26 replies to this topic

[RhodyAnts]

I Know this is a late journal start but I thought my experience as a beginner might be helpful to other beginners.

Background:

- Caught 8 queens on 7/10/17 @ my local park (Cold Spring Park Woonsocket RI) placed each in a their own test tube set up.

-@ about 45 days in I decided I would try to combine them into pairs with the ultimate goal of making 2 polygynous colonies of around 4 queens. (I have since discovered this is apparently not advised). I did this by joining the tubes together. Two pairs happily moved in together, sharing a single tube. One pair seemed not especially interested in having a roommate and lived separately in their own sides of the joined setup. The final pair lived separately, but shortly after one was found dead and moldy. Foul play is suspected but not confirmed. Needless to say this queen will likely have single accommodations.

- 6/23/17 Nanitics observed, having be unnoticed or overlooked on 6/22 as they are extremely small and almost transparent initially. I had previously purchased 3 AntsCanada test tube portals to serve as initial outworlds. Two setups were connected for a total of 3 queens per test portal excluding her "royal highness" who has her own outword.

- 6/24/17 a testube of food was attatched to the portals. The food was a mixture of 3 tsp raw honey, one pkt of gelatin, 12 oz water, and some red food coloring to determin if they are feeding of this mixture. 5 ml was placed in ea. Feeding testube an allowed to cool. This mixture proved to be too funny and a cotton ball was added to cap and wick the mixture. Less water is recommended.

- 6/25/17 ants do not appear to be feeding on mixture as their gasters show no sign of the red food coloring. One tube was in fact blocked with loose stands of cotton. This suggests a possible rejection of the food (subtle right!), or possibly they are not, as a colony ready for food. The latter is less likely as other New England anters have reported in their journals that their ants have been observed feeding as newly eclosed nanitics. I must consider other food sources. Referring to the preferred food post in "General Anting" forum I notice Bananas and crickets are listed. Will purchase some tonight.

Thought to date: This seems to be a species extremely forgiving of mistakes. They were disturbed often (2-3x per wk). My test tube setups were likely poorly done. The room in which they were kept, at times dropped to ~ 40°F overnight to no ill effect. It seems short of squishing them there is not much that can be done wrong. The only drawback to this species, as a beginner, is the time it takes to get nanitics. From capture to observed nanitics was 74 days and this was very consistent with reports from other New England anters keeping this species, with 74 days (Cindy) and 75 days (NathanT) recorded in their journals.

Hoping raising this colony is equally forgiving.

Edited by RhodyAnts, June 26 2017 - 1:07 PM.

[RhodyAnts]

After further thought about my initial food offering, I may not have fully considered the peculiarities of ant nutrition when formulating it. Adult ants require carbohydrate food sources, and little protein. Larvae require protein and little carbohydrates. If the ants are unable to separate the constituent micronutrients, the food would be useless, too much protein for adults, too much sugar for the kids. I think this is what happened.

On a side note a few nanitics, a queen and her small brood don't require a ton of food anyway so I might be needlessly worring. I guess I'm gonna be that kind of ant Dad! :-)

[Nathant2131]

Ah, so you started your journal! Note that it likely wasn't exactly 75 days in which my nanitics eclosed. I usually check on them about once a week so it could have been any time in between the two updates that the nanitics eclosed.

[RhodyAnts]

Yeah, had initially held off doing one, mostly because I thought they would probably not make it, what with my lack of experience and all.

I thought I had read you checked them on fri when everyone else had them, and then found them on sat. You may have gotten them earlier then. I know I had kept them a bit on the cold side, and remember Cindy mentioning that
She did as well. But what's a few days after 2.5 months :-).

- 6/27/17 Purchased "Dirt shack v1.0 formicarium" and "Galileo feeder" on Amazon. As I plan to make 2 polygynous colonies, I will need another formicarium. I might go with the another dirt shack as it is very affordable, and looks awesome, or I may go with another style and spread my odds out.

