67 replies to this topic

[dspdrew]

4-29-2014
 
On April 8th and 10th 2014, between 8:30 PM and 12:00 AM, I found 11 of these Camponotus sp.2 dealates along Ice House Canyon Trail near Mt. Baldy, California. It was only about 55 degrees at this time.
Original ID thread: http://forum.formicu...y-ca-4-24-2014/.
 

 
 
They started laying eggs about four or five days later, and now all have a pile of at least 10 or so eggs.
 
It has been about two weeks now since they started laying eggs, and it now looks like a few of them are starting to turn into larvae.

[dspdrew]

Update 5-10-2014
 
On Saturday 5-3-2014 I collected about 12 more of these same queens during a huge mating flight up in a place called Little Thomas Mountain in the San Jacinto Mountains. Just like the first ones we found in Mt. Baldy, we never once saw one flying, they almost seemed to just appear out of nowhere all of a sudden. It seems these mate just outside the nest and either fly a very short distance or just wander off, because we were only finding them right around nests of what appeared to be the same species.
 
About four days later, a couple of them have started to lay eggs. Since I don't really want this many, but know people who would like some, I have already given away some of them.

Here's one from the first bunch with pupae already.


 

[dspdrew]

[dspdrew]

Update 5-25-2014
 
I gave away a few more of these queens, leaving me now with a total of 17.
 
Last night one of them got her first worker.
 

 

 

 

 

 

[dspdrew]

Update 6-19-2014
 
I gave another one of these away, leaving me with 16 now. The second bunch that I found are just now starting to get workers.
 
Here's a colony that just finished filling up on hummingbird nectar.
 

 
 
I've been experimenting with mixing Camponotus brood lately to see how well they would get along with each other. In my C. yogi colony (a much smaller species of a different subgenus), the pupae would never seem to eclose; they would always just end up dead for some reason. There was never any signs of aggression, but the pupae always died. As for my C. laevigatus colonies (also a different subgenus, but about the same size), they just destroyed the pupae before they ever eclosed. I just recently added a pupa to my C. semitestaceus colony (same subgenus and size), but decided to remove it because of how badly they were abusing it. Every time they finished abusing it, they would take it to the garbage too; I don't think they were ever going to add it to their brood pile.
 
Now, as for my C. vicinus, they're getting along with these perfectly fine, no aggression whatsoever.

 

 

 
As for my Camponotus sp.4, which I suspect is just a darker variety of C. vicinus, they also get along perfectly, without any aggression.

 

 

 

 

I also added a C. vicinus pupa to one of these Camponotus sp.2 colonies, and they too are getting along great, so I am starting to think I may be right about these being the light colored variety of C. vicinus, as I have suspected ever since keying them out lead to that species.
 
In this picture, the C. vicinus worker just eclosed hours before, so it was still pretty pale, yet you should still be able to tell pretty easily which is which.
 

 
 
I also took a large major pupa from a wild all-black C. vicinus colony, and have given it to another colony of these, so I should be finding out any day now how well they get along too. Tonight I plan to put one more of these Camponotus sp.2 pupae into one of my all-black C. vicinus colonies to see what happens.

[dspdrew]

Update 9-3-2014
 
Most of these were not doing very well, and lost a lot of workers. Chromerust gave me a lot of his extras which were actually much more healthy colonies.
 
As for the large all-black C. vicinus major I gave to one of these colonies, they helped it eclose, but once eclosed they started pulling on its legs and showed signs of aggression, so I removed it.
 
I now have moved the largest and healthiest looking colony into a foraging container.
 
Here's one of the colonies given to me by Chromerust enjoying a meal. It's funny how they will literally stick their head all the way into the liquid, or completely dive in, and just sit there like that until they're full.
 

 

[Gregory2455]

You got those free? Wow. I wish...

[dspdrew]

It was more than he wanted to take care of. I am the only one crazy enough to spend six hours feeding ants.

[Gregory2455]

On the last image there, is there a drowned worker on the thumbtack?

[LAnt]

And what is the liquid?

[dspdrew]

On the last image there, is there a drowned worker on the thumbtack?

Nope, it looked drowned, but it just liked the food too much to get up until it was finished eating.

 

And what is the liquid?

Just some chicken and hummingbird nectar blended.

[dspdrew]

Update 10-17-2014
 
I put two more of these colonies in foraging containers yesterday. They seem to do well when they have a constant food supply.

[Justin]

how big are the queens?

[Gregory2455]

Largest queen that I have.

[dspdrew]

They vary from 16 to 18 mm.

[Gregory2455]

Will you hibernate some of these?

[dspdrew]

Yes, all of them.

[Gregory2455]

Mine just ate her last larva. Off to the refrigerator with her then.

[dspdrew]

Update 11-22-2014
 
These all seem to be doing okay--the ones in the foraging containers, as well as the ones in test tubes. Yesterday I put about half of the test tube colonies in the fridge for hibernation. I will hibernate the ones in the foraging containers too as soon as their cocoons eclose.

[dspdrew]

Update 12-11-2014
 
Just the other day I removed one of the hibernating colonies in the test test tubes to give to someone, and more than half of the workers were dead. I hope this does not happen to more of them. I also just put one of the queens housed in a foraging container into the fridge. I'm leaving my best colonies out of the fridge just in case. I'm really not sure whether or not these need to be hibernating.