29 replies to this topic

[Michaelofvancouver]

Nice! Do you know how long it typically takes for this species to go from egg to worker?

[Vendayn]

Nice! Do you know how long it typically takes for this species to go from egg to worker?

No, not with this species. Maybe Dspdrew does or someone else that has Acromyrmex knows who has experience with them. Usually it takes about a month for most species I've had. It partly depends on the temperature, and that is always in the 70s in her ant formicarium.

 

I gave her some pieces of a rose petals as well. Which she is busy cutting up, which is actually pretty cool to see.

Edited by Vendayn, February 13 2015 - 10:38 PM.

[dspdrew]

Wow man that's pretty cool. I can't remember if I ever saw her lay an egg of her own or not before, but I'm thinking she never did. The only workers she ever had were the two I boosted her with. It takes about the same time for their brood to develop as any typical ants.

[Vendayn]

And, just like that, almost all the fungus is dead. No sign of the egg. It got really hot in the garage, and the temperature inside the ant farm went to 82 (the light is supposed to automatically switch off). The humidity was good though. 82 doesn't seem too excessive, but maybe it was enough to kill the fungus.

 

I'll see if the fungus comes back, there is still a little bit left. But looks like a failed queen, like what Drew's experience was. Maybe in August I'll go find more queens at Joshua National Park or buy a colony from Drew if he ever wants to sale any.

[Vendayn]

I don't know what else could have happened. Yesterday it was doing great, I look in an hour ago...and it was way smaller than it used to be. It did look all dried up on top, but humidity is definitely good. Maybe the queen went in and ate it all or tore it up or something. But, she even had an egg yesterday. Kind of disappointed, but maybe by luck the fungus can make some kind of incredible recovery. What is still in there does look healthy on the bottom...so maybe the queen wasn't fertilizing properly or something. Drew said this particular queen never fertilized the fungus for him.

[dspdrew]

That sucks. The fungus will last for a while without any ants even taking care of it at all, so it probably reached that limit. As for the humidity, high humidity is not going to hurt the fungus, it needs high humidity. I actually have mine practically laying in water. Hopefully it was just the temporary conditions that did this to the fungus, but I doubt it. If you look through my journal, you can find the experiment I did where I left some of the fungus alone without any workers to see exactly how long it would last. My guess is it was probably right around the amount of time you had yours for. I'm sure I will have a colony I will be willing to sell in the near future, and if I still have at least one fungus garden left by August, I should have plenty more new colonies.

[Vendayn]

Well, that be great. Whenever you are willing to sell one, just let me know.

 

As for this journal, just assume its ended. Unless a miracle happens (highly doubt it), dad agrees that she was not a viable queen (like Drew told me pretty much).

 

Maybe some queens have bad genetics and so would never be viable even in the wild. Colonies do send out thousands of queens, and not very many make it out of all of them. Some queens might just not have been born entirely correctly or who knows what, so were always destined to fail.

[Gregory2455]

Wait- what happened to the queen?

[LAnt]

She's just chilling, in a sad way

[Vendayn]

A bit late to reply. But, the queen died a few days after the fungus died. I did see mites on her when she died, but looking back on it...I don't think it was the mites that killed her as there was barely any. She probably gave up or something when the fungus died.