54 replies to this topic

[Tpro4]

I question, where can you catch these and when?

[dspdrew]

Almost anywhere in the United States, and almost any time during spring and summer.

[AntsAreUs]

Don't they only fly once? I've only seen them fly once.

[Gregory2455]

No, they have many different nuptial flights.

[dspdrew]

Update 3-15-2015
 
I guess this would be a good time to update this journal. Apparently while I was away on last night's queen collecting excursions, these guys finally broke free and went on an adventure through my kitchen. I was tipped off about the breach while I was doing some work on the kitchen floor and saw one of the workers walk by. They were having loads of fun running free and raiding my other ant colonies' containers. There were two trails of them heading in each direction, with both of them ultimately going inside my walls. Luckily I caught them before they decided to move the colony. None of them were carrying any brood, and the queen was still there.
 
Needless to say, this colony is doing really well. They have probably close to 2500 workers now, and a massive pile of brood. By the looks of their test tubes, there were probably about 700 workers outside the container.
 
To get them all back in their container, I just reapplied the Fluon around the hole in the lid, and waited for them all to return without the ability to go back out. Eventually the trails went away, and their test tubes look a little more dense with ants again. I'm really not sure if any of them stayed in the walls or not, and I'm really not sure if they even would. Either way, the door is always open for them to come back home; they just aren't going to be leaving again any time soon.
 
I took these pictures after I had reapplied the Fluon, so some of the trails are a bit obliterated.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
This one of my poor little Temnothorax colonies terrorized by these guys. It looks like they were so frightened they moved all of their brood up on top of the test tube in an effort to keep it out of their reach. There didn't seem to be any S. molesta workers on the test tube so maybe that was a good idea.
 

[antmaniac]

They appeared to be happy to go out for a raid, or two.

[dean_k]

The Grreat Ant escape.

 

Though I have a question. Why do you have a hole there? Why give them a chance at all?

[William. T]

Nice colony! I can't wait to get mine.

[dspdrew]

The Grreat Ant escape.

 

Though I have a question. Why do you have a hole there? Why give them a chance at all?

 

It keeps the container ventilated, and allows me to easily drop food in for them, because taking off the lid will result in ants everywhere. Not that this didn't eventually result in ants everywhere too, but I could have prevented it; I just procrastinated. I knew they were getting close to wearing it away. The Fluon eventually wears off when you have thousands of ants trying to crawl on it all day long. This process takes much longer when it is on the underside of something like a lid. It also is most effective that way too.

[Ra3MaN]

I would also prefer to keep my container open it makes it easier to see them and feed them like Dspdrew said. However, I also had an escape once, and that has made me paranoid. I was using petroleum jelly, eventually the jelly hardened and the ants just walked over it. 

[dspdrew]

Update 4-18-2015
 
Disaster!

 

I had to move the colony so I put them in the Fluon coated tub I always use, and a couple days later thousands of them were in the bottom of the tub dead. I would say there's probably only about 700 workers left in the colony now. I have two of these tubs, and I'm pretty sure this is the same one I had used when moving my Pogonomyrmex and Veromessor the first couple times when a few hundred of them died. The last time I moved the Veromessor, none of them died, and I think that time I used the other tub. The tub that seems to be killing the ants must have something toxic on it. I'm going to wash it out completely.

[Alexant]

That really is a shame Just was it as much as possible, test it on a few workers and if it still kills them, stop using it completely. That is what I would do.

[dspdrew]

I think I've done enough testing.

[dspdrew]

Update 5-2-2015

 

I found a few more of these queens last night on my black light in Menifee, CA.

[AntTeen804]

How long does it take them to go from egg to worker?

[dspdrew]

Go to the beginning of the journal.

[AntTeen804]

I just caught a colony with 3 queens and about 60 workers.

[dspdrew]

Nice.

[dspdrew]

Update 2-12-2016

 

It's been a long, long time since I have updated this journal. This colony is still alive and well. I just recently had to give them a new test tube and remove their oldest dried out tube. The colony hasn't really grown because I haven't been feeding them very much. I did feed them quite a bit in the last couple weeks though. I'm going to see if I can take better care of them and get the colony to grow more.

[Alexant]

Very cool