5 replies to this topic

[koeng]

Hello everyone!

 

I'm a student from Huntington Beach, CA. My nickname is 'Koeng' (Ko-ing). I'm looking to start setting up a few ant colonies of my own after failing with the local argentine ants for a couple of years. (They have made the local species go extinct and now it's only them. They are very tenacious and don't believe in barriers. I set up some petro jelly at the top of my formicarium and nearly the entire colony suicided into it. I've never gotten any queens to lay eggs, even when I brood boost hundreds of workers for them. My first mistake was that they were claustral, which they most definitely are not).

 

I also happen to be a DIY synthetic biologist, hence the DNA for profile pic, so I have the equipment and know-how to do genetic testing and large-scale growth of fungi. I'm interested in characterization of leafcutter ant fungi, endosymbionts Camponotus, and possibly bacteria inside of repletes, although I'm also just interested in ants themselves as amazing biological machines. 

 

-Koeng

 

 

[T.C.]

Welcome, I am not going to lie, I don't know much about the biological aspect of ant keeping, however I have had a successful colony or two in my past. Just post any questions here as you go about ant keeping, and we will do our best to help you out. However just in your first paragraph their, it isn't recommended you use pettroleum jelly. I know some people say you can, but I have had no success with it! You can use canola oil or best of all fluon which you could actually get from "drtmiller"  a member here.    Also I don't recommend giving them hundreds of of anything, even pupae. They weren't larvae or eggs where they? Anyways f you are going to brood boost, in my opinion just a few pupae would be appropiate. Like no more than 10.  However, Like I said Welcome and good luck to you in the future.

[Crystals]

Welcome!

 

You may find this link interesting - http://www.formicult...of-handy-links/

[koeng]

Will try to get some fluon!

 

No, I gave them basic workers. Argentine ants are odd in that they are all completely compatible with each other, aka I can take an entire argentine ant colony from San Francisco and mix it with one here and they would get along just fine (given they have relatively the same diet). When I did my brood boosting the workers pretty much got along with the queens and organized their own 'mini colony' with the queens still a bit aimless in their walking about. They mate in the nest so are very good at cooperation since they are pretty much just clones, and because of that, there are many queens per nest. Queens even have been reported to go foraging with workers at established colonies. Because their new colonies are budded from the original one they spread very effectively through suburban areas because of constant reinforcements. (these are just some facts I remember from reading up on them, you can definitely fact check me)

 

Thank you for the link and the warm welcome. I will look through them

[Foogoo]

Hello everyone!

 

I'm a student from Huntington Beach, CA. My nickname is 'Koeng' (Ko-ing). I'm looking to start setting up a few ant colonies of my own after failing with the local argentine ants for a couple of years. (They have made the local species go extinct and now it's only them. They are very tenacious and don't believe in barriers. I set up some petro jelly at the top of my formicarium and nearly the entire colony suicided into it. I've never gotten any queens to lay eggs, even when I brood boost hundreds of workers for them. My first mistake was that they were claustral, which they most definitely are not).

 

I also happen to be a DIY synthetic biologist, hence the DNA for profile pic, so I have the equipment and know-how to do genetic testing and large-scale growth of fungi. I'm interested in characterization of leafcutter ant fungi, endosymbionts Camponotus, and possibly bacteria inside of repletes, although I'm also just interested in ants themselves as amazing biological machines. 

 

-Koeng

 

Welcome! Your work sounds really interesting, PM inbound.

[dspdrew]

Welcome.