383 replies to this topic

[Serafine]

So their tube finally ran out of water and they needed to move.
I just put the two tubes together with a straw and a bit of light was enough to encourage them to move, although the queen did take quite some time (2-3 minutes or so) to become active.

They are currently VERY active in their new tube, scouting out the place and probably rearranging everything (I put the top cotton blob from the old tube into the new tube with most of the fruit flies they had stored there, I guess they will put the food to the new outer cotton end like they did with the old tube).

Contrary to my believe they don't have larvae yet, still only eggs (might be tier1 larvae but it's hard to see).
But all of them look healthy and well-fed, so it's fine (and yes they're still four workers, it's just really hard to get all four on a picture).

Old tube:


New tube:

Edited by Serafine, January 8 2017 - 7:35 AM.

[Serafine]

Update time!

The cheeky little buggers tricked me, they DID have larvae all along. They just fed one really well, while the others remained tiny, almost egg size. And they sticked all the other larvae (and the additional eggs they layed yesterday) to that big one larvae, so if you just look at it without magnification it's really hard to comprehend what's going on because the pile looks different everytime you look at it (depending on the angle of view).
Here is a picture of them all together - I accidentally took one with flash on and was like "OMG, crap!" thinking they would go totally nuts but actually they didn't border in ANY way and remained completely calm.

(click on the picture to enlarge)


Since they seem to be more active again I increased their fruit fly ration to 4 fruit flies per day. The first load was completely obliterated (the queen alone ate 3 of them and she ate EVERYTHING - there was literally nothing left of them after an hour), the second load was partially eaten (1 is gone, 1 is being eaten by the larvae) and partially stored at the dry cotton end (2 of them).
Not sure yet if it is too much as they have already started stocking up on them again but time will tell as I watch their stocks closely, although they did take in the additional 2 fruit flies I placed in their outworld yesterday night, something I didn't expect.
 
Yesterday afternoon they also got their first cricket which was met with a lot of excitement - I have never seen so much antkissing anywhere, it was like a kissing orgy. When observed last time early this morning they were still busy tearing the cricket apart (they had successfully dismembered it, only the center of the body is left). It got placed at the dry cotton end on the other side of the straw (not with the fruit flies). I wonder if they are sorting the stored food.
 
I also recognized a role change - instead of 3 brood tenders and 1 forager/defender there now seem to be 2 brood tenders and 2 foragers/defenders (an aggressive one which is probably the older forager, and a more calm one that is always coming to help although it still often hangs around with the brood when there's nothing to do).
And their distribution of food is a bit hilarious as it often goes forager feeds queen -> queen feeds brood tender -> brood tender feeds brood. No idea why they are doing it that complicated, maybe they just love to share food with each other (although It might have something to do with them passing hormones to each other).

The larvae have so far been growing VERY slowly (the eggs where layed mid november so they're over 2 months old by now), I hope they pick up speed otherwise it's gonna take them 2-3 weeks to even pupate. Although my hopes are high since they have started taking food again and the queen layed an egg yesterday night (I couldn't have told from the size of the pile but well, she did it right in front of my eyes while the workers were cutting up the cricket) with probably more eggs incoming.

Edited by Serafine, January 24 2017 - 4:54 AM.

[Serafine]

On another note I am amazed how clean these ants are. I had zero mold so far, neither in their old tube (where they lived for almost two months) nor in the new one.

 

In their old tube they pulled some cotton from the front plug to make a toilet area and in the new bigger tube they use the middle cotton ball for that. They only poop in dry places so it doesn't mold. And they store all their food in dry places (mostly the front plug) as well, so that doesn't mold either.

Edited by Serafine, January 24 2017 - 4:41 PM.

[Leo]

i suggest a heating pad, my camponotus are tropical, so take my suggestion with a grain of salt 

Edited by Leo, January 24 2017 - 4:49 PM.

[Serafine]

My room is at 25°C (this house is ridiculously well insulated). I do have a heating cable but I don't want to risk overheating them (they are just in a tube and have no room to evade if it gets too hot, also it could cause condensation and mold in the tube) and a small 25W heat lamp (but they're not yet ready to appreciate that as they only come out of their tube during the night when it is completely dark).

[Serafine]

Well, so I bought a cup of fruit flies at the pet store and yesterday night I tried to give them to my ants.
 
 
 
I gently pushed them into their test tube and well, their reaction is best described with these memes:
 








 
They examined the fruit flies for a few minutes, then a worker took them and dumped them into the outworld (together with the remains of the cricket). At least these ants keep their home clean.
 
 
Later they got a few fruit flies from the "wild colony" in my kitchen and while they didn't break out in excitement, they didn't throw them away either. In fact they seemed mildly interested but probably they're still full (although they completely ate all the older kitchen fruit flies they still had in store when I last checked up on them). I hope they give them to the larvae so they get some more workforce soon.

Edited by Serafine, January 27 2017 - 12:09 PM.

[Serafine]

So I tried something new. Three days ago I gave them red mosquito larvae (fish food) and some fruit flies. The mosquito larvae came dry (they were dry-frozen) so I put them in a cup of warm water that they get squishy again and easier for the ants to eat.
After the initial greeting ritual for unknown food ("I don't know you, here take some formic acid!") they ate two of the fruit flies and no idea what thy did with the mosquito larva, it just disappeared.
 
