23 replies to this topic

[Dreamer]

Note: please click on images to see full size versions

 

I've moved my journals across here to get more exposure and to help me keep updating

 

End of August 2017
After realising that my L.Niger and L.Flavus colonies would both hibernate pretty early and potentially without any workers eclosing I thought I'd get a C.Barbaricus queen. Both Courageous and Survivor arrive early August from AntHouse in Spain, as many people have experienced great service and extra ants! So I ordered one colony as they have significant polymorphism (for a European species) and people's experience is that they don't need to hibernate as long.

I have to say I was amazed at the size of both queens in comparison to Niger and Flavus, they are just huge. They are both about an inch long and very bulky. When they arrived I attached them both to new larger, pink test tubes. Both attacked the plastic tubing connecting the 2 test tubes with vigour, which was a suprise, but they are supposed to be an aggressive species

Courageous earned her name by exploring the connected test tube, before returning back to her small pile of brood that she's never left since, one particularly large.

Here she is and you can see that she has one large pupae:



Survivor has half of one leg missing, here she is standing over her brood with 2 large pupae:



I gave up on trying to transfer both queens, gave them a small amount of protein jelly and put them on a heat mat.

September 12th
I'm keeping them at about 25*C. My weekly check reveals Courageous has her first worker:



And Survivor has too:



September 26th
More workers! Courageous now has 2 workers and still some brood. I've just transferred her across to the new formicarium+outworld that I made from acrylic.



Survivor has 3! She's also been put inside the AntHouse large starter formicarium (or whatever it's called). I'll post a picture of the set up later.



I've put a small dish out for both colonies with honey, sugar, marmite and protein jelly. I'm not sure if the sugar was eaten, but the rest definitely were. Here is one of Survivor's workers going foraging:




October 10th
Both colonies currently have very different personalities. Courageous is only 2 workers and I'm not sure they leave the test tube, I did coax one worker to get some marmite by putting it right on the end of the tube, then it ran back in and shared it around. Survivor on the other hand has one worker who constantly stands in the tube on guard at night time and goes out foraging all over the outworld. The species is definitely mainly nocturnal at the moment.

I also decided to put some sand in the outworld I'd made for Courageous as it didn't seem fair that Survivor had a natural environment and she didn't.

Here is Courageous with a large lavae below her gaster:


Here is Survivor with a slightly out of focus pile of brood:


On a side note I find it quite hard to get good shots, even with the DSLR. I guess that's okay as I'm shooting in the dark with only red lighting, through a glass tank, an acrylic outwork and a test tube...

Here is a shot of my set up. Pretty pleased with this. I built it from MDF and had some glass cut. It cost about £30. I also put in some polystyrene to keep the heat in. This way they can stay warm and the two heat mats are only on about 20-30% of the time.



October 26th
Not much change. I've dropped the temperature slighlt to about 24*C. Courageous's 2 workers still don't really explore. I left a fruit fly at the entrance to the tube, but they didn't take it for 2 days, so I pushed it half way down and then they did take it. I think the two workers are quite scared of going out, not sure why. They do react to me moving the test tube though. They have since taken a second fruit fly from the end of the tube.

Both Courageous and Survivor's workers are pretty slow moving in comparison to the Niger workers that shoot around like little bullets. Here is a good shot of Courageous's brood:



Two days ago Survivor's workers started to do something new and unusual, they started collecting sand particles:



And then two of them working together, one after the other, carrying them into the nest...



They were still doing it in the morning. Here is a shot showing some of the brood, but if you look under the queen you can also see there is a pile of sand. So although they've chosen to stay in the test tube, they wanted it to be a bit more sandy...



I'm hoping for some more of the lavae that are now pupae to eclose before I put the colonies into hibernation in mid-November. Courageous still only has 2 workers and Survivor 3, but hopefully the fruit flies are helping with protein (Survivor has taken 4 so far and the queen tore into the first one as soon as it was brought into the nest).

5th November
As you can see Courageous Colony have removed all their fruitflies and put them some distance from the colony. I'm taking this as a good sign that although I've never seen either of the workers venture out, they must have done in the night.



