Yama
Ant Larva
Posts: 15
Country: UK
Pets: 2 Cats and 10 Ant Colonies
Favourite Ant: Lasius Niger (They are just so tiny and harmless!)
I Hate: Spiders
I Am: a content wife
Likes: 7
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Post by Yama on Apr 14, 2017 19:31:01 GMT
Sorry to hear her workers didn't make it.
Interesting to see the brood boosting. I boosted a Lasius Niger and Flavus colony last year which worked wonders!
Looking forward to seeing her thrive once again.
Keep us updated!
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 23, 2017 14:35:00 GMT
I moved the fledgling colony into a new test tube. It was quite easy, actually. I tapped out the brood and single callow worker, put them in and the queen actually walked into the new one herself. I put in a few small pieces of packaging foam to form compartments in the test tube in place of chambers. It's a system that seems to be working nicely, as it also prevents seeds from rolling into the damp cotton at the back. Once they were all settled in, I boosted them with some more pupae. They won't need any more. In fact, the queen has already laid three new eggs! I apologise for all the scratches on the test tube, it was the only one I had. And here's Worker #1, who is already losing her callow colours.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 24, 2017 21:03:57 GMT
There are now four workers. The test tube already seems a lot busier.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 8, 2017 14:49:19 GMT
There are still four workers, but there should be more. Several pupae have eclosed but the resultant workers remained curled up for a day or so with minor leg/antennae movement before dying. I'm not sure why this could be. Damage to the pupae when I introduced them to this colony?
The queen and workers are doing fine, in fact a big ball of at least ten eggs has recently been laid.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 2, 2017 18:56:17 GMT
This colony continues to grow. There are now eight workers which spend most of their time in the furthest compartment with the queen and brood. I have tried them on tiny bits of fish flake and they do seem to like it. Last night I gave them their first prey insect (A mosquito) and there is no trace of it left. I've just given them the thorax and wings of a housefly in hopes that they take to it, but as of now they haven't discovered it. The rest of the fly has gone to last year's little Lasius niger colony. The eggs are beginning to hatch out and there's definitely new ones being laid. There's about five tiny larvae that are definitely a little bigger than they were at first. The pupae and larger larvae are from the Silver Tank colony.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Aug 8, 2017 0:57:17 GMT
It's been a while since the last update, I see. This colony is doing really well and growing quite fast. There's over 20 workers of all sizes including some big majors. As the colony grew, they destroyed one of the pieces of packaging foam completely. All of the brood in the test tube biologically belongs to this queen and she's been laying a few more eggs recently. I must say that I get a warm feeling seeing how well she has recovered. She lost her first colony last year and against all odds managed to survive the winter without any workers. I'll see to it that she won't go through that again. Here's a worker making a piece of ant bread. It's something that until this colony began to grow, I'd never actually seen Messors do before. It's interesting to watch them chew on the seeds to make it. They seem to like canary seed mix the most, supplemented with a few fruit flies every few days for protein.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Oct 28, 2017 17:00:14 GMT
Unfortunately, I undertook the sad task of euthanizing the remaining Pheidole pallidula workers living in their acrylic formicarium so that this Messor colony can use it, having outgrown their test tube now which had also dried out completely. Feeding this colony isn't exactly easy when there's workers of all sizes charging at the open end of the test tube, just waiting for the opportunity to slip out. The move went well. After about five minutes the larvae were tucked away inside and the queen had indecisively entered the nest twice before quickly leaving. Eventually one of the majors lost patience with the queen and pulled her into the nest by her jaws, to my amusement. She is now making herself comfortable in the innermost chambers, attended by many workers who clean her regularly. Additionally, their seed supply is now being moved inside the nest. Queen: I'll let them settle down properly tonight. I should be able to get better quality photos tomorrow...frankly I was surprised the queen could fit inside this nest! I have no doubt that they'll start to outgrow it next year. I only watered one half of the nest, so they have a dry area for seed storage.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jan 31, 2018 18:50:11 GMT
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Post by TenebrousNova on Feb 27, 2018 13:03:39 GMT
Like my other European ants, the queen has very recently begun to lay eggs again! I saw a single egg in a worker's jaws when I took a look at them earlier. I look forward to seeing this colony grow this year.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Mar 30, 2018 19:35:15 GMT
I had a mishap earlier! I saw a minor Messor barbarus worker running around my floor and noticed the lid of this colony's formicarium was slightly open, so naturally I assumed she belonged to them. Nope, she belongs to the silver tank colony as I soon discovered when another minor went for her and started dragging her away from the nest entrance. I was able to separate the two with no visible injuries and reunite the silver tank worker with her own colony.
I'll have to be more vigilant in future, because that could've ended unfortunately. Naturally this colony went on high alert when the minor ran into the nest to tell the majors all about the intruder, but they've since calmed down.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 5, 2018 21:01:10 GMT
Here's the colony enjoying a cricket. You can see a small pile of eggs under the queen's head.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 18, 2018 12:54:23 GMT
This colony hasn't been doing as well as I'd hoped. The queen is laying plenty of eggs but the worker population has stayed fairly low and not a lot of foraging takes place. Still, maybe things will pick up.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 31, 2018 19:34:53 GMT
All of the workers I'd originally boosted this colony with have died off now, leaving eight workers left. There's still a pile of eggs, larvae and pupae though. I've decided to move them into a test tube since they've adapted poorly to the acrylic formicarium and I need it for one of my other colonies.
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