173 replies to this topic

[drtrmiller]

You seem annoyed, but to me, it looks like they were cleaning up for you. 

 

You have trained them well, sir ant whisperer.

Edited by drtrmiller, January 9 2015 - 11:39 PM.

[DesertAntz]

Easy clean up.   

[dean_k]

Are those all dead ants they put in there?

[dspdrew]

Some of it is dead ants.

[dspdrew]

Update 2-14-2015
 
Veromessor pergandei had an early mating flight in the desert sometime in the first week of February, possibly even the last day of January, and I managed to dig up another 14 queens Sunday 2-8-2015. So far, I've given one of them to kellakk, and one has died. The remaining 12 all have pretty good sized piles of eggs now.
 
My original colony is doing great. It's still in the prototype formicarium, and it looks like they still haven't managed to chew through the nylon cloth covering the PVA sponge backing. The queen is still pumping out eggs, and they have definitely grown past 1200 workers now, I just can't get a good estimate at the moment.
 
These guys are very organized ants--I like that. Here you can see how they've created separate piles for each type of seed. Grass seed on the top left, black Nyjer seed on the top right, and poppy seeds on the bottom. They also continue to put all their trash in whatever tray or container lid I leave in there.
 

[Chromerust]

These guys are so cool, I can't wait until mine mature!

[dspdrew]

Update 2-23-2015
 
Three more of the new queens have died leaving me with only nine of them.
 
I just did another rough count on the original colony, and there are about 1500 workers now. I inspected the nest, and they definitely have not been able to chew through the nylon mesh backing. They're also standing all over it now, so whatever made them avoid it at first, obviously isn't affecting them now. I'm guessing it was the smell or something, and it's odor has changed over time.
 

 

 

 

 
 
They love the apple and cinnamon muffin I gave them. They've ripped it into a bunch of pieces and have been feeding it to the larvae.
 

 
 
The queen is still laying a ton of eggs.
 

 
 
Here you can see the 100 micron nylon mesh that they have not managed to chew through yet.
 

 

[Jonathan21700]

Awesome colony!

[Miles]

Hi Drew,

 

I'm sorry if you've stated this elsewhere, but could you link me to the exact BoxBox brand container you are using for the outworld? Much appreciated.

Edit: This one? http://www.container...0035409&N=80804

Edited by Miles, February 24 2015 - 4:56 PM.

[dspdrew]

That is the taller one I am using for the base container. The out world one is the larger of these.

 

http://www.container...0032168&N=80804

 

There are three heights.

[Miles]

Did you paint the nest portion? The only boxes like this are clear - at least the ones that I can find.

[dspdrew]

Yes, they are all clear. I painted that one.

[dspdrew]

Update 2-25-2015
 
I just found out five of the new queens have tons of tiny white mites stuck all over them. They're mostly on the bottom side of the gaster right where the petiole connects to it. I tried putting one queen in white vinegar, but I doubt this did anything to the mites. I have ordered some very expensive ultra-fine forceps that I had been wanting to buy for a while now. I just figured this would be a good time to get them. Hopefully I'll be able to pluck every one of these off the queens.

[dspdrew]

Update 2-27-2015
 
I tried putting one of the queens in the freezer for a couple minutes, but to my surprise, it was dead. I guess I forgot how cold my freezer is. I still would have thought it would take more than a couple minutes for an ant to freeze to death like that, especially this species--they are always out even when it is in the low 40's sometimes in the high desert. Of course some of the mites were still moving.
 
A day has gone by now, and it looks like most of the mites are actually dead. I'm not sure if the vinegar killed them, or the freezer. These also don't seem to be feeding on the queens. I can't really see any where that the mites are bored into the queen; they all look to me like they're just sitting on the queen. I'm really hoping these are just phoretic mites.
 

[dspdrew]

Update 3-21-2015
 
Yesterday while out anting, Chromerust found one more of these queens and gave it to me, putting my total at seven new queens for the season.