On the next day I tried a bit more and gave them two red mosquito larvae and a small cricket. They went completely crazy over the mosquito larvae to a point where for a short time all four workers went to the front of the tube to feed on them (something that has never happened before).
They completely consumed them (I could see the ants eating them like pretzel sticks) and when they were done they all looked like this:

(ants in the picture are Prenolepis imparis)

I didn't even know Camponotus workers could get that fat. Hopes are that this will accelerate their brood development which seems to take an eternity, however I've read that they develop slowly when below 28°C (currently they're at about 25°C), so we'll see what happens.
One larva is becoming really big (almost as big as the nanitic workers) and the others look like they had also grown a bit as well.

[Serafine]

Here is a picture series of the entire setup. Note that this is just a provisionally setup until the proper stuff arrives, although I intend to keep some large containers like this as part of their setup (I might even try to raise aphids in one).

[Serafine]

Wow, this is kinda outdated, so... update time!

 

Well, I tried a 15W heating cable but it didn't really work out. There was just a tiny bit of condensation at the top of the tube but after a while the workers started to extensively groom the larvae and what I think they did was they actually tried to cool them as the tube got too hot. Since the room is already at ~25°C and the ideal nest temperature for them is 24-28°C I won't heat them anymore. They should be fine with room temperature.

Also working with them got a bit tricky since they become some sort of Ferrari racing ants when the temperatures go higher.

 

Next thing is, these little creatures are smart. They've already learned that when their tube is shaking usually something "invades" their nest (= the food I push through the straw with a wooden stick). So as soon as I touch the tube one or two of the workers will run to the front chamber and stand guard which means I have to wait a few minutes until they calm down again before I can add any food to their tube (the queen doesn't care btw, it seems she always stays relaxed, even when two workers are running around like mad waving alarm flags).

I also had to clean out the front chamber of their tube (remove the cotton, brush everything out, wait until they calmed down, put cotton back in) since they wanted to dispose the crickets but weren't able to do so because the dried hardened legs didn't fit though the straw. As a result they now get legless crickets (I remove the legs before feeding them).

 

Adding a sugar water tube was a good idea, these ants drink sugars in bursts. The sugar water level doesn't change for days, then over night suddenly a huge portion goes missing.

 

Their appetite on protein is fine so far. After some fruit flies and crickets I caught a big spider in my kitchen which was feasting on the wild fruit flies there (it had almost the size of the queen). After a day in the freezer I removed the legs and put it into the tube. It got the regular greeting ("I don't know you, have some formic acid") and two of the workers seemed fairly interested. When I checked on them the next day the spider was gone. Like, literally gone. I can' find a trace of it anywhere, it completely disappeared. No idea what they did with it but the queen looking like a replete (her gaster is essentially transparent) is a good hint - I guess she just ate it entirely the way she likes to do with the fruit flies. Maybe the larvae ate some of the harder parts as well.

 

Speaking of the larvae, they have picked up in development. The largest one is now really big, larger than the nanitics (still no sign of it pupating though) and the smaller ones also have doubled in size. Plus a few days ago the queen laid a new batch of eggs.

 

Finally, yesterday I fed them some raspberries (actually it was two of the tiny bubbles that make up a raspberry and yes, they also got the acid greeting). It was really interesting to watch them eat these - they ripped off tiny bits by biting into it and then quickly pulling back, I've never seen them doing something like this before (wait, now that I'm mentioning it I did see this before when they encountered dead insect food - but I always thought that was more of a "is it dead?" test). They were pretty well-fed already so they didn't eat much but they pushed them to a dry cotton part which usually means they like it and wanna keep it so they can eat it later.

 

Since they are so extremely well-fed I decided to not disturb them at all for a week and just let them do their thing. Maybe I can report the first pupa then, or a new batch of larvae!

[Leo]

nice 

[Serafine]

Three weeks ago:


Today:

[CrazyLegs]

Nice pics.

[Serafine]

Here's another picture. The larvae are growing nicely, as do the eggs.


 

I replaced the straw with an even bigger one so they can carry the larger waste parts (superworm shells, cricket parts) into the outworld and dump them, which means I don't have to "invade" their tube anymore to clean those out.
That however required the removal of the cotton ball and the workers really don't like that. The workers became really agitated as expected, however the queen's reaction was sort of funny - she became slightly irritated at first then just walked up the wall so the workers don't bump into her all the time anymore.
She must be thinking something like "WTF why are these idiots panicking again" cause she doesn't really notice anything in her safe back chamber.

[Leo]

[Serafine]

So while I was in the woods today visiting my favorite ant hills I took some time to catch a few wood spiders which were crawling over the ground since my ants love spiders so much.

After a dead frozen spider was put on the entrance area of the straw the worker quickly discovered it, grabbed it with a quite impressive jump attack and immediately pulled it through the entire tube into the nest's rear chamber where the queen and the larvae are.

 

Now usually the queen just waits patiently until the workers did their job sucking out whatever prey they brought in and then come around to feed her. Not this time. That spider was just to yummy.

It was pretty impressive seeing the queen sinking her huge mandibles into the spider's butt. It was like a T-Rex ripping through a goat.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and the first larva started to pupate. Also the queen just laid another egg (probably more) during her dinner.

[Serafine]

In case you haven't seen in the first post there's a list of foods I have offered them and if they accepted it or not. It's getting updated frequently.

The last thing I tried was marple syrup and they liked it.

[Serafine]

Almost all development stages are present now.

 

 

A pupa, three big larvae, several small larvae and the worker at the bottom of the glass holds another bunch of eggs.

[Leo]

mine won't eat raw crickets or spiders,they will only eat frozen crickets 

[Serafine]

All my foods are frozen. I usually put them into warm water for a few minutes before feeding them to the ants (except the raspberry bits because they would dissolve).

[Leo]