Survivor Colony showing more odd behaviour. This time one of the workers has dug a small hole in the sand and placed the largest pupae in there. That's more in the centre of the heat mat and lower down - closer to the heat mat. Maybe I need to increase the temperature again to 25*C.



6th November
A very short update. I've increased the temperature again to 26*C and the worker has taken the largest pupae back into the test tube. This worker definitely seems to be the boldest of all my colonies, always guarding the tube and then out into the outworld whenever it gets dark.

12th November
In Survivor colony the large pupae has stayed in the test tube all week as far as I know, so it must have been a temperature thing. There seems to be a second large pupae as well that you can see behind the queen in the photo below. Not sure if either will eclose before hibernation, but hopefully. They seem to be happy and not hungry. They have ignored the two fruit flies I've put out, but the lone ranger still likes to explore the outworld.



Courageous is much more docile. They don't seem to be doing much and the lavae don't seem to be developing. They did take a fruit fly from the outworld this week though, so there must still be some exploring going on.

Edited by Dreamer, December 31 2017 - 3:34 PM.

[Serafine]

What worked well for me when trying to relocate the colony was sticking the smaller anthouse test tube into a larger prepared test tube (30x200mm) covered with some paper wrapped around it (do this over the outworld in case some ant decides to rush out!). The queen immediately moved from the exposed test tube into the dark one and the workers followed (took about 3 minutes because one worker walked back to check out the old tube).

I'd also recommend to put a piece of folded paper over the tubes - those ants can clearly see through the pink sheets and they are a highly nocturnal species from what I can say.

 

Mine also carried sand into their tube but only to a very small extend. They really loved building a ramp at the entrance though.

I find it quite interesting that your nanitics also are almost black - let's see if you get fiery orange minors and medias as well

 

I really love how clean these ants are - they lived in a large tube for over 8 months and had zero mold. They're really easy to care for.

Their only drawback is that they kinda are night owls (or as the cooler kids would say they're bat ants).

Edited by Serafine, November 18 2017 - 6:45 AM.

[Serafine]

Oh btw this species MASSIVELY benefits from heating. Brood development time is cut by half when heating them up to around 30°C compared to 24°C.
I wouldn't heat them while they're in a test tube though, the risk of overheating, condensation and flooding through condensation by far outweights the gain in development speed, but once they are ready to move into a nest it is really recommended to give them a heat mat or heating cable. Also bear in mind that when they move into a new nest they usually do it when their old nest is about to get too small (= they plan ahead) which means they can really explode shortly after a move.

 

Also these ants have a tendency to develop in boost sprints rather than in a constant numbers increase - this means your colony might not develop much for about a month (or even two) but then suddenly increases it's size by 20-30%. Their food intake varies with their growth - sometimes they don't eat much but then when a lot of new ants just hatched they suddenly eat like crazy for a few days.

This makes feeding them a bit tricky and has lead to me sometimes underfeeding them a bit (but they grow pretty fast anyways).

Edited by Serafine, November 18 2017 - 2:37 PM.

[Dreamer]

Thanks very much for all those tips.

I was trying to be sensitive to their needs by using the red, but it's SO much harder to get his photos through it in the dark.I'm going to feed them all tonight I'll try swapping them all to no red, but covered up - sounds like it will be better for them and me.

I'll also try increasing the heat next year, it maybe hard to keep my other colonies at a lower temperature along side them - we'll see!

[Serafine]

You can remove the pink foil (it's basically useless).

Just buy a flashlight and some dark red foil and mount the foil on the flashlight, as long as you don't really shine directly on the nest they don't bother that much. They also don't really react to camera flashlight (but to the red cam searchlight).

Edited by Serafine, November 18 2017 - 3:35 PM.