[Aquaexploder]

Ah, so you started your journal! Note that it likely wasn't exactly 75 days in which my nanitics eclosed. I usually check on them about once a week so it could have been any time in between the two updates that the nanitics eclosed.

My P. imparis still don't have workers, should I be worried? They have plenty of eggs and larvae.

[RhodyAnts]

I don't think there's too much to worry about. I don't think infertile queens lay eggs, or at least ones that become larvae. I think they just take a looooong time to eventually get nanitics. Keep a close eye out because they are super small (same size as larvae) and almost transparent at first. You might even have some and not know it!

[RhodyAnts]

I have 2 mini-colonies that have 5 workers now and and 2 that have 3. Still no observed feeding by workers. Perhaps I have just haven't observed it, or perhaps the "Rule of Five" is just a rule of thumb. The five worker colonies are certainly more active, and the workers often venture out as far as the end of the test tube. I still haven't seen them in the "AC test tube portals" I'm using a makshift baby outworld.

On my recent purchases, the dirt shack formicarium is awesome and can't wait to move my colony into it. The Galileo feeders are great! Of note the large feeders are not supposed to be compatible with the large feeders. I suspect that is why byFormica kicked in a couple little ones. Thanks for that!

Currently waiting on fruit flies to arrive. Hopefully this answers the feeding question.

[RhodyAnts]

Decided to do more colony combining today. Had 4 test tubes (1,1,2,3). Moving them into two (3,4). I suspect this is far as i'll combine them. Hoping all works well, "murder queen" is in the mix she's gonna have to fight three queens and 7 workers if she wants to get agressive.

On the food front. I got fruit flies in this week setting up a trickle feed. Titration of the tube size might be needed. Time to research fruit fly culturing! Also, I can confirm sugar feeding in my largest colony. Today I noticed 3 with very full (replete?) gasters.

Will post results of "The Joining 2: murder madness or queens of a feather" soon.

[Aquaexploder]

Can't wait for next update!

[RhodyAnts]

Combination Successful!

I now have two colonies (3 qn & 4 qn). This is a rundown of what I did.

First, Taped test tube setups of queens I wish to combine together with electrical tape. I allowed one side to be exposed to the night and the othe to remain dark. For this I used spare coin rolls and slid them over the tubes. The brood was moved by the first full day, the queens were however more stubborn, refusing to move to the other side. The next day I figured I try to "dry" them out by melting holes in the water section of my plastic test tubes. By the end of the third day I became concerned they would never move, and that if they were plugged back into the test tube portal set up separately then they might never move. I decided I would just make the combined tubes function as one giant test tube by cutting off the round and removing the cotton and plugging it into the test tube portal. That finally worked they moved toward the remaining damp cotton. It was otherwise a smooth transfer. The high humidity combined with the recent cold weather caused a great deal of condensation and that has claimed the lives of a few of workers in the smaller colony.

[RhodyAnts]

Some pics

http://imgur.com/3MstlUk

https://imgur.com/gallery/vmwg7

[RhodyAnts]

One of the queens in the 4 queen colony died. I suspect it was probably "murder queen". Otherwise all colonies seem to be well and have large brood pile.

I finally observed a worker feeding at the honey water.

A fruit fly found it's way into the nest and the workers attacked the fruit fly. An interesting thing happened though we're a few workers started atacking one another until the fruit fly was dead. No friendly fire casualties occured.


Observations:

P. Imparis do not produce a lot of brood, and brood take a great deal of time to mature. This leads me to believe in the wild there is not a great deal of worker casualties.

P. Imparis forages during times of year when other ants are less active. They also have repletes to store this food until needed. This leads me to believe that these adaptations developed to avoid direct competition with other ants, quite likely because of the immense investment of time in each workers development.

Oddly I find getting the nest to move to be a bit difficult. I would figure an ant species as averse to conflict as p. imparis would easily and frequently move nests especially if disturbed. Perhaps this will change with more workers.