[dspdrew]

Update 3-27-2015
 
I managed to wipe the mites off one of the new queens. I started working on another, but didn't get them all yet. A brown liquid started coming out of its gaster somewhere. I'm not sure if I hurt it or what, but it seemed this liquid was coming out of the joints between its gastral terga, and possibly even other joints. I noticed that some of these mites are dead, and probably the ones that fall of the easiest. I was wondering what they would be eating if they were just phoretic mites. It seems to me they would eventually starve or dry out. Maybe that is what's happening; who knows... I'm still going to try to remove them all anyway.

 

Two of the mite-free queens now have workers.

 

As for my big colony, they are still doing well. They now have well over the 1500 workers I estimated they had in the last update. It also looks like they still haven't managed to dig through the nylon mesh in their nest.

 

I observed something interesting with the large colony. There's usually maybe around 200 or so workers in the out world either standing there or wandering around. A few days ago, most of the workers went down into the nest. For the first time since the colony has been this large, there were probably less than 50 workers outside of the nest. It was like this for about two days, and then suddenly there were TONS of workers outside in the out world streaming up the sides. There were inch-and-a-half-wide columns of them going up the sides of the out world, only to fall back down once reaching the top of course. In total, there were probably over 600 workers out there in the out world. Some of them were even starting to take brood out of the nest. It was like this for about two days, when I got suspicious. I checked the water, and the tank had gone completely dry! This was obviously what was causing this interesting sequence of activity. I quickly filled the tank back up, and within minutes, there were no more columns of them streaming up the sides, and most of them went back down into the nest. Pretty soon the bottom chambers were filled solid with workers, obviously drinking the water as it soaked into the sponge. Soon everything went back to normal with about 200 or so just hanging around in the out world.

 

This tells me something. I think they actually liked the nest much more once it started to dry out, but of course it was clear that once it had gone completely dry they decided they needed to quickly find some water or a new more humid place to nest. Now that I think about it, this doesn't surprise me at all. This nest right now is using a PVA sponge, which absorbs water so well that the entire thing is soaked. I had a feeling this would be a problem in a nest this small. Luckily, I'm actually planning to use ceramic tiles now anyways, so this won't be an issue.

[dspdrew]

Update 3-29-2015
 

All of the new queens are now completely mite-free. Using my extremely fine forceps, I wiped them all off. I also briefly held them under running water from the sink to help knock the mites off.

 

There is a total of six new colonies now, three of which have workers. One has six, one has seven and one has a total of 17 workers already.

[antmaniac]

That is a lot of care you put in, well done!

[dspdrew]

Update 4-2-2015
 
First of all, one of the new queens died, so I gave its brood to one of the another queens. They now all have workers except for the one that Chromerust found not too long ago.
 
I moved the largest of the new colonies into one of my ant farm boxes. They've already dug themselves a nice little nest. Unlike Myrmecocystus, and just like Pogonomyrmex, the queen helps out a lot digging the new nest. As a matter of fact, Pogonomyrmex and Veromessor queens seem to do even more work than the workers when it comes to digging nests, at least at these early stages.
 

 

 
 
I moved my large colony out of the prototype formicarium so I could make some changes to it. I swapped out the acrylic nest with one made from resin with the sand texture. I also put a ceramic back plate on instead of the nylon mesh covered PVA sponge. Again I put them all in a tub coated with fluon, and gave them two test tubes to move into temporarily. Once the formicarium was ready, I moved them back in.
 
First the two test tubes.
 

 
 
And then all the rest in the tub.
 

 
 

 

 
 
Using these pictures, I estimated the worker count, and came up with around 1500 again.
 
They immediately started moving into the new nest.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
They can walk so much easier on this material and texture. Also, the ceramic backing should be a lot drier now towards the top, which they should like a lot more. I notice I didn't end up with any dead workers this time during the move. I'm really not sure what killed so many of them the last two times I moved them. The only difference I can think of, is the fluon in the bin has been in there a long time. The last two times, I applied it just an hour or so before dumping them in.

[antmaniac]

I am guessing 1600 ants. Do they accept multiple queens?