64 replies to this topic

[dspdrew]

5-10-2014
 
On Saturday 5-3-2014 I collected three of these queens crawling on a giant rotted log up in a place called Little Thomas Mountain in the San Jacinto Mountains. It was a few hours after dark, and the temperature was in the 50's.
 
It's been a week now and all three of them have started laying eggs.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dspdrew]

Update 5-16-2014
 
Last night, May 15th, I found another one of these queens up near Big Bear, California, in the San Bernardino Mountains. She was just walking around on a large rotted log. I now have four C. laevigatus queens.

[dspdrew]

Update 5-29-2014
 
The queen I found in the San Bernardino Mountains died. One of the remaining three already got her first cocooned pupa just few days ago. That was only three weeks--very fast for a Camponotus.

[dspdrew]

Update 6-11-2014
 
One of these three queens died yesterday, so I gave its brood to the other remaining queen that only had one pupa and a couple eggs. The pupae had gotten slightly wet, so the cocoon had sort of started to disintegrate. After about a day, it didn't look like this queen was accepting the pupae, so today I took one of them out and gave it to the third C. laevigaus queen, and took another and gave it to my C. semitestaceus colony to see if they would accept it. This third queen also just had two workers eclose today.
 

 

[Gregory2455]

Update this!

[dspdrew]

I will when I put them in hibernation in November.

[Gregory2455]

At least reveal how many workers they are at right now.

[dspdrew]

Nothing's really changed.

[dspdrew]

Update 11-4-2014
 
This colony hasn't really changed much at all. The other day I put it in the fridge for hibernation.

[dspdrew]

Update 11-22-2014
 
The workerless queen in the test tube was found dead yesterday.

[Chromerust]

My Lavigatus are in the fridge and I just saw a worker out picking at a piece of mealworm

[dspdrew]

Yeah I know... I found some Lasius roaming around in my fridge. I thought they were supposed to be sleeping.

[dean_k]

Add Myrmica to the list of I-don't-care-about-cold spp.

[dspdrew]

Update 1-16-2015
 
I took this colony out of hibernation today. It looks like one worker died, and another might be dying, but the rest look healthy. They have one medium-sized larva.

[dspdrew]

Update 2-27-2015
 
This colony lost three workers since taking them out of hibernation for some reason. They don't seem to be producing either. Since they might not have hibernated long enough, I put them back into hibernation the other day.

[dspdrew]

Update 5-5-2015
 
I took these out of hibernation today. Only four workers lived, but it looks like the queen and one of those workers might be dying.

[dspdrew]

Update 5-28-2015
 
Their only major has died, leaving just three minors left in this colony. But, the queen also finally laid two new eggs.

[dspdrew]

Update 5-31-2015
 
I found five new queens yesterday in Angelus Oaks, California.

[dspdrew]

Update 7-11-2015
 
One of the new queens died. The remaining four all got their first workers about a week ago.
 

[dspdrew]

Update 8-27-2015
 
The four colonies are all doing very well. The largest one now has thirteen workers, and the other three have either eleven or twelve. The largest also has the most newly laid eggs.