Hello everyone!
So about a year ago, I was on a vacation to Texada island. This is a smaller island, just off the coast of Vancouver island. While there, a bunch of nuptial flights happened and I managed to catch a few queens. Three of those were a Lasius species, and two Formica. However, both Formica were infertile, while the Lasius began laying eggs after overwintering this year. It was through this behaviour that I discovered they are likely Lasius neoniger, instead of Lasius niger like I originally suspected.
So, here we are! I hope I can keep this journal consistently updated, and witness the growth of this colony! Hope you enjoy as much as I do.
As I'm still a relatively new ant keeper, any advice would be appreciated.
This was a few days ago. The queen's gaster was looking pretty thin, and I was worried she might starve out before her workers arrive. I also noticed her test-tube was quite dirty and she still had one wing on. At this point, I hoped she would improve soon!
Then, about three days later, the first worker arrived. I checked up on them, replaced the dirty test tube with a clean one, and put in a little bit of sugar-water, which the queen eagerly drank up. Man, I just love this stage of ant keeping!
In these two images, you can still see the queen and worker in their dirty set-up. the vinyl tubing connects it to another test-tube, which is were I placed the sugar-water.
Anyways, I'll feed the colony a bit of solid food in a day or so, once they're ready for it, and hopefully we'll start seeing the first real worker pretty soon!
Tips, comments, suggestions? Confirmation about species would be nice as well.
