39 replies to this topic

[Mathiacus]

Thanks drew. That makes sense, I never thought of it.

honey, sugar, milk and water mix

one of my beautiful ladies.

two in one shot!

just moved into the block my wife carved.

a small fraction pf the brood.. is piled badly because impatience caused them to be air injected..

[Mathiacus]

just an afternoons work :-) I hope to find a small colony to populate it with.

[dspdrew]

Nice carving.

[Mathiacus]

Thanks. I got a rotary tool but only used it to trace through the paper I drew this on to the block underneath. I am much more comfortable using my scalpel and screwdriver method.

[Mercutia]

Super cute. Lucky you can get your hands on ytong so easily.

[Gregory2455]

I lost my rotary tool... I literally have no idea where I placed it.

[Mathiacus]

How does one lose a power tool? Massive garage? I misplace the odd screwdriver but the things with long cords are easy enough to find ;-)
I don't like mine as much as I thought I would.. cost me as much as 8 more hebel blocks would have. If I could go back, id take the blocks.

[Mathiacus]

I checked on my 7 remaining queens. All are alive. 1 has a pile of eggs and 2 may have an egg or two each. One more tube has failed but I think I can rescue the queen before it dries out completely.

I went on ebay and picked up some glass test tubes. 16mmx150mm I am thinking that I will have more luck In spring with the glass tubes. Planning ahead is so unlike me!

[Mathiacus]

Making a prettier outworld. They will have stuff to climb and stuff to hide under.

[Mathiacus]

^this outworld has veen donated to my O.glaber colony. They love it! There has been a steady stream of ants all going back and forth checking out the new digs. Some have even moved a few larvae in under the large piece of pine bark.

After a bit of observation I have decided to construct a new, much smaller nest for these guys. The population is quite massive but they have all confined themselves in one of the small chambers down deep. Noting this I designed the new block to have narrow corridors and much smaller chambers. I have also improved the watering system and plan to keep it on a heat pad. I will make it perfectly dark in there, hook it up and allow them to pick and choose where they go. After a week I will force a move to wherever the larger population went. I just feel that the block they are in now is much too large. It is about 95% unused at the moment. If they choose the smaller nest ill go ahead and make a medium one for sometime next year after the summer population explosion.

[Mathiacus]

The white block on the top left is the new block I was talking about. The block it rests on is the one they are currently under utilizing. There is a photo of it in this or another thread.
The large tub obscuring the large block is the outworld for my camponotus nigriceps. It is connected to the other large block that is laying horizontal under the O.glaber block. To the right at the rear is my R.metallica colony and in front of that is that green "ants" block with a crematogaster colony half moved in (you can see the tube hanging out of the left side and resting on the C.nigriceps outworld, it is full of ants and larvae.)

[Mathiacus]

4 of my ladies have moved in. Not sure where the 5th is. Looking forward to getting a picture of all 5 together!

[Mathiacus]

Got all 5 in the one shot finally.

This colony was not taking any of the seeds I offered but continued to go for the honey/milk mix. Once I started offering crickets they really went for them. I have a cricket breeding box but I'm not sure if I want to breed them because of the smell!

[Mathiacus]

This colony is coming along very nicely! There have been almost no deaths in the time that I have been keeping them. Since I started offering crickets the larvae have started growing in size at an appreciable rate.

I am expecting a generation of smaller workers from the undernourishment they endured as I learned what they needed but hopefully they are getting what they need now.

I am trying different things in their outworld. One thing I did was offer some loose sand. They took a bunch in to their nest and have been filling holes and making their life a little more comfortable. They even we so far as to build a ramp over the stepup that was created by joining two different sizes of tubing between their outworld amd nest.
I gave them a large pile of very fine sand to see what they would do with it , they tried to build a home in it. I may have to remove this before they start transferring brood over.

[Mathiacus]

By the time I got around to doing anything about the sand mound they had moved all the queens in and quite a lot of the brood. I am rethinking my setup now. I think ill make a variety of nests and hook them all up together and let the ants choose the one they prefer.

[Mathiacus]

I flipped a few pavers out in the back yard today. All had nests with tons of brood and alates. I am tempted to ready another nest and catch me some pheidole sp. I will have to wait until I get back from my trip to Melbourne though :-(

[Mathiacus]

I have been out of the house for over a week now. I am hoping that my ants survived on the stocks of food and water I gave them before I left.

I spent the week in another state and somehow I managed not to look for any ants at all. No inner debates about taking them home for me!

[Mathiacus]

The 6 queens that remain in the test tubes all have nice piles of eggs. I have moved them to a warmer location to try speed up development.

[dean_k]

Fun life, you have, sir.

 

5 queens in a single colony. That's one busy house to watch.

[Mathiacus]

The test tube queens have larvae now. I am getting excited, it has been a long time coming. Might pin down an id some time soon.