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Post by TenebrousNova on May 1, 2018 11:54:26 GMT
Most of the pupae have now eclosed! The new workers are distinctively smaller than the ones that came from the pupae of wild nests, but no less active. I believe there's now at least one hundred workers. No sign of new eggs however.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 16, 2018 23:37:47 GMT
At the moment there's about three pupae left in the nest which are all close to becoming adult workers by the looks of it. I can't see any evidence of more eggs...do Formica queens only lay eggs a few times a year or something?
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Post by Wood~Ant on May 17, 2018 7:35:49 GMT
At the moment there's about three pupae left in the nest which are all close to becoming adult workers by the looks of it. I can't see any evidence of more eggs...do Formica queens only lay eggs a few times a year or something? Formica species native to the UK lay eggs from March until the end of May. If June is cool then egg laying may still continue, but tends to fizzle out at temperatures above 21 Celsius, stopping completely after the middle of that month. By summer solstice most brood is larvae and pupae, and eggs have hatched.
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Post by jeoff82 on May 17, 2018 10:28:37 GMT
I would agree with Wood. It also seems that this colony started egg laying maybe slightly early. Did you hibernate them at a cold temperature?
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 17, 2018 12:25:58 GMT
Thanks for the information! I didn't actually hibernate them, I kept them at room temperature thinking they'd be okay with it...I'll have to remember to put them somewhere cooler next time.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 30, 2018 19:23:42 GMT
The queens have started to lay a new clutch of eggs!
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 4, 2018 0:23:56 GMT
This colony is still doing great and the egg pile has gotten very big now, there's definitely at least fifty there. I've just spent half an hour watching them and a few odd things happened. Firstly, I saw the larger queen suddenly excrete a droplet of clear fluid (Urine?) , something I've only seen my ants do a few times. Secondly, after a while that same queen tucked her gaster underneath herself and bought the end near her head as though either getting ready to clean it or to lay an egg as I've seen queens do before. Neither happened, but in an instant all the workers in that chamber suddenly jolted as though struck by lightning and ran at that queen, practically dogpiling her so I could barely see her. She wasn't being savaged as I thought, but being vigorously cleaned and fussed over. About five minutes later, the queen did the same thing and got the same frenzied reaction from the workers. I've never seen anything like that. Was she producing a pheromone signalling something like "Hygiene emergency, clean me now!" or something? A while later she walked into the chamber with the eggs and the other queen and nothing like it happened afterwards before I stopped watching.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 21, 2018 17:54:56 GMT
The first of the new larvae has already spun a cocoon and the egg pile seems to be getting bigger in spite of how many have hatched.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 28, 2018 18:27:37 GMT
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 2, 2018 22:36:10 GMT
This evening, they've placed a pile of pupae and larvae close to pupating in the foraging box like they did with their first generation of brood this year. I guess it's because it's drier there than in the nest? There's a number of bare pupae as well. One of the queens was also there but she went back into the nest by the time I got the camera out. On another note, they seem to enjoy waxworm pupae. They bring them into the nest and then hollow them out.
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