4-21-2014
 
On April 12th 2014, I dug up 11 Myrmecocystus testaceus dealates near Lake of the Woods, California. PogoQueen found these out there and told me about the spot, so I decided to drive up and get a few myself. There were hundreds of founding chambers, and I probably had a 30 percent success rate digging them up. I noticed the ones that were in the very hard dirt were only down a couple inches, while the ones in the soft dirt were down much further.
 

 
 
This is one of their founding chambers.
 

 
 
Right away I noticed most of them were covered in little red mites. They seemed to attach themselves to the area where the wings were torn off, and on the underside of their neck. I was able to remove all the mites using a microscope and a fine-tip tweezers.
 

 
Four have died since I first collected them, two of them shortly after removing the mites.
 
On April 19th I dug up two more of these same queens in Idyllwild, California. Thankfully these new ones didn't have any mites on them. I also noticed that these queens are a bit lighter brown than the first bunch. This leaves me at a total of nine queens now.
 
A few days after collecting them, one of them laid a few eggs. Now, a little over a week later I have three of them with eggs.

Update 5-1-2014
 
Two more queens died, leaving me with seven of them. All seven now have eggs.

Update 5-10-2014
 
It seems the deaths have stopped now, leaving me with six queens. Most of them now have larvae.
 

Update 6-1-2014
 
Today one of the queens got her first worker. The rest are close behind, except for one who doesn't seem to be producing a whole lot, or possibly eating some of her brood.
 

 

Update 6-19-2014
 
Most all of these have nanitic workers now, but for some reason quite a few of them keep losing workers as fast as they're gaining them.

Update?

Does this species have repletes?

Update 9-16-2014
 
Unfortunately most of these have died, leaving me with just one queen with no workers or brood.

This seems like a very needy species. Definitely more of a challenge than Myrmecocystus navajo or mexicanus.

Update 10-23-2014
 
The last queen died yesterday.

Update 3-21-2015
 
Well, I found two more of these queens last night in Phelan, CA, so I guess I can recontinue this journal again for now. I dug them up from their founding chambers. I can tell they probably flew well over a week ago based on their founding chambers and the others around them. It hasn't rained in over a month there so I have no idea when they flew.

Update 3-30-2015
 
At first one of these new queens laid eggs, but the other wasn't doing anything, so I decided to put the one without eggs into one of these small ant farm boxes I made the other day. It started digging a founding chamber immediately. After only about a day or two, it already laid a pile of eggs. So far this seems to be working better for it. I guess we'll see how it goes.
 

 

Looking a lot like mine.

Update 3-21-2015
 
Well, I found two more of these queens last night in Phelan, CA, so I guess I can recontinue this journal again for now. I dug them up from their founding chambers. I can tell they probably flew well over a week ago based on their founding chambers and the others around them. It hasn't rained in over a month there so I have no idea when they flew.

But they still resembled founding chambers? I would've imagined they be obscured within days. Do you feed your queens? Seems like a lot of energy would be expended with all the digging.

I don't feed any that are being kept like this because I can't. They will just have to wait for their workers to get food for them once they eclose.

Update 4-30-2015
 
Two weeks ago I put the other queen in an ant farm box as well. This queen dug a really shallow founding chamber and closed it off. It must be only about an inch deep. I managed to open it up and drop her eggs in there. She finally moved them into a pile at the end of her little chamber and closed it off again.

 

The first queen I put in the box has some pretty big larvae, and I think one cocoon now.

Update 5-15-2015
 
The queen that had the large brood, now has two little workers, and quite a few more cocoons. I'll try to get pictures or video of them down in their little chambers if it's possible.

 

The other queen still just has some eggs or small larvae I think.

Update 6-1-2015
 
I just collected 30 of these queens in Angelus Oaks near Big Bear, California 5-30-2015. It was around 9:00 PM, and they were all in the process of digging founding chambers. A few of them were just standing around or wandering slowly.

 

One of the other colonies has two workers now, and they dug a really small tunnel up to the surface so they could forage.The other colony doesn't look like it has changed much; it's very hard to see it.

How are the new queens ?

Update 6-14-2015
 
It turns out the colony with the workers actually has three. They also have a really big pile of new eggs. The other queen I found the same night that one was found, died.

 

Most of the new queens have laid eggs now. I have three of them in the ant farm boxes.

Update 6-16-2015
 
Every queen has laid eggs now. Two days ago I moved six more of these into small ant farm boxes. All but one have dug nests. I wasn't sure how to give them their eggs, out of fear that they might bury them or step on them while digging their nests. Last time I waited until the queen was finished, and then poked a barbeque skewer down into the nest, opening it up so I could drop her eggs in. This time I just gave them their eggs when I put them in, and most of them piled them in a corner, and once finished digging, moved them down into their nests. I guess they're smarter than I thought.