3 replies to this topic

[SummysAnts]

Hello, I posted some while ago about some queens I had caught during a nuptial flight in October.

Here's a link to that post: http://www.formicult...6/?fromsearch=1

They were identified as Brachymyrmex depilis queens. Which was quite exciting since that ment they were polygynous. I of course combined some of them
Almost immediately after I caught these queens they seemed to go into a state of hibernation, probably because it was cold outside and the fact that they were caught so late in the season.
So I moved them to the coldest room in the house and made sleeves for the test tube's in order to keep them dark.
After that I mostly left them alone and only checked on them occasionally. On most every check they weren't moving at all and didn't do much.
But a few days ago on December 27th when I checked on them they were moving around and to my surprise one of the queens had a small white clump in her mouth, which upon closer inspection turned outo to be eggs! (yay) Then yesterday when I checked on them again they were moving around more and I saw what I believed to be more eggs in various other test tubes.
Later that day the new bigger test tubes I had ordered from LCM arrived. A lot of the queens current test tube's had a good amount of mold and a few were getin dangerously low on water so I decided to attach them and give them the chance to move on their own. A few actually went out to investigate the new tubes, which is more activity than I've seem them do since I caught them.
I was wondering if given these eggs and their increased activity it would be OK to take then out of hibernation early and place them on a heat cable. They have only been in hibernation for about two and a half months. Sorry if that's a silly question.

Also if I do take them out of hibernation should I feed them since they went into it so early?

Also another possibly silly question, would it still be OK to combine a few more of them into multi queen colonies or are they already too established? I don't want them to kill each other or eat their eggs.

Thank you in advance for reading this and giving your suggestions, by the way I plan on starting a journal on them soon.

[AnthonyP163]

Hello, I posted some while ago about some queens I had caught during a nuptial flight in October.
Here's a link to that post: http://www.formicult...6/?fromsearch=1
They were identified as Brachymyrmex depilis queens. Which was quite exciting since that ment they were polygynous. I of course combined some of them
Almost immediately after I caught these queens they seemed to go into a state of hibernation, probably because it was cold outside and the fact that they were caught so late in the season.
So I moved them to the coldest room in the house and made sleeves for the test tube's in order to keep them dark.
After that I mostly left them alone and only checked on them occasionally. On most every check they weren't moving at all and didn't do much.
But a few days ago on December 27th when I checked on them they were moving around and to my surprise one of the queens had a small white clump in her mouth, which upon closer inspection turned outo to be eggs! (yay) Then yesterday when I checked on them again they were moving around more and I saw what I believed to be more eggs in various other test tubes.
Later that day the new bigger test tubes I had ordered from LCM arrived. A lot of the queens current test tube's had a good amount of mold and a few were getin dangerously low on water so I decided to attach them and give them the chance to move on their own. A few actually went out to investigate the new tubes, which is more activity than I've seem them do since I caught them.
I was wondering if given these eggs and their increased activity it would be OK to take then out of hibernation early and place them on a heat cable. They have only been in hibernation for about two and a half months. Sorry if that's a silly question.
Also if I do take them out of hibernation should I feed them since they went into it so early?
Also another possibly silly question, would it still be OK to combine a few more of them into multi queen colonies or are they already too established? I don't want them to kill each other or eat their eggs.
Thank you in advance for reading this and giving your suggestions, by the way I plan on starting a journal on them soon.

take them out, I look forward to seeing a journal on these. I also look forward to mine laying eggs (:

[SummysAnts]

I will take them out thank you and yes I'm excited to start the journal as well. I look forward to hearing about your queens

[Batspiderfish]

I wouldn't take them out until you see ants returning to forage in the wild.