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[Mathiacus]

The wife wants to go and see if we can spot the whales on the coastal track so I have decided to hijack this trip and turn it into an ant finding expedition.
I released my sugar ants back into the wild and the queens that I found all turned out to be virgins so I am woefully short on ants to stare at. I am hoping to find some of the larger species that run all over australia eating tourists and derailing trains with their tank-like bulk
Ill check back with any progress reports. I may even get around to finishing my hebel (ytong) block set up soon.

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[dspdrew]

Sounds like fun. Good luck.

[Mathiacus]

I was in luck! I found a wild nest and managed to gather many workers, eggs, pupae and maybe some larvae. Soft description tells me they are pheidole megacephala. I also lucked out to find a queen, workers and brood of another species that I have not had a good look at yet. We left the termites behind but at least I know where to go to get munchy treats for my pretties. No whales sadly :'(
I have constructed my moated outworld and am waiting for the silicone to set before I begin to transfer the larger p.mega (big headed or coastal brown ants) into the upright formicarium. There is no queen so these are more of a play around and learn more bunch.
The smaller, mostly intact colony will move into one of my hebel blocks once it is ready. Pics to follow later.

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[Mathiacus]

I moved the colony into the hebel brick setup as they seemed to have no interest in digging for my entertainment. They have so much brood that I am thinking they will last a good long while.

I made some setups similar to the test tube by heat crimping some vinyl tubing then doing the water/cotton ball thing. A quick dig in the garden found a newly mated queen who had just finished her claustral chamber. Further pulling up of debris around the house revealed a further 7. So I now have 8 queens in test tubes in a drawer in my garage. Fingers crossed! I am terrible at identifying ants they are all a reddish brown and around 8mm long. I will upload a pic when I am able to take a good one. After they settle in, I think.

I discovered a nest of green-head ants (rhytidoponera metallica) that the exterminator missed. While visually stunning they are to be destroyed as they deliver a sting that is horrendously painful and they infest the grass where my kids play. I may think about attempting to capture the queen and some of her workers, until I get stung then its curtains for the lot of them. If you have not seen this species I recommend looking them up.

Tomorrow will be another day flipping rocks looking for a larger species of queen. Maybe even a day for uploading photos and getting some id's.

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[Mathiacus]

sorry for the picture quality. Rushing out the door to work.

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[dspdrew]

Where do you live?

[Mathiacus]

New south wales, Australia. When I get better photos ill post in the id section with that helpful template that you wrote up.

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[Mathiacus]

I have decided that both of my hebel block setups are too big for new colonies. we are off to Bunnings to grab another block which I will divide into 4 smaller blocks. apparently bigger is not always better.

[Mathiacus]

cutting glass is harder than I thought it would be! but I have managed to get all the component parts of my flat/upright hybrid hebel formicarium with attached outworld ready in one afternoon. sadly I am writing this on the computer and I can not figure out how to upload an image. see below for images from my phone.

[Mathiacus]

The "bits"

How I plan to assemble it.

Lucky ants get a ramp. The wife said I didn't need it but I really wanted it

Small outworld with glued down food and water bowls. Sand is glued too. Vegetable oil will be the barrier and it also has a clip on roof.

The whole thing will be painted (areas the ants can't touch) to make it pretty. My lovely wife agreed to let me have a small one in the house as long as it didn't take up too much space. This is my solution.

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[dspdrew]

Nice. How come you didn't use a transparent container for the out world?

[Mathiacus]

The container is transparent. It is not crystal clear but I have no difficulty seeing through both sides and the lid behind also. The large blue bits are the clips that hold the lid on. It needs to be secure if it is to live inside, wife hates ants. Edit*** I just had another look at the photos to see what you meant. The angle was bad, it looks a bit opaque because of the super bright light that is shining on it from above and to the right. Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

Edited by Mathiacus, June 25 2014 - 2:29 PM.

[Mathiacus]

minus the light.

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[dspdrew]

It just looked like the typical soft plastic Sterlite-type containers that usually are not completely transparent. I can see that one looks a little more transparent than most.

[Mathiacus]

One of my heat sealed tubes busted open and flooded, killing the queen. :-( 7 left.

[dspdrew]

That sucks. I've had a few similar ant disasters happen this week.

[Mathiacus]

wild caught nest in a stone block bit of brood in that hole they are killing my old screwdriver that has been repurposed. I found this colony intact among the rubbish from some illegal dumping. I have located the queen, eggs and larvae but there seems to be no pupae at all. Not even one yet. I have only reduced about 2 thirds of it to rubble so far but I find this strange. Maybe they were stored someplace else? No id yet but they are the same species as my tube queens. Now that I can zoom properly I will try snap a pic of the queen tonight.

Edited by Mathiacus, June 29 2014 - 12:39 AM.

[Mathiacus]

Positive id on these new ones. They are more of the Ochetellus glaber.

[dspdrew]

The queen probably just didn't lay any eggs for a little while, and all the pupae that were there probably eclosed. I know queens don't always continuously lay eggs, sometimes they do it in spurts.

[Mathiacus]

I have completed the extraction. 5 queens! All living together in harmony.