42 replies to this topic

[Mettcollsuss]

     I caught this queen on June 17, 2017. It was Father's Day, and my dad decided to take us hiking. Once we parked, I immediately ran over to the open grassy area behind the parking lot. I found this queen walking up a tree after about 30 seconds of searching. I carried her in her tube for the rest of the hike. As soon as I saw her, I knew she was Camponotus sp., but it took me about a month to ID her down to the species. The raeson for this is that Camponotus nearcticus comes in two color variations: solid black, or a black head & gaster an orange thorax and legs. Most of the photos I saw were of the solid black variation, so I had crossed that species off the list for a while.

 

      This has always sort of been my problem colony. When I caught her, I noticed one of her front legs was missing everything below the tibial spur. The queen didn't lay any eggs for a little under a month. After that, she kept eating her brood. Then, in early July, I left for summer camp for 5 weeks. When I got back, She had 1 large larvae and 2-3 small larvae. She ended up eating the smaller larvae, but the big one eventually pupated. Unlike most Formicine ants, the pupae was naked. After another month, the worker FINALLY eclosed. By this point, the queens gaster was barely larger than her head. I immediately fed them a drop of honey, which she drank immediately. A week later, they had a small brood pile of ~6 small larvae. Then, everything just stopped. They stopped accepting any sort of food. The brood stopped developing. They barely moved. It stayed like this for 3-4 months. Then, on Christmas, I got a heating cable. Once they started receiving heat, all the problems disappeared. The worker started foraging up and down the tube. I immediately fed them a drop of honey and part of a pre-killed mealworm, which they accepted for the first time in months. No more than a day later, the brood started to develop. Still pretty slowly, but surely. Moral of the story: heating your ants is REALLY important.

 

      By this Point, their test tube had gotten quite moldy, but I hadn't been able to move them due to their lethargy. I taped a new, clean tube to their old one, and placed the new on by the heating cable, and they moved within half an hour. That was a few days ago. That brings us to today. 

 

Here are some photos I took of them in their new test tube:

 

Edited by Mettcollsuss, February 9 2018 - 8:03 AM.

[Connectimyrmex]

Beautiful queen & colony! I have a C. nearcticus colony that's not doing too well. My colony is a black color morph, and only has three larvae and one worker (used to have thirteen).

 

I probably should heat my ants.

Edited by Connectimyrmex, January 2 2018 - 9:33 AM.

[Mettcollsuss]

Beautiful queen & colony! I have a C. nearcticus colony that's not doing too well. My colony is a black color morph, and only has three larvae and one worker (used to have thirteen).

 

I probably should heat my ants.

Yup. All my colonies like heat, but I find that for Camponotus, it's more of a requirement. Like this journal shows, lack of heat seemed to be the source of all this colony's problems.

Edited by Mettcollsuss, January 2 2018 - 12:08 PM.

[Mettcollsuss]

 I have a C. nearcticus colony

   As a fellow keeper of this species, I have a question for you. I mentioned earlier that the pupae was naked. As I'm sure you're aware, most Formicine ants spin cocoons, although there are a few exeptions (Prenolepis imparis and Colobopsis, to name two). Is C. nearcticus one of those species? I've only gotten one pupae, so I'm not sure. This might have been a one-time thing. My reasoning for this is:

 

   I mentioned that the queen was missing one of her front legs. This would make it harder for her to unwrap cocoons. Maybe she deliberately made it a naked pupae, so that she wouldn't have to unwrap it. Now that the worker's here, she can unwrap cocoons in the future.

 

  Or my reasoning could be completely off, and this species just makes naked pupae.

Edited by Mettcollsuss, January 3 2018 - 5:26 AM.

[Hunter]

the pupae might just have died or is not ready for a cocoon, it could still need to grow to.

Edited by Hunter, January 3 2018 - 5:44 AM.

[Connectimyrmex]

 

 I have a C. nearcticus colony

   As a fellow keeper of this species, I have a question for you. I mentioned earlier that the pupae was naked. As I'm sure you're aware, most Formicine ants spin cocoons, although there are a few exeptions (Prenolepis imparis and Colobopsis, to name two). Is C. nearcticus one of those species? I've only gotten one pupae, so I'm not sure. This might have been a one-time thing. My reasoning for this is:

 

   I mentioned that the queen was missing one of her front legs. This would make it harder for her to unwrap cocoons. Maybe she deliberately made it a naked pupae, so that she wouldn't have to unwrap it. Now that the worker's here, she can unwrap cocoons in the future.

 

  Or my reasoning could be completely off, and this species just makes naked pupae.

 

C. nearcticus does not normally have naked pupae, but I've had them before. It happens when not enough substrate is present to help a larva build a cocoon (substrate sticks to the silk and strengthens it). In a way, cocoonless pupae have a better chance of eclosing, plus a queen that has naked pupae is less likely to pull cotton.

@hunter, where did you get that information? (that fact is really wrong)

Pupae can not be "not ready for a cocoon". It's a stage past their larval stage, and making a cocoon is something built into their instincts if there are proper materials present. Also, why would a dead larva molt into a pupa?
(the pupa does not spin the cocoon, the larva does)

Edited by Connectimyrmex, January 3 2018 - 5:55 AM.

[Connectimyrmex]

Have to say though, your queen's coloration really reminds me of C. noveboracensis, which is why I love the C. nearcticus red morph

[Mettcollsuss]

Yeah, they're very beautiful. But also very timid.

[Connectimyrmex]

Sounds a bit different from my colony. For some reason, when I open my colony's tube, the last remaining worker hides under the brood, but the queen rushes out and starts biting my fingernails.

