Needless to say, she doesn't have one worker left now.

[Gregory2455]

Infertility? Parasites? Disease? Bad luck?

[Gregory2455]

Update 8-29-2014
I don't know where she was hiding.

My Tetramorium have made a mini chamber made entirely out of their own brood for their queen to hide in. This is probably what they did here too.

[dspdrew]

Haha yeah, they actually tricked me one time like that.

[dspdrew]

Update 12-20-2014
 
The queen from my original large colony finally died.

 

I was given a couple more S. xyloni queens. A few of these queens have died. One died yesterday, after having all 30 or so of her workers suddenly die a week before. Strangly, the same thing happened to the S. invicta colony I had sitting next to it. I've had this happen before with this species, and I can never figure out why. I'm now left with one colony, and with about 120 workers, it seems to be doing fairly well so far.

[AntLover101]

Update?

[Alza]

Yea, I'd like that too.

[dspdrew]

Update 4-11-2015
 
This colony is doing well. They're up to about 350 workers now.

[dspdrew]

Update 4-30-2015
 
I just caught a bunch more of these queens last night. I gave half of them to ArtimusClyde.

[dspdrew]

Update 6-11-2015
 
The colony continues to grow fast. They now are up to around 1300 workers, including a few majors.
 

 

 

 

 
 
After draining their liquid feeder, they decided to make it part of their nest.
 

[dermy]

That is a nice looking colony!

 

What are those red things, they remind me of beetle frass.

[dspdrew]

Probably chewed up cotton stained with hummingbird nectar.

[AntsTexas]

 

Keep adding test tubes and possibly get a bigger tupperware container. 

There is a journal somewhere online where the guy was going to build a formicarium "one day" and just kept adding test tubes - he was up to 12 test tubes.

 

They are tugging at the cotton on the lid?  I thought you had escape barriers in place.  I can only imagine how fun feeding must be.

Talcum powder works good, but when you have thousands of them trying to crawl over it every second of the day without ever stopping, it eventually wares off.

 

 

or build a whole wall formicarium

[Tspivey16]

Is there a significant difference in these and invicta?

[dspdrew]

In my experience, they seem to be a tiny bit larger (at least the queens). S. xyloni live in drier areas like most of the Southwest, while S. invicta are tropical and do well in places like most of the Southeast. Their nests are different too. Solenopsis invicta are more aggressive as well.

[dspdrew]

Update 10-11-2015
 
This colony was sold a few months ago.

[TennesseeAnts]

Are you planning on getting anymore of these?

[dspdrew]

Are you planning on getting anymore of these?

 

I actually have a few now that just got workers today. I only got them for a supply of brood so I can try to raise some S. amblychila again this year.