[Dreamer]

Thanks. I already have a red light, so I'll try removing the red foil and just covering them

18th November
Not much change for Courageous, again little obvious movement out of the nest/tube, so I've put some honey water at the end of the tubing leading out of the testtube. Below you can see some of the larger lavae:



Survivor has her 4th worker! I'm not sure, which it is but one of them seems a little bigger than the others, so I'm assuming that's it. It's the one on the bottom left in this picture:



The central one in this shot:



Finally a shot of the large pupae:


 

[Dreamer]

25th November

For Courageous, I started to prepare them for winter, I'd just got a syringe and needles to fill up the empty section of the tube with water to last them 2-3 months of hibernation. I filled up behind the cotton wool in quite an invasive procedure where the ants attacked the needle. It all went well and there is enough water to carry them through.

Here is a shot just before.



For Survivor I did similar in preparation for hibernation, but immediately after the testtube flooded just under a quarter of the floor area :-[ The colony hated the procedure and attacked the needle. It all felt very invasive. I can see why people try and avoid disturbing their colonies.

Here is a picture showing the two large pupae.

[Dreamer]

3rd December
This week one of the two workers from Courageous has started to seal up the entrance, which I am taking to mean it's hibernation time! There's definitely been a slow down in development of any lava over the last month. I've started to lower the temperature by 1 degree per day today and I've also added a fruit fly for a last pre-hibernation meal. Here is the entrance:



I thought I'd also include a wider shot of the current layout. I've ordered a small water feeder thing which will hopefully arrive this week to provide extra water through the winter. I've taken Serafine's advice and covered the test tube from the light:



For Survivor, despite the disaster last week with the flooding they seem okay, there is still one huge pupae, but I can't see the second one . Either way they've been around for weeks, so I'm not sure when they will eclose, if there are still two left.





They now have two of the four in the entrance some times and seem to have built a ramp up to the front door...



Here is a view of the set up from further back:

[Dreamer]

December 30th
Both colonies have been in hibernation for the last 3 weeks, although both have had a single worker in the tube at night until the last few days. Courageous has still walled off the entrance, but Survivor just has the ramp and one of the workers was out eating grains of sugar a few nights ago.

They are currently at about 10-12*C. I'll probably bring them out of hibernation toward the end of February. Expect an update then )

[Dreamer]

4th March

Despite the snow this week I am starting to bring my colonies out of hibernation by slowly increasing the temperature by 0.5*C per day. It will be a couple of weeks.

[Dreamer]

14th April
Both Courageous and Survivor have made it through the winter with all nanitics intact They also both have their largest ever lavae It has taken a few weeks for these guys to come out of hibernation (0.5*C increase per day up to 26-27*C). As part of the de-hibernation process I provided a new nest for Courageous made out of a stack of 5 bead containers (the top is the outworld, then 3 nest layers with a hydration reservoir at the bottom). After a couple of weeks they just moved straight in, taking up residence in the bottom layer, where it's warmest and most humid. Survivor is in a testtube with a small plastic box outworld. I've also tried the colonies with some bean weevils, so we'll see how they go down.


28th April
Survivor's four workers seemed to have eaten the bean weevils, but Courageous's two seem to have left them. I've just fed both colonies today with: protein jelly, marmite, honey, jam and fruit flies.

This is Survivor with her 4 workers:


And in this shot you can see the largest worker (media?) carrying one of two large pupae. They are now regularly taking the pupae and lavae out into the outworld where it is warmer (I've taken the testtube off the heat mat as two of my queens died coming out of hibernation probably from overheating or dehydration).


This nanitic was one of the first two and I'm pretty sure it was the one that used to explore the very large formicarium I had them in originally every night. Very inquisitive and always out to explore first. I've just swapped outworlds for them to another small rectangular (15cm x 10cm) plastic box, which is pretty much identical and this one was pretty unhappy about the new outworld and immediately built a wall of white sand around their entrance to the nest. I've also added a hydration testtube to their set up, so the two testtubes sit next to eachother and both connect side by side into the same box. I'll try and take a photo next time.


Courageous is looking well with her 2 nanitics and 4 very large lavae , two of which you can see just below the queen in photo:


Like my Lasius Niger that are in an identical set up, these guys like to be at the bottom of the stack where it's warmest and most humid. I'm much less worried about these guys getting stuck in the condensation as they are so big.


