31 replies to this topic

[Antking117]

 

Tetramorium Sp. E Journal

 

 

I caught 7 queens of Tetramorium Sp. E on 06/21/17, left 4 in test tube setups, 2 in Tarheel's atom style B, and 1 in Tarheel's Custom Mini Hearth. I ordered 2 of Drew's founding formicariums (the one with no dirt), and put 2 from test tubes into these formicariums. On 06/30/17 all of them have eggs and are going strong. On 07/09/17 both Tarheel's atom style B formicariums murdered my queens. On 07/10/17 Tarheel's Mini hearth murders one more queen, My girlfriend catches a tetramorium queen while at work, so i put that queen in the mini hearth. On 07/25/17 I go on vacation and am expecting some nanitics when I get home !

 

 On 07/29/17 I come home from vacation and see... NANITICS!

 

8 Nanitics in one of Drew's formicariums!

 

2 Nanitics in the Mini Hearth Formicarium!

Edited by Antking117, March 30 2019 - 5:09 PM.

[Serafine]

Sweet!

 

Unfortunately not every queens makes it, no matter how well you care for them.
What happened to the queens in the test tubes?

[Antking117]

Sweet!

 

Unfortunately not every queens makes it, no matter how well you care for them.
What happened to the queens in the test tubes?

I am expecting nanitics soon ill update once they show

[Antking117]

[UPDATE] 08/02/17

 

Let us number the queens!

Queen 1 - Queen 1 is a test tube queen, she still doesn't have nanitics, but soon hopefully!

Queen 2 - Queen 2 is a Drew Founding Formicarium queen, she still doesn't have nanitics either, but soon I am sure!

Queen 3 - Queen 3 is the first of my queens to get her nanitics, she has the most at 9 nanitics with 2-3 always foraging and 2 usually sitting at the door guarding. Don't tell the others but this is my favorite of them all.

Queen 4 - Queen 4 is a test tube queen as well, getting her nanitics probably yesterday or the day before since they just darkened. No foragers yet, but I have offered some cricket leg (yum!). I ended up using the testube and a small piece of tube I broke off of a tar heel crap atom founding formicarium and made a makeshift Serafine tube out of for them to go from tube to out-world. The out-world is the only good thing I got out of the $50 founding formicarium purchase I made to tar heel (not counting the mini hearth).

Queen 5 - Queen 5 is my girlfriends queen, she has about 4 nanitics and they are feeding fine, however will not climb up top for food, so I have to feed them off of foil in the nest for now.

Edited by antking117, August 2 2017 - 1:16 AM.

[Antking117]

[UPDATE] 08/13/17

Queen 1 - Now has about 5 nanitics, I ripped apart the mini hearth and used it like another queen 4 setup. Fed them 2 fruit flies and watched them rip them apart. Not very active yet. Will be giving away to ncoatney.

 

Queen 2 - A bunch of pupae about to be nanitics about 14 to be exact.

 

Queen 3 - My most active and favorite colony thus far, she has about 20 nanitics and are active feeders eating about 3 fruit flies a day! I watched one fruit fly fall inside the base as the queen bit it and literally bit it in half as like 4 workers then ripped at the two halves and fed! Very cool to watch!

 

Queen 4 - The test tube got very moldy and moved them to a new one, i did this by setting their old test tube vertical upside down so they all hated hanging upside down and moved asap into the new one. This colony will also be moved to a #6 drew founding formicarium.

 

Queen 5 - This colony was not doing so well so i moved them out of the tarheel mini hearth into a test tube and they were doing muuuuch better. They now are at about 6 nanitics from their original 3 from before the move! Will be moving into another drew formicarium #6 when he gets around to making them

Edited by antking117, August 17 2017 - 7:46 PM.

[Antking117]

Not sure how much to feed these guys tbh xD I forgot to add i fed them a super worm and thought they were not eating them so i removed them all, and came back to a couple ants fighting on my desk cause they were inside the super worm and came out, unfortunately i guessed on which ones they came from guessed wrong and they got shredded by the colony that was in there.. Whelp next time I know to look xD

[Antking117]

[QUICK UPDATE] 08/17/17

Queen 2 has about 5 nanitics now! All other queens are fine, but queen 3 is facing upwards of another 15 or so hatching very soon.

[Antking117]

[UPDATE] 09/14/17

Queen 1 - Passed Away, the queen ended up cutting all her workers into pieces and then died.

Queen 2 - Lost all nanitics, has only about 6 workers.

Queen 3 - Still the most active and successful colony, up to about 30 total ants, with about 7 being workers and the rest nanitics, workers are about twice the size of the nanitics.

Queen 4 - Has been moved to a #4 dirt shack of drew's. They have been tunneling all over! no complete estimate, but about 10 workers constantly in tunnels, and 3-5 workers not nanitics foraging above.

Queen 5 - Has been moved to a black #6 drew founding formicarium. Lost all nanitics, has only about 4 workers. I have this white fuzzy stuff growing in the nest, is this mold?; Should I remove it?; Is it deadly to my ants? The black founding formicarium seem to be cursed.

