30 replies to this topic

[MikeMc]

^^^ 5.1.2017 Update above ^^^ 

 

We have larvae with visible eyes!  (video is 1080p, just waiting for youtube to process)

Edited by MikeMc, May 1 2017 - 5:23 PM.

[Myrmidon]

Wow, I love your pictures. It totally motivated me to buy a micro lens adapter for my iPhone. Which I totally just bought right now.

 

What are your plans for all the queens? Will you keep them all or try to merge them? I saw a successful merger of some founding queens with this video (kind of hoping I could do something like this as well): YouTube Video and I found the creator's blog for this experiment here: Blog. 

 

Though I have read from various posts on this forum that timing is everything and sometimes the queens might reject each other.

[MikeMc]

I have no intent of combining the queens. I will keep the colonies separate until either I find suitable buyers, or until I have enough experience to keep a colony alive

 

I wish I had an actual macro lens, and in hindsight, for photography alone, I think higher quality test tubes would increase the photo quality.

[MikeMc]

Wha wha! ( I have decided to copy my updates in my responses to let thread subscribers see the updates without scrolling back to the top, i will continue to add to the first post too for easy archive reading.

 

5.10.2017

 

Last week's update was exciting, but this week's update is monumental. 4 of my queens now have their very first nanitics! I fed a drop of honey to each tube with Nanitics and saw 3 of the four tubes have the nanitics ingest and feed the queen through trophallaxis. My first time to witness this and it was pretty sweet. It's simply amazing how the ants just know what to do.

 

The tubes with lower water appear to be about the same as the previous week and I will continue to monitor it. 

 

I also had one queen which had mold growing pretty heavily on the cotton, and sometime between last week and this week she didn't make it. 

 

[T.C.]

Awesome, I'm excited and there not even my ants. Good luck with them.

[Nathant2131]

Beautiful workers! This getting me so psyched for when I get workers!

[Cindy]

 

Wha wha! ( I have decided to copy my updates in my responses to let thread subscribers see the updates without scrolling back to the top, i will continue to add to the first post too for easy archive reading.

 

5.10.2017

 

Last week's update was exciting, but this week's update is monumental. 4 of my queens now have their very first nanitics! I fed a drop of honey to each tube with Nanitics and saw 3 of the four tubes have the nanitics ingest and feed the queen through trophallaxis. My first time to witness this and it was pretty sweet. It's simply amazing how the ants just know what to do.

 

The tubes with lower water appear to be about the same as the previous week and I will continue to monitor it. 

 

I also had one queen which had mold growing pretty heavily on the cotton, and sometime between last week and this week she didn't make it. 

 

 

Awesome!!!! 

[noebl1]

Nice! We're about a month or so behind you in the north east; can't wait  Amazing how light they are at first in color.

Edited by noebl1, May 10 2017 - 10:33 AM.

[Nathant2131]

Get ready for an astonishing reddish brown color once the workers' exoskeletons harden!

[MikeMc]

5.22.2017

 

Not too much to add here, colonies are growing, I have been giving drops of honey every 2-3 days, need to introduce some protien soon!

 

Single photo...

[MikeMc]

It has been just over a month and a lot has been going on with the colonies that have been mostly self-sufficient since I collected them. 

 

One week ago was the first protein I provided my colonies, each one received random bugs that I caught from my local area (pesticide free). Some had mosquitos,  colonies shared a cricket that I smashed and divided, and the remainder had fruit flies. Each colony accepted the food I provided and seemed quite pleased. up until this point, I had been feeding my colonies at a small drop of honey, at least once a week.

 

On an observation note, some colonies can sense/smell the honey as soon as I open the test tube and hold it near. They will begin to become semi-frantic and will quickly line up around the droplet filling their gasters. however I have one colony that seem completely indifferent to the honey - eventually, they will approach the drop, but it won't happen until they are put away. I don't know if each colony can have different personalities, but it is certainly what I am observing.

 

Last night I chose to change all of my test tubes since a few were running dry, some were dirty and some were getting moldy. 

 

The process was quite simple and straight forward. I prepared new test tubes and filled them with RO water, then used electrical tape to attach both ends. then I set the old tubes on a heating wire and immediately the colonies began picking up the brood and began searching for a new location.   After about 45 min all the colonies had moved.  The colonies that did not have any Nanitics (ie - queen only ) took about 5 hours to fully relocate.

 

After the move I was surprised how large the brood pile actually were, many of them must have been hiding in the cotton. So everyone is fed and moved to clean quarters and things are progressing. I apologize for not grabbing fantastic photos of this process but I did snap a few of the large brood piles with my phone, enjoy!