[Hunter]

 

 

 I have a C. nearcticus colony

   As a fellow keeper of this species, I have a question for you. I mentioned earlier that the pupae was naked. As I'm sure you're aware, most Formicine ants spin cocoons, although there are a few exeptions (Prenolepis imparis and Colobopsis, to name two). Is C. nearcticus one of those species? I've only gotten one pupae, so I'm not sure. This might have been a one-time thing. My reasoning for this is:

 

   I mentioned that the queen was missing one of her front legs. This would make it harder for her to unwrap cocoons. Maybe she deliberately made it a naked pupae, so that she wouldn't have to unwrap it. Now that the worker's here, she can unwrap cocoons in the future.

 

  Or my reasoning could be completely off, and this species just makes naked pupae.

 

C. nearcticus does not normally have naked pupae, but I've had them before. It happens when not enough substrate is present to help a larva build a cocoon (substrate sticks to the silk and strengthens it). In a way, cocoonless pupae have a better chance of eclosing, plus a queen that has naked pupae is less likely to pull cotton.

@hunter, where did you get that information? (that fact is really wrong)

Pupae can not be "not ready for a cocoon". It's a stage past their larval stage, and making a cocoon is something built into their instincts if there are proper materials present. Also, why would a dead larva molt into a pupa?
(the pupa does not spin the cocoon, the larva does)

 

it was not a fact it was a general possibility

[noebl1]

I'm betting that's the reason for my Camponotus nearcticus failures; not heating them.  I'll try that this year and see how it goes.  

[Connectimyrmex]

 

 

 

 I have a C. nearcticus colony

   As a fellow keeper of this species, I have a question for you. I mentioned earlier that the pupae was naked. As I'm sure you're aware, most Formicine ants spin cocoons, although there are a few exeptions (Prenolepis imparis and Colobopsis, to name two). Is C. nearcticus one of those species? I've only gotten one pupae, so I'm not sure. This might have been a one-time thing. My reasoning for this is:

 

   I mentioned that the queen was missing one of her front legs. This would make it harder for her to unwrap cocoons. Maybe she deliberately made it a naked pupae, so that she wouldn't have to unwrap it. Now that the worker's here, she can unwrap cocoons in the future.

 

  Or my reasoning could be completely off, and this species just makes naked pupae.

 

C. nearcticus does not normally have naked pupae, but I've had them before. It happens when not enough substrate is present to help a larva build a cocoon (substrate sticks to the silk and strengthens it). In a way, cocoonless pupae have a better chance of eclosing, plus a queen that has naked pupae is less likely to pull cotton.

@hunter, where did you get that information? (that fact is really wrong)

Pupae can not be "not ready for a cocoon". It's a stage past their larval stage, and making a cocoon is something built into their instincts if there are proper materials present. Also, why would a dead larva molt into a pupa?
(the pupa does not spin the cocoon, the larva does)

 

it was not a fact it was a general possibility

 

Okay, just remember that the larva makes the cocoon, not the pupa or the queen. If the pupa dies in its cocoon, the queen will eat it, not just remove the silk.

[Mettcollsuss]

1-14-18

   The colony's brood has stopped its development again. I'm still feeding them a lot of both protein and sugar. I'm afraid the worker's going to die before she can raise the next generation.

[MegaMyrmex]

Wow beautiful colors!

[Mettcollsuss]

Wow beautiful colors!

Thanks!

 

Yeah, the black and orange variant is my favorite of the two.

[MegaMyrmex]

It looks like a small camponotus novaboracensis!

[Karma]

I’m hoping you’re hibernating them. As far as I believe almost all camponotus ants require hibernation, as most ants not found in tropical places do, and I know for sure that this species does. Also heating your ants is not required for most species but is good for them and will definitely speed up their growth rate. With that in mind, I believe your ant troubles stem from one of three things, either your ants not being able to hibernate (this is encouraged by placing them in cold temperatures during the winter), the possibility of your queen being too injured to properly produce good eggs/Queen is just in bad condition (due to the large amount of queens produced for a nuptial flight this can sometimes happen and it is just bad luck), or (this combined with lack of hibernation is probably the case) you may be disturbing the colony too frequently causing a lot of stress to the queen, which normally results in her not producing/eating eggs. If you have not hibernated them yet, I would recommend doing that, placing them in an area or container that’s anywhere from 5 to -5 degrees C until about March should be enough. Besides that just leaving them undisturbed for a couple months besides feeding and maintenance should help.

Hope this helped and I hope your colony gets better.

 

Edit: Just realized the issue you were talking about has been persisting far before the winter. In which case I'm sure the issue was just disturbing the colony too much, however I still encourage hibernating them and leaving them alone for awhile and see if that helps.

Edited by Karma, January 14 2018 - 7:28 PM.

[Mettcollsuss]

1-22-18

Still can't get them to eat. I know this is a very skittish species, so I thought maybe it was the presence of the whole insect that was freaking them out. But when I gave them mealworm innards mixed with honey, they still wouldn't eat.

[LC3]

Have you tried giving them other food? Honey is mostly glucose and fructose not to mention very dry and acidic, it seems most ants prefer sucrose to the other two. Maybe try leaving them with a feeder filled with sugar water out. Especially Camponotus which seems to benefit from a constant sugar source and according to MILTA could also benefit from nectar/plant secretions.  Mixing honey and mealworms doesn't sound like a great idea either.

[Mettcollsuss]

Have you tried giving them other food? Honey is mostly glucose and fructose not to mention very dry and acidic, it seems most ants prefer sucrose to the other two. Maybe try leaving them with a feeder filled with sugar water out. Especially Camponotus which seems to benefit from a constant sugar source and according to MILTA could also benefit from nectar/plant secretions.  Mixing honey and mealworms doesn't sound like a great idea either.

I didn't realize that ants preferred different kinds of sugar. I'll try feeding them some sugar water later.

 

Thanks!