Food and the outworld on the top level:

[YsTheAnt]

Nice colony! I would suggest warming them up more, 28-29 is best.

[Dreamer]

May 4th
Condensation strikes again sadly and one of Courageous' two workers has drowned.




This has been an issue for 4 of my colonies the last few months. It's a difficult balance between heat to speed colony growth and then that causing condensation, which kills. I've now moved all my testtube-outworld setups so that the outworld is on the heat, but the testtube is not and that's really helping, but that's not possible with these nest stacks.

Lots of big lavae for Courageous still though, so hopefully they will pupate soon and the colony will grown significantly:


I found a spider in the house and decided to give it to Courageous to help those lavae grow!



After the condensation incident I also decided to clear out all the condensation in the nest, which was pretty invasive and caused quite a lot of concern for the queen and last remaining worker, but it seemed like the safest thing to do.


May 9th
Courageous seems to be doing well, half of the spider is gone and the lavae seem to be growing. Here are some of them:



Survivor colony doesn't have as many large lavae, but it does have two large pupae Here is one of my favourite ever shots of my ants, somehow I got the manual focus just right through the tube

 

I also made the decision to swap Survivor's outworld as I'd had some little acrylic boxes arrive from China. I've modified those to turn them into outworlds, which means now Survivor can have a byformica feeder

Edited by Dreamer, May 17 2018 - 2:55 PM.

[Dreamer]

 

May 24th

Survivor now has 6 workers! It's hard to see in the shot below, there are 4 in the test tube, one partially below the queen in parallel with her and another one with just it's backside slightly sticking out below the connection to the outworld:

 

In this more zoomed out shot you can see the other two, one in the out world and the other guarding the tube entrance.

 

I'm hoping this is going to be the start of this colony taking off. Since I swapped the outworld they have not been bringing any lavae or pupae out on to the heat mat. However, it has been warmer here the last few weeks, so maybe they didn't feel the need. I'm not going to move the test tube on to the heat mat as I don't want to risk flooding again. Hopefully they will also start to get a bit more active outside soon

 

Courageous definitely has some big lavae now. I'm not sure if they are media workers, but they either way, they are a good healthy size and this colony desperately needs some more workers now they are down to one remaining. Here is a shot showing some of the lavae and maybe a pupae:

 

Part of the spider still remains, so hopefully they can use that if they need to:

 

 

June 6th

Survivor. I have a real soft spot for this worker in the shot below. It was the first nanitic to eclose and I used to just sit and watch it wandering around the big outworld the test tube was in when I set them up initially. She doesn't have as much space to wander in now, but she has found out about byformica feeders:

 

This shot isn't as clear as I'd hoped, but you can still see two pupae in the test tube, so it looks like the colony will grow again soon. I'm wondering if I need to move them to something bigger, but they do have another test tube with water in connected to this outworld, so I think I'll leave them and see how they go.

 

Courageous could be about to experience the breakthrough I've been waiting for for months. It looks like there are 5 pupae:

 

I just hope they all survive the condensation. Maybe I should have cleared it out while there was only one worker. Hmm. Or maybe I should change them to a different set up like Survivor?

 

 

June 8th

I had another look in today as I was clearing out the condenation from my Lasius Nigers in the same set up. Happily it seems that Courageous still has her worker and pupae intact and the pupae are darkening. Also you can see in the middle of this slightly blurry shot that there are some little lavae

 

Here is my favourite of Survivor's nanitics in the water tube, hopefully filling up with water to take to the others. I've never seen any of the other ants in here, not sure why, but they seem to be scared to come out since I swapped to the new outworld.

 

This is one of my favourite ant photos, two of Survivor's workers doing trophilaxis, which is cool, but look how sharp their mandibles are! You can also see two more good sized lavae and a small one in the background. Grow grow grow my little ones!

