74 replies to this topic

[nurbs]

Heading home ATM, not a lot of containers left and don't want my ants to cook in my car.

By the way the flight def happened at around 9pm, same for what I think is mimicus. Massive termite flight and about a dozen other bugs I couldn't id too. I was pulling drones out of my ears this morning.

I'll scope out 29 palms on the way back too

 

Best of luck Soul! Nurse that headache. Those suck.

[dspdrew]

Goffs Rd a few hundred yards north of hidden hills rd

 

Nice. So just north of Fenner, CA... aka the gas station. That spot was dry as a bone the last time I was there a week ago, so that totally makes sense.

[soulsynapse]

Area east of 29 palms is way hot, I saw a few founding chambers but nothing came up. Ground there is like, 2 inches dry, then 4 inches damp, then dry again.

I stopped 3 or 4 times between these two points and didn't have luck. It was very very dry pretty much everywhere and there definitely wasn't that desert rain smell.

Edit will reup the img later

Edited by soulsynapse, July 20 2017 - 12:39 PM.

[soulsynapse]

k well this is a bit disappointing, but I guess live and learn

 

so here's what happened

 

1) I didn't think dorymyrmex would really fly that much cuz I caught an insanus in what, feb?

2) I knew mexicanus was bigger than everything else, but didn't know by how much

3) I looked up what honeypots looked like, then started my trek out there

4) I found what I thought was mexicanus at around 9 or 10pm, so I assumed it wasn't implausible for the other myrmecocystus species to be flying too

 

 

^ mimicus

 

vs what I found

 

 

so assuming that the myrmecocystus that I found was mexicanus, I assumed the smaller ones were mimicus

 

but what actually happened was I probably found navajo, and the rest are dorymyrmex

 

 

so kind of a bitter lesson, and at least I didn't come back without anything new. hopefully my 1 myrmecocystus is fertile.

[soulsynapse]

more annoyed than deterred, though I feel like a moron

 

24 hour rainfall:

 

[soulsynapse]

totals: 8 novomessor, 9 d. bicolor 2 d. insanus, 1 m. navajo, 4 crematogaster

[soulsynapse]

This was before I realized most of this was termites, but here you go:

 

[Scrixx]

This was before I realized most of this was termites, but here you go:

 

 

Doesn't change that it was successful! Is that a handheld blacklight?

[nurbs]

You found what Drew and I call a mini Mexican.

[dspdrew]

Termites fly out there like crazy every time the rain stops. I had so many of them one time I could scoop them out of the back of my truck by the hand-full. I usually take home a jar filled with them. They make great ant food. Just store them in the freezer. Sometimes you'll get huge brown beetles too. Pogonomyrmex go nuts over those things.

[YsTheAnt]

How long do pogonomyrmex, Myrmecocystus, and dorymyrmex chambers stay visible before they are unnoticeable? I really wanna go to Goffs and Phelan and catch those...

[dspdrew]

How long do pogonomyrmex, myrmecosystus, and dorymyrmex chambers stay visible before they are unnoticeable? I really wanna go to Goffs and Phelan and catch those...

 

It depends on the weather.

[YsTheAnt]

What's the average range of time? I might not be able to go on the weekdays so of something flies on Monday, will I be (in average conditions) be able to find their Chambers?

Edited by YsTheAnt, December 15 2017 - 10:06 PM.

[dspdrew]

I don't think you need to worry about how long they're visible for. If you're wanting to know how long you have to get out there and dig queens up, it's about one week in the winter time and two or three days in the summer depending on how hot it is. This is why I have started to take every other Wednesday off work in the summer. Otherwise, if they fly Monday like you were asking, you would not be getting anything by the weekend. I can pretty much guarantee that.

 

I don't have as much experience with the winter flights yet, but I think it could possibly be even more than a week of time if it's still pretty cool out. I wouldn't be surprised if they purposely don't even dig that deep in the Winter because of how cool it is.

[YsTheAnt]

Ok, thanks! Also, what month do you guys who go anting in the southern California reigon recommend going for most success in catching multiple queens of multiple species?

Edited by YsTheAnt, December 16 2017 - 6:09 PM.