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Post by TenebrousNova on May 4, 2018 18:54:30 GMT
I apologise for the poor angle, but this was the only good photo of the brood chamber I could get. Operating a camera whilst holding up a heavy tank isn't easy! I know for a fact that there's also brood being hidden inside the lid, as workers often transfer it to and from a crevice formed by the layers of duct tape.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 7, 2018 21:46:50 GMT
Although I can't get a photo of the main brood chamber right now, I can say with confidence that there will be ever more workers in this colony this year. There's hundreds of tiny newborn larvae clustered around the center with the older brood towards the outside. No glimpses of the Old Lady, but she's been showing no signs of stopping. I think she's nine years old now? The colony has constructed two small brood chambers against the sides of the tank which give a nice view. On the surface, workers regularly ferry brood to and from the corner of the tank, where they climb up into the lid where they apparently have a large nursery- every time I disturb the colony to feed or spray them, loads of workers come charging down from the lid to get their brood back into the nest. I'd love to take the whole lid off one day so I can remove all the dirty layers of tape and reinforce it properly (Workers are still sneaking out of the tank with impunity and piling dirt and rubbish on top of the lid), but I've no idea how large their nursery in the lid is, so I'm worried about trying anything. Here's a major carrying a pupa into the nest.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 8, 2018 16:25:15 GMT
I'm happy to say that this colony is finally using their seed pot for its intended purpose again. I filled it with a mixture of seeds and they soon started climbing inside for them. They seemed to accept most of the seeds, but especially loved the niger seed. They were rummaging through the seeds looking for them in particular and now there's none left in the pot.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 23, 2018 12:47:53 GMT
When looking at the colony's brood chamber just now, I caught a very rare glimpse of the queen before she ran out of sight. The brood pile is still very big.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Jun 23, 2018 14:28:03 GMT
Good to hear that the old lady is still going strong.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 8, 2018 19:58:56 GMT
I've spent the last few hours removing all the old layers of duct tape (That never stopped them from escaping) and properly fixing up the lid this time. As I thought, there was also a granary and nursery in there. The workers were doing their best to escape the whole while.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 15, 2018 15:07:14 GMT
Had an emergency with this colony just now and it was entirely my fault. I accidentally put too much water in and the brood chamber visibly flooded. My first instinct was to tilt the tank a bit so the water would flow out of it, but that just caused the very loose, dry soil to cave in the nest entrance. I dug about half of the soil out of the tank and when I got to the rocks they nest under, I saw they'd already dug a way out. The brood chamber is no longer flooded but I'm still worried about the queen. She's probably fine since I was greeted by tons of furious yet dry ants, but I'm still anxious.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 15, 2018 22:50:28 GMT
Things seem a lot more settled down now. Their nest entrance is just under the edge of the rock, I imagine like last time they'll completely bury it eventually. Rest assured that I've learned my lesson, I've been bitten a lot by super majors today.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 24, 2018 23:11:28 GMT
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Post by Jenny on Jul 25, 2018 9:07:27 GMT
Ha ha, I see they are still up to their old tricks after all these years, wicked! Keep it up girls
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Post by TenebrousNova on Aug 15, 2018 20:20:09 GMT
Just now I lifted the tank to get a look at the brood chamber and found that they've expanded it to twice its original size. Not only that, but I got to see the queen before she ran off! Glad to know she survived my overwatering mishap.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Sept 9, 2018 18:56:03 GMT
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 7, 2019 21:02:08 GMT
I haven't seen any brood at all this year. There's still lots of workers in the main chamber and some that come out to forage, but I'm worried the queen may have died of old age.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 9, 2020 17:51:39 GMT
Unfortunately, this colony is definitely dead. They had a very good run, but I'm still saddened to see such an old colony come to an end.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Apr 10, 2020 6:26:38 GMT
Unfortunately, this colony is definitely dead. They had a very good run, but I'm still saddened to see such an old colony come to an end. A very good run indeed, as I believe that they began as a single queen or very young first year colony about 13 or 14 years ago. Sad news, but we both had a lot of fun keeping the silver tank colony.
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