[RhodyAnts]

I've seen a few casualties in the trash pile As of late. It's possible that this is just attrition and these might have been the first gen of workers but, It seems to be confined to one colony. The one that experienced some less than gentle handling in merger. I would not be especially worried, but it takes 75 days to replace each worker, and the queens of this species aren't exactly laying machines either even with 3 queens.

On a Positive note, the workers of both colonies are excellent house keepers and the cotton is nearly mildew free! There is a corresponding pile of grey cotton our side their nest. I continue to see workers feeding at the honey water tube, and have a new batch of cruit flies coming. My last batch crashed as a result of mites. Hoping to get a culture going.

(Edit)

Come to think of it, those might be the bodies of the few that drown in the condensation during that heat wave a few weeks ago. I was reading other journals and their mention of this reminded me.

Edited by RhodyAnts, July 28 2017 - 5:22 PM.

[RhodyAnts]

More bodies found in trash heap. This is concerning, given the 70+ day replacement window. One colony is down to about 7 workers, and the brood pile is very small. I fear a population collapse is imminent for both colonies. The doesn't appear to be a mold or mite issue. Workers are eating and repletes are present. Perhaps the reduced brood production is part of their normal summer habits/estivation. I'm unsure. At the rate they're going they'll be gone by September. I hope they can turn this around.

[Reevak]

I skimmed over a lot of this but I caught my Prenolepis in mid-April, it took 2 months for them to have nanitics (as you said) but none of my workers have died. I feed them a mixture of honey, sugar, and water twice a week (soaked into a balled up napkin) and a superworm part once a week (except i gave them a cricket part last night for the first time)

[RhodyAnts]

Yeah I suspect my issue is unique to my colonies. One colony in particular seems to be hit the worst. This just so happens to be the colony that had a tumble during the merger. I also feed honey water in a cotton stoppered test tube, and feed them flightless fruit flies. My colonies are also polygyninous with three queens each and introduced late in the development. It's possible that there is some inter queen conflict leading to the small brood piles.

How are your brood piles looking? The healthier of the two has about a dozen eggs and no larvae or pupae. The weaker of the two appears to have one pupae and all other brood appear to be absent. Perhaps they're hiding in the cotton. It might also be that i'm checking on them too frequently (daily) so I suppose I can reduce this to weekly. Given their earlier hardiness I'd be suprised if this is the case but i'm willing to try.

[Reevak]

I have 1 colony with 3 queens, 1 with 2 queens, and 6 colonies with 1 queen each. All of the colonies have some form of brood (a lot of it seems to be pupae) but I can't see the eggs (if any) under the larvae/pupae piles. My 3 and 2 queen colonies each have about 30+ workers and my single queen colonies have about 10 each.

[RhodyAnts]

I'm very jealous. Mine I think at their peak had 15 workers. It appears that maybe it's something i'm doing wrong. How do you keep them? Mine are kept at ambient temperature, and Checked daily. They are still in their testubes, and connected to an AC test tube portal as a make shift our world. Maybe the temp is too high? I'm kind of puzzled.

[Reevak]

I'm very jealous. Mine I think at their peak had 15 workers. It appears that maybe it's something i'm doing wrong. How do you keep them? Mine are kept at ambient temperature, and Checked daily. They are still in their testubes, and connected to an AC test tube portal as a make shift our world. Maybe the temp is too high? I'm kind of puzzled.

 

My room temperature is roughly low to mid 70s at all times, I told you what I feed them and recommend you feed them superworms and the mixture because my ants seem to like it. I keep a red sheet over them and check them several times a week (they don't seem to mind much). Mine are all in test tubes but I'll have to move them this week because its getting too cramped. I feed them directly in their test tube and it gets a bit messy but I clean it up with a cotton swab.

[RhodyAnts]

I thinking the temp might be the issue. It would esplain the eggs in the healthy colony, with recent cooler temps here in RI. I might have to invest in a small fridge asap. Cheeper than ac. Thank you for the help. This might just have saved my colonies.