 

[Serafine]

This has been an issue for 4 of my colonies the last few months. It's a difficult balance between heat to speed colony growth and then that causing condensation, which kills. I've now moved all my testtube-outworld setups so that the outworld is on the heat, but the testtube is not and that's really helping, but that's not possible with these nest stacks.

 

Courageous could be about to experience the breakthrough I've been waiting for for months. It looks like there are 5 pupae:

I just hope they all survive the condensation. Maybe I should have cleared it out while there was only one worker. Hmm. Or maybe I should change them to a different set up like Survivor?

 

You do not need to heat them.
 
The loss of workers is far more of a detriment to their development than a lack of heat.
I didn't heat my C. barbaricus at all during their first half year and they grew from 4 to 80 ants within less than 6 months. This species is raising so much brood once it has reached an even relatively small colony size that it really doesn't matter if it takes 2 or 3 months for a worker to develop - you can still heat them when they are big enough for a nest that is large enough to not get flooded from condensation. This is not C. ligniperda that takes 5+ years to grow to an even remotely decent size, C. barbaricus can explode to 1000+ ants during their second season (my colony is around 24 months old and at 3000+ workers).

 

Just go the safe way, they will grow fast enough.

Edited by Serafine, June 8 2018 - 5:00 PM.

[drtrmiller]

I agree, condensation caused by changes in temperature over a short period of time can be extremely harmful to ants kept in non-absorbent enclosures.  Not to mention, temperature changes can cause gravity liquid feeders to leak out.

Nevertheless, glad to hear the byFormica Liquid Feeders are working well for you.  If you ever have any questions or need help, don't hesitate to contact us.

Edited by drtrmiller, June 11 2018 - 10:12 PM.

[Dreamer]

@Serafine
Thanks. Good advice. I'm learning a lot in this first year ☺ I'm going to slow them down a little and move them to a safer test tube-outworld setup. After seeing yours grow so fast I realise I don't need to be in a huge rush.

You raise an interesting point that I haven't seen many people posting about - colony growth rates. That would be a super useful reference for new ant keepers like myself, then you can know what to expect and get slow and/or fast growth colonies. I might start a post about it.

[Dreamer]

@drmiller
Thanks, they are good and make life easier ☺

[Serafine]

Nevertheless, glad to hear the byFormica Liquid Feeders are working well for you. If you ever have any questions or need help, don't hesitate to contact us.

Those feeders are amazing. The only one of my colonies they're not working for are the Solenopsis fugax because they have a habbit of throwing so much debris onto them that they leak within a few days and are almost completely burried within a week.
Also I really need the bigger ones, my C. barbaricus now empty TWO of the 4ml feeders in about 2 days (and even the third one in the far-away outworld #3 outpost doesn't hold for more than week).
 

@Serafine
Thanks. Good advice. I'm learning a lot in this first year ☺ I'm going to slow them down a little and move them to a safer test tube-outworld setup. After seeing yours grow so fast I realise I don't need to be in a huge rush.

You raise an interesting point that I haven't seen many people posting about - colony growth rates. That would be a super useful reference for new ant keepers like myself, then you can know what to expect and get slow and/or fast growth colonies. I might start a post about it.

Here's an overview on the growth of my colony (not every colony might grow that fast though).

4 months -> 4 workers (got them in November so the colony was likely around 3-5 months old)
6 months (Hibernation) -> 4 workers (first pupa in March)
10 months -> 80 workers
*this is the point where I started to heat them (they moved out of their tube into the nest, they had about 80-100 pupae at this point and a good amount of big lavae)*
12 months -> 200 workers
18 months -> 1000 workers
*they refused to go into hibernation and started to carry brood into the outworld when I plugged out the heating cable, so I put it back in and they did not hibernate during their second winter - they had a bit of a slow development phase with less activity for about 2 months during the fall (October, November) but never really slowed down breeding or foraging by a significant degree)*
24 months -> 3000-4000 workers (and an uncountable amount of brood)

Edited by Serafine, June 12 2018 - 12:53 PM.

[Dreamer]

Thanks, I've used that, but slightly reduced it for my other list.