4 replies to this topic

[dermy]

August 29th/2018

Formica had a Nuptial flight in Northern Canada. I caught around 20-30 of them. I have very limited space. So I decided that I know this species can tolerate multiple queens in a colony, that I would keep a few of them together and see what happens. I know they "should" lay before winter [assuming you keep the temperature up in the 18-20c mark] as I've kept this species before. Everytime however the first workers come and one of two things happens:

 

1- Workers run out and I lose them queen then dies.

2- Workers eclose queen decides to murder them.

and sometimes:

3- My brother finds them and kills them right when they get workers.

 

 

There is no stopping #3 sometimes so just gotta hope it doesn't happen.

 

Here's a quick video on them:

 

 

 

Hopefully it goes well. I know this species benefits from a "feast" when their larvae are a bit bigger so I'll be giving them a drop of sweet stuff if and when that happens, as well as maybe a tiny piece of insect.

[FeedTheAnts]

Good luck, they certainly don't look very calm.

[dermy]

Good luck, they certainly don't look very calm.

No they aren't haha. That is why I need to keep them in the dark and only check on them every now and again.

Edited by dermy, August 30 2018 - 2:16 PM.

[dermy]

is time they didn't even get to lay eggs before being killed off. I was also told that because my Myrmica colony [that had over 700+ workers and 26 queens] got out because my barrier failed [I was "bed ridden" for almost a week so of course they wore it down and escaped] that I am no long allowed to keep any ants at all. So no more ant Journals for me sadly.

 

 

I was really hoping that I'd get a nice multi-queened Formica colony going but sadly that doesn't look like it will be happening anytime soon.

 

 

[Karma]

That all really sucks I'm sorry to hear that. I rarely succeed with Formica as is, I couldn't even imagine having a multi-queen colony.