Edited by antking117, September 14 2017 - 3:54 AM.

[T.C.]

Oh, cool... now I'm thinking I should move mine into my dirt shack thingy. Never really seemed to be much of diggers. Around here they nest under things, which is why they are called pavement ants I assume? They are also quite common in buildings as well. We got a colony in the bathroom of a gym I go to. Everytime I walk in, there is 20 or 30 of them just crawling around.   

[Antking117]

Oh, cool... now I'm thinking I should move mine into my dirt shack thingy. Never really seemed to be much of diggers. Around here they nest under things, which is why they are called pavement ants I assume? They are also quite common in buildings as well. We got a colony in the bathroom of a gym I go to. Everytime I walk in, there is 20 or 30 of them just crawling around. 

They are definitely diggers, they have to dig to get underneath things Anyways, yes I recommend! They are fun and very cool to watch! I ended up pulling all that fuzz out, looked like dead ants covered in it.

Edited by antking117, September 14 2017 - 7:59 PM.

[Serafine]

Any Tetra news?

[Antking117]

Sure, a small update, [QUICK UPDATE] 9/30/17

 

Queen 2: Queen now is up to 9 workers again, and a bunch of eggs so recovering.

 

Queen 3: EXTREMELY active, have about 30-50 full size workers that do the same as the lazy horde when it comes to fruit flies. I dump about 20 fruit flies in and in a matter of seconds 90% of the colony is out hunting them and dragging them in! Very cool to watch maybe I will upload a video.

 

Queen 4: Has not been seen since I placed her colony in the outworld and they dug. A lot of tunnel progression and they are still very active foragers with me placing abut 5 fruit flies in every 2 days. I think they might be halfway down but they are still so small they can cover up parts.

 

Queen 5: Another passing, I think I shouldn't have moved her into the formicarium until she had more workers.

Edited by antking117, September 30 2017 - 3:27 AM.

[T.C.]

Picture update on the dirt setup sir?

[Antking117]

[UPDATE] 10/12/17

 

Queen 2 - Now named Lily by my girlfriend has 15-20 workers. Hard to give a current precise count as some are inside of the super worm they are currently feeding off of. Full size workers now, very active feeders and foragers.

 

Queen 3 - Now named Orchid by my girlfriend and has around 50 full grown nanitics, uses the dead bodies from food and possibly nanitics as the door, may need to supply some sand and clean that mess up. They are very aggressive eaters, demanding food daily, or once every 2-3 days from a super worm. Drains a full feeder of sunburst in about a week. Still TONS of eggs, maybe twice the current population in eggs, so expecting a large boost in population soon. Need to order a newer formicarium.

 

Queen 4 - Still doing very well in the dirt shack, not sure on population count, still can see them out feeding when i place in food. Tons of tunnels now though. She is named Meredith and her fellow ants by my girlfriend. Takes about 4 days for them to leave a super worm alone, took one out a couple of days ago prematurely and had like 9 workers run out of the corpse.

Edited by antking117, October 12 2017 - 8:45 AM.

[T.C.]

Wait... a girlfriend that likes your ants? Didn't know there was such a thing.

 

Listen, when she becomes single again, can you give her my number please?

[xTNxANTMANx]

Wait... a girlfriend that likes your ants? Didn't know there was such a thing.

 

Listen, when she becomes single again, can you give her my number please?

 

Lol, my fiance' actually likes mine as well. She was sceptical at first cuz she hates "bugs" but she started watching the AntsCanada vids with me and she got interested. No she don't go hunting or anything lol but she will watch them with me when I feed them sometimes. It's nice that she's kinda interested LOL

[T.C.]

 

Wait... a girlfriend that likes your ants? Didn't know there was such a thing.

 

Listen, when she becomes single again, can you give her my number please?

 

Lol, my fiance' actually likes mine as well. She was sceptical at first cuz she hates "bugs" but she started watching the AntsCanada vids with me and she got interested. No she don't go hunting or anything lol but she will watch them with me when I feed them sometimes. It's nice that she's kinda interested LOL

 

Oh, I see. You have to train them.

[Antking117]

Wait... a girlfriend that likes your ants? Didn't know there was such a thing.

 

Listen, when she becomes single again, can you give her my number please?

 

Lol, my girlfriend really has supported me through getting ants always looking for ants with me, letting me spend a couple hundred dollars getting supplies, and allowing me to keep hundreds and eventually thousands of little biting ants.  

 

Also, "...when she becomes single again,"? Are you implying she will either leave me or me leave her? xD

[T.C.]

Wait... a girlfriend that likes your ants? Didn't know there was such a thing.
 
Listen, when she becomes single again, can you give her my number please?

Also, "...when she becomes single again,"? Are you implying she will either leave me or me leave her? xD

Well, I might just take her.

[Antking117]

Content removed by author. 

Edited by antking117, October 13 2017 - 12:21 AM.