6 replies to this topic

[hendicott]

It starts on May 9th feeling a bit down because all the conditions seem right for nuptial flights but I haven't seen any queens or flying ants at all. Then it happened. It was dinner time, opening the cabinet to get out some plates and there is an ant, a large ant, larger than all the ants I've ever seen inside the house, just sitting there on the middle section between the 2 doors.

 

My first reaction is to look at her mid section. It's big, just like pictures I've seen but my eyes aren't that good so I can't see if there are wing scares. Oh well, who cares, I must get something to catcher her with. I run to my room where I have my test tube waiting and run back to the kitchen. She still hasn't moved. It must be a queen.

 

Here we go. I put the tube up next to her and she takes off. I'm not sure I expected her to run into a test tube but I did wish it. She runs down the middle post, across the bottom of the cabinet to the next one so I open that door. She runs crosses onto the door and starts running to the other sided as I'm using my hand to try and heard her into a test tube. As she is getting towards the edge of the door, it occurs to me that it is very bright in the kitchen and I remembered that if you want to move ants then make the place they are in bright and the place where you want them to go dark so I put the tube in my fist and put it next to the edge of the door to simulate a dark hole and she ran right in, just like I instantly pictured it in my mind. I capped the tube and put her aside till after dinner.

 

After dinner I got my tube that I had ready with cotton, added water and cotton, taped the 2 tubes together. She didn't want to move so I made the new tube dark and held them both up to the light and after a few minutes she moved into the new tube. I capped that tube with more cotton. took a few pictures and put her in the basement store room.

 

I figured that the basement store room would be quiet and dark and a good place for her to start her new family so I checked on her every couple of days for a week or so. NOTHING.

 

Trying not to get to excited I look for more info about queen behavior, I found that she could be fertile and loose her wings, not fertile and loose her wings and then I thought maybe the room was too cool, so I moved her into my bedroom and put her on the dresser in a black felt bag near the TV cable box, which radiates a small amount of heat.

 

2 days later May 19th, I haven't checked on her in 2 days. my wife asks "how's your ant doing?" and I ask her which one...as she is pointing to the black felt bag. I told her to take a look. She says, what is this thing that she is playing with? I looks and there is an egg. She laid an egg, it is a queen. Now I'm wondering is she fertile.

 

May 22nd pm. I've joined the formiculture forum and posted her pic and I take another look, now there's 4 little eggs that she is fussing over and they are on the side closest to the TV cable box. She must like the heat.

 

Time to barrow a camera and take a better picture and post in the ID section to get a better idea of what she is. She looks like Camponotus.

 

[hendicott]

It's now June 16, 2017. In the last week of May I was frustrated because the plastic tube she was in has some kind of texture on the outside of it and was obstructing good pictures, well, good pictures from my iPhone that is. I found a local place that I can buy glass tubes from and transferred her to the new tube.

 

I'm still keeping her in the black velvet bag next my cable box and so I fixed up the new glass tube and taped it to the old tube and stuck the glass tube into the bag while leaving the current plastic tube out in the light. after a few hours she finally ventured into the new dark glass cave but wasn't quite convinced that she wanted to go there but she did eventually grab the eggs and go.

 

I used to be a jeweler so I have one of those loops that you see jeweler stick in there eyes to inspect the goods and that's what I use when I check on her every couple days. I have to wonder what she's thinking because she will generally pic up an egg and look back at me. Almost like she is showing them off to me.

 

The first 4 or 5 eggs she first laid are coming along in their stages and I'm looking forward to the big reveal I hopes that she is fertile. I'm kind of expecting the first new worker to come along in the next week or so.

 

May 21st just after the switch to the new glass tube

 

June 9th, after I found a better app for taking pictures on my iPhone.

 

[hendicott]

June 21, 2017 - Yesterday was the first born of my first queen, pretty cool. Like mother like daughter, the new born seems to be happy and content, attentive to the queen and her sister eggs. I guess since she was born without wings, that means she's a fertile queen.

 

If the time line is correct, the queen is producing 4 to 5 eggs a week and they are taking about a month from egg to ant (I thought it would be longer) and if that's the case I'd expect at least 3 more by the end of the week and the colony should be 25 strong by sometime in August. I guess my plan would be to move them into a new home before hibernation time.

 

I can't help but compare this to an avocado. One time I cut up an avocado to make some dip and decided to stick some tooth picks into the seed and put it in a glass of water. after several weeks it started growing. Not much to do but watch the progress. Although the avocado was in the light and the queen is out of the light, I caught the queen in my kitchen less that a foot away from where I started the avocado seed growing.

 

seems like the pics are getting stretched after posting.

 

[Nathant2131]

What's the queen's size?

[hendicott]

What's the queen's size?

she is 9mm

[hendicott]

June 30, 2017 - Yesterday was the birth of worker number 3 and is the end of the first batch of eggs.

 

on the 26th I offered up some honey. One of the workers was so excited she pretty much just dove into the drop. It was a very small drop so I wasn't to afraid that she would drown but there was a big drop of it under her head. she would wander of and spread it out on the tube and eat it up and then come back to the drop and dive in again. The other worked was not as impressed (must have been the newbee, er newant) but she also took a small drink. After about 5 minutes of acting like nothing was going on the queen decided to check it out. She took a taste, turned her nose up and went back to her broad. All the girls looked drunk after leaving the honey. The workers would stager around and eventually come back for more until it was gone

 

The second time on the 28th, I left the parchment with the honey on it in the tube over night and when I checked the next day they had deposited some trash in the drop, which I thought was ok because I could remove it. when pulling out the cotton one of the workers had tangled herself up and was caught in it. I wondered how long she had been snagged. She was pulling quite hard but was getting nowhere close to pulling away. Hmm...what to do, let her be and take a ride on the cotton ball while removing the parchment? After all she got herself snagged, maybe she could get herself out. She wasn't getting any help from the queen or her sisters. The queen was napping and her new daughter was tucked under her napping too. The other sister was just wandering around like normal. I decided to help. I pulled out the cotton and with 2 tweezers pulled her away from the cotton. she spent the next 15 or 20 min trying to free the cotton strand from her body. She reminded me of what a cat or dog looks like when you put a piece of tape on their foot.

 

I'm not sure I like the cotton, I know about alternatives and might choose something different but tubes with cotton seems to be the norm and widely used. Oh, here's another comparison. This is my first time raising a colony, i'm probably paying to much attention to it instead of just watching. With my first kid I was always following him around when he started crawling and walking to make sure he was going to be ok and warning him of all the dangers in life. The second kid was different, no more following around, she was fine watching from across the room...no big deal, after all the house was baby proof by then.

 

one thing I started to wonder about. the first tube I setup had an air bubble after a week. I eventually got another tube setup and moved the queen into it. This tube has never has had an air bubble. It appears that the when the water is evaporating, its sucking the cotton down the tube with it.    

[hendicott]

July 6, 2017 - I went on vacation for a few days. On July 1st we went to Boonville, Mo to see the Budweiser Clydesdales and while waiting I had a flying ant land on me. Lol, easy way to start a conversation. I'm not sure what was though but small, black and male.

I got home on the 5th and oops, she did it again, tangled herself up in the dry cotton top. I'm pretty she she was the first born. This time it was fatale and that makes her the first dead.

It seems like after offering a honey drop, it causes the oldest to start forging because another started picking at the dry cotton again. Hopefully she doesn't suffer the same fate. Maybe I'll switch to heavy steal wool.

I answered my question about the cotton getting sucked down with the water. I filled up a tube, put in some cotton and marked it. Yes, it will. I don't see any pros to this. The con is that any mold on the wet cotton smears on the side of the tube along with leaving little fibers if cotton as well that obstructs viewing. Next I will refill another tube and wad the cotton into a tighter ball. I would rather the wet cotton not move for the reasons above and that the lower the cotton gets sucked down, the lager the area gets between the dry and wet cotton. It seems like they prefer